Following WHO recommandations and in order to improve medical coverage, Madagascar officially recognized in 2007 its traditional medicine as a legitimate practice.

UNESCO, to sustain traditional healers in the Indian Ocean, wanted to use anthropological tools to explore the current situation in Madagascar.

Despit a plurality of practices, data collected for three months in the Southeast of the Island, allowed us to identify some fundamental aspects of Malagasy traditional medicine, such as the omnipresence of symbolism or the complexity of healers’ roles at the crossroads of social, sacred and therapeutic registries.

The study shows that the national policy on traditional medicine improves gradually the promotion of these practices too often undervalued. Nevertheless, the institutional context exposes weaknesses which might explain the difficulty encountered by some tradipractitioners to find their place in this new regulation. Indeed, regarding the current context, a reducing process of the healers' practices is likely to emerge.