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's experience was relayed in an entry on the Kurtzen in The Essential Guide to Alien Species, a book published during the regime of the New Republic.