Unidentified Kurtzen shaman

"Suddenly, the shaman took one of the boy's totems, which he had been wearing around his neck, and held it up. The boy stood up and, throwing his head back, swallowed the small, beaded object, string and all. I was certain something so large would cause him to choke, or would get stuck in his digestive tract. But according to the shaman, they do this all the time, and with the passing of the totem, so, too, passes the disease."

- Senior Anthropologist Mammon Hoole, on a Kurtzen healing ceremony

The Shi'ido Senior Anthropologist Mammon Hoole witnessed a Kurtzen shaman performing a healing ceremony on the planet Bakura during the Shi'do's fieldwork learning about the Kurtzen species. The shaman used a totem for this task, passing it through the patient, a sick Kurtzen boy. Although Hoole feared the object would cause the boy to choke, he was surprised to see it go down his throat without harm. The shaman said that when the totem passed, the ailment would go with it. Hoole later wrote about the experience in his entry on the Kurtzen in The Essential Guide to Alien Species, published during the regime of the New Republic.