A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Each culture has its own name in its language for spiritual healers and ceremonial leaders.
Traditional medicine comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the era of modern medicine. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement and treatment of physical and mental illness". Traditional medicine is often contrasted with Evidence based medicine.
The Adivasi are heterogeneous tribal groups across the Indian subcontinent. The term is a Sanskrit word coined in the 1930s by political activists to give the tribal people an indigenous identity by claiming an indigenous origin. The Constitution of India does not use the word Adivasi, instead referring to Scheduled Tribes and Janjati. The government of India does not officially recognise tribes as indigenous people. The country ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 107 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the United Nations (1957) and refused to sign the ILO Convention 169. Most of these groups are included in the Scheduled Tribe category under constitutional provisions in India.
Indigenous music is a term for the traditional music of the indigenous peoples of the world, that is, the music of an "original" ethnic group that inhabits any geographic region alongside more recent immigrants who may be greater in number. The term therefore depends upon the political role an ethnic group plays rather than upon its strictly musical characteristics, for all further criteria defining indigenous peoples can also be applied to majority cultures.
Ethnomedicine is a study or comparison of the traditional medicine based on bioactive compounds in plants and animals and practiced by various ethnic groups, especially those with little access to western medicines, e.g., indigenous peoples. The word ethnomedicine is sometimes used as a synonym for traditional medicine.
Patalkot is a valley in the Tamia tehsil of Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh, India. Patalkot is 78 km away from Chhindwara district headquarter. This valley is home to a tribal culture and enormous herbal wealth.
The Paliyan, or Pulliyar, Palaiyar or Pazhaiyarare are a group of around 9,500 formerly nomadic Dravidian tribals living in the South Western Ghats montane rain forests in South India, especially in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. They are traditional nomadic hunter-gatherers, honey hunters and foragers. Yams are their major food source. In the early part of the 20th century the Paliyans dressed scantily and lived in rock crevices and caves. Most have now transformed to traders of forest products, food cultivators and beekeepers. Some work intermittently as wage laborers, mostly on plantations. They are a Scheduled Tribe. They speak a Dravidian language, Paliyan, closely related to Tamil.
The Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) founded in 1979 by Rudolph C. Ryser, PhD (Oneida/Cree) and Chief George Manuel (Secwepemc). CWIS is a global community of Indigenous Studies activists and scholars who are committed to protecting and advancing the rights and knowledge of the world's 6000 indigenous nations. The organization is actively involved in the management of the Chief George Manual Memorial Indigenous Library – among the largest indigenous document repositories in the world; the development and implementation of indigenous-centric public policy, consultation and conflict resolution between Indigenous peoples and states governments, education in the areas of Indigenous studies and traditional medicine, and the publishing of the peer-reviewed, Fourth World Journal. CWIS has drafted 27 laws and regulations, archived more than 100,000 indigenous documents, educated more than 3500 students and provided pro-bono medical care to more than 7000 individuals via the Center for Traditional Medicine. The Executive director and Board Chair is Rudolph Ryser. The Center for Traditional Medicine is directed by Dr. Leslie E. Korn. A core staff of nine support center activities and numerous affiliated scholars are found on every continent.
Siddha medicine is a form of traditional medicine originating in southern India. It is one of the oldest systems of medicine in India.
The state of Maharashtra in India has several major river systems including those of the Narmada, Tapti, Godavari and Krishna rivers. The ecology of these rivers and associated wetlands is covered in this article.
Indigenous intellectual property is a term used in national and international forums to describe intellectual property held to be collectively owned by various Indigenous peoples, and by extension, their legal rights to protect specific such property. This property includes cultural knowledge of their groups and many aspects of their cultural heritage and knowledge, including that held in oral history. In Australia, the term Indigenous cultural and intellectual property, abbreviated as ICIP, is commonly used.
Prehistoric medicine is any use of medicine from before the invention of writing and the documented history of medicine. Because the timing of the invention of writing per culture and region, the term "prehistoric medicine" encompasses a wide range of time periods and dates.
Traditional Thai medicine is a system of methods and practices, such as herbal medicine, bodywork practices, and spiritual healing that is indigenous to the region currently known as Thailand. While not all Buddhist medicine is Thai, Thai medicine is considered Buddhist medicine.
Gladys Iola Tantaquidgeon was a Mohegan medicine woman, anthropologist, author, tribal council member, and elder based in Connecticut.
Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is a cumulative body of knowledge, practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings with one another and with their environment.
Ramuan is an Indonesian-Malay term referring to a blend of ingredients selected to provide health benefits in the preparation of food or the creation of herbal medicines. Ramuan may consist of leaves, stems, barks, fruits and roots, traditionally gathered from the rainforest.
Traditional African medicine is a range of traditional medicine disciplines involving indigenous herbalism and African spirituality, typically including diviners, midwives, and herbalists. Practitioners of traditional African medicine claim, largely without evidence, to be able to cure a variety of diverse conditions including cancer, psychiatric disorders, high blood pressure, cholera, most venereal diseases, epilepsy, asthma, eczema, fever, anxiety, depression, benign prostatic hyperplasia, urinary tract infections, gout, and healing of wounds and burns and Ebola.
Badi Mata/Chamariya Mata is a Hindu goddess of disease, one of a group of seven sister goddesses with similar associations. Chamariya Mata/Badi Mata is doubtless allied to Chamars. Badi Mata is worshipped by some tribes in India, such as the Saharia, Chamar and the Kamar. Her worshippers believe that her wrath causes people to suffer from smallpox. The worshippers sacrifice goats to appease her.
Lakshmikutty is a tribal woman from Kallar forest area at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, India who received the India's fourth highest civilian honour Padma Shri for her breakthrough in practicing traditional medicine.
The medical ethnobotany of India is the study of Indian medicinal plants and their traditional uses. Plants have been used in the Indian subcontinent for treatment of disease and health maintenance for thousands of years, and remain important staples of health and folk medicine for millions. Indians today utilize plants for both primary medical care and as supplementary treatment alongside modern medical science. It is estimated that 70% of rural Indians use traditional plant based remedies for primary healthcare needs. This reliance of plants for medicine is consistent with trends widely observed in the developing world, where between 65% and 80% of people use medicinal plant remedies.
