History of sickness and medical art 4: in preliterate society 2

 

＜　sweat lodge, a steam room of North American First Nations　＞

We look at how shaman treats some medical arts.

Medical art of the easy illness

As for an injury or a stomachache, people do not request shaman.

In the case of a stomachache, Tasmania indigenous people bite and drink some asteracea plant.

In the case of constipation, Pygmy people in Africa give liquid medicine into his body through a hollow stem of vine for an enema.

Each indigenous people use many medicinal herbs.

If injured, a surgical operation will also be performed, and a medicinal herb with a hemostatic effect is used.

American Indians give man the melted fat, when he is deficient in meat, before becoming atrocious or man-eating fantasy

A steam room is used for medical treatment in northern Eurasia and the North American Continent.

シャーマン（呪医）が治療にどのように関わるのかを見ます。

簡単な病の治療

人々は怪我や腹痛などではシャーマンに依頼しない。

タスマニア先住民は、腹痛の場合、下剤になるキク科植物を咬んで飲む。

ピグミーは、便秘の場合、茎が空洞の蔓で水薬を浣腸した。

それぞれの先住民は多くの薬用植物を利用している。

怪我をすれば外科手術も行い、止血効果のある薬草が使われる。

北米インディアンは、肉が欠乏し、人食い幻想や凶暴になる前に、溶けた脂肪を飲ませる。

ユーラシア北部と北米大陸では、治療に蒸し風呂が利用される。

＜　in Malaysia, a shaman is treating a medical art ＞

Treatment to depend on shaman

Diagnosis

An illness wasn't cured by easy method, and his physical strength declined gradually and he became thin.

In this instance, the people considered the evil spirit and magic to be the cause of it.

Shaman gives a patient the diagnosis and the treatment.

Diagnosis is to find a supernatural cause of a disease.

Was a soul of the patient pulled out?　Someone who bore him a grudge shot a kiss of death to his body?

He clarifies the taboo and the crime that the patient perpetrated, and the spirit that brings an evil.

He identifies the cause by hearing an oracle in a possessed state, by interview, or by a fortune telling.

シャーマンに依頼する治療

診断

簡単な方法で治らず、次第に体力が衰え、痩せ細る病は、悪霊や呪術が原因と考えられた。

治療するシャーマンは患者に診断と処置を行う。

診断は、超自然的な病因を見つけることです。

患者の魂が抜き取られたのか？　恨みを抱く者が呪って災いの種を身体に射込んだのか？

彼は患者の犯したタブーや罪、悪さをしている精霊を明らかにする。

問診や占い、または憑依状態で神託を聞き原因を特定する。

 

＜　in Borneo island, people dance throughout the night, and a shaman removes a soul from her head or puts in it.　＞

Disposal

The disposal is whether a soul is returned or an evil spirit is driven out or a risked place is removed.

Many methods are performed with a ceremony, mystic words, and the fetish.

Occasionally, people will continue to dance and to cry several days, and send away evil spirit or calm down an angry spirit.

Holding up a rat near patient’s head of headache, the shaman of Andes moves evil thing from the head to the rat, kills it, and finds out evil part by fortune telling of internal organs of the rat.

The act of shaman that takes out diseased internal organs only with fingers from outside of patient’s body is widely seen, too.

For the cause of disease, they may suck out directly and may use a phlebotomy, a smoking process, and a steam room.

A lot of medicinal herbs are employed with mystic words, giving the droppings of an animal for driving out an evil spirit is also seen all over the world.

処置

処置は、魂を元に戻すか、悪霊を追い出すか、あるいは冒された所を取り除くかになる。

多くは儀式や呪文、呪物を伴い行われる。

時には数日間も踊り、叫び続け、悪霊を追い払うか、怒れる神をなだめる。

アンデスの呪医は頭痛の患者に、頭にかざした鼠に禍を移し、それを殺し鼠の内臓占いでさらに悪い患部を見いだす。

体外から指だけで悪い内臓患部を取り出す、奇術のような行為も広く見られる。

病因に対して、直接的に吸い出し、瀉血、燻煙法、蒸し風呂を使うこともある。

薬草も多く使われるが呪文を伴う、場合によっては動物の糞を飲ませて悪魔を追い払うことも世界中に見られる。

＜　a shaman sells several medical herb in Peru　＞

Shaman has full knowledge of cultivation, extraction, process, and effect of medicinal herb, and properly uses it to alleviation of fever, painkilling, urination, purgative, etc. 

Especially, when a ceremony was held, the hallucinogen was necessary for not only shaman but also families other than the patient.

Next time, I look at the life of pastoral tribe of Kenya.

呪医は薬草の栽培、採取、製法、効能を熟知しており、解熱、鎮痛、利尿、下剤などを使い分けている。

特に幻覚剤は儀式を行う際、患者以外の呪医や家族にも必要だった。

次回は、ケニアの牧畜民の生活に密着します。