Study On Traditional Medicinal Healing Practices Among Selected Scheduled Tribe Communities In Odisha

Abstract

The tribal communities living close to the nature have, over years, acquired unique traditional knowledge about use of living biological resources. The tribal people are the real custodian of medicinal plants. Out of 45000 species of wild plants, 75 species are used for medicinal purpose. A cursory look in to the genesis of indigenous medicine indicates that the interest in ethno medicine goes back to early 18th century and late 19th century. It was a period of an impressive development of social medicine. Further, interest on social and cultural dimension of illness reached a peak in the west stimulated by the public health problems associated with industrial revolution. In a nut shell the study of ethno medicine ranges from paleoanthropology to recent studies within the sub-field of medical anthropology. The broad objectives of this research study are to assess the extent of traditional healing practices among the tribal in Odisha, to preparer an inventory of tribal traditional healers, and their expertise and influence, their indigenous medicines and healing practices, and to suggest for preservation and promotion of best traditional tribal medicines and healing practices of Odisha with special reference to its value addition and commercialization for improvement of tribal livelihood. Keeping the requirement of the study respondents were selected randomly in the villages, where the tribals are numerically preponderant. In each tribe two to three villages were selected looking at the availability of the population. In total the study covers 527 respondents including 72 traditional healers and 320 dependent patients of 16 tribal communities from 13 tribal districts in 3 different geographical zones. The number of respondents selected in each segment of the population was proportionate to the population size.