Zimbabwe is experiencing one of the most severe AIDS epidemics in the world. For both palliative care and pragmatic treatment, many rely on the traditional system of health and healing, not as a substitute for western therapeutics, but as an alternative explanatory model for diagnosis and management of illness through which individuals understand and give meaning to the experience of HIV. My proposed dissertation study examines the use of traditional healing in the care and treatment of people living with HIV /AIDS, and its management of the emotional, psychological and spiritual effects of HIV. In particular, this research endeavors to understand how the purposeful enhancement of the therapeutic process with highly charged symbols and ritualized communication transforms the embodied experience of HIV and the cultural performance of dying.