Manuel Lincovil is one of the most sought-after doctors in La Pintana, an area of Chile's capital Santiago known for its poverty, alcoholism and gang violence.

But you won't find this soft-spoken elder in any health clinic and his remedies are not found in any ordinary drugstore.

Lincovil is a "machi" or shaman from Chile's Mapuche indigenous culture and has a month-long waiting list of patients wanting his cures for everything from high blood pressure to cancer.

"Our way is to not just to look at the body but the whole person and that's called spirituality. It's not something you study. A person is born a machi and acquires knowledge through the spirit," said Lincovil, who is also a trained accountant who says he resisted his calling for many years.

The machi is a central figure in a spiritual revival in the making among Chile's urban Mapuche Indians, who represent over half of the country's 600,000 Mapuches.

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