Traditional Medicine And Health Care in North East India - Practices And Beliefs Among The Tangkhul Nagas

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The present book interrogates the belief- systems of illness aetiology and its medical practices thereby providing baseline data on knowledge to allopathic doctors and medicines for the evaluation of health programme. Allopathic practitioners are always laced with problems while providing health services to the poor in rural areas. The problems ranged from distrust among allopathic doctors because of their way of approach lacking social references, cultural component such as language barrier and also the belief in supernatural entities. While supernatural entities has been playing significant role especially in illness and fortune among the Tangkhuls, they are fiercely opposed by scientific communities considering as superstitious, irrational and obscured. This book focused on traditional folk medicine among the Tangkhuls.

The WHO mentioned that around 90 percent of population in underdeveloped societies avail health services from traditional source while the data provided by NFHS 3 report a minuscule of 0.8 percent. This contradictory result indeed yielded confusion on the study of traditional medicine. The reason why Tangkhuls prefer traditional medicine is of course due to reliability, efficacy and affordability. The book will be highly useful for all those interested in folk and traditional tribal medicine apart from Scientist Sociologists and Anthropologists.

R.K. JEERMISON (b. 1980) received Ph. D from the Center for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and currently serving as an Assistant Professor in Oriental College, Imphal teaching Statistical and Human Geography.

He has contributed articles in various Journals of repute and edited a book. He has specialisation in Population Studies and Social Geography and interested in Health Care Services and Religious Practices in Tribal Societies.

This book is the result of five years research submitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi focusing on traditional folk medicine among the Tangkhuls. The main purpose of the study is to interrogate the belief-systems of illness aetiology and its medical practices thereby providing baseline data on knowledge to allopathic doctors and medicines for the evaluation of health programme. There are hardly any literatures or research on folk medicine among the study population which indeed is argumentative as it involves supernatural entities and also providing a significant research on the subject. The WHO mentioned that around 90 per cent of population in underdeveloped societies avail health services from traditional source. The reason of course is due to reliability, efficacy and affordability. Efficacy of traditional medicine is highly debatable as it involves therapeutic procedures considered to be supernatural and superstitious among allopathic practitioners. In addition there are population from better economic background who preferred traditional medicine. Various cases of supernatural illness and Osteological background are often healed by traditional healers. Traditional medicine therefore is not a phenomenon confined to poor and uneducated population but also among modern man.

**Contents and Sample Pages**