Folk Medicine of the Northern Selkups

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2024-2/263-276

Authors

Keywords:

Selkups, traditional culture, ethnomedicine, shamanic treatment of diseases, folk medicines, official medicine

Abstract

The article focuses on the traditional medicine of the Northern Selkups, one of the unstudied elements of the traditional Selkup culture. Based on field materials, the author identifies, classifies and describes plant and animal-based medicines, medicinal derivatives of combustion (smoke and heat) and inorganic substances. The study revealed that the current generation of middle-aged and older Selkups remembers well the folk remedies which their grandmothers and mothers used to treat them, when official medicine was inaccessible and older relatives had to perform the duties of family doctors. The relatively small number of natural medicines used by the Selkups and the lack of images responsible for the vitality in Selkup mythology, suggest that Selkup medicine did not develop sufficiently and played a smaller role in the life of the Selkups than magical shamanic healing techniques. At present, when the official medicine plays a significant part in the life of Selkups, the folk medicines are gradually falling into disuse.

Author Biography

  • Olga Stepanova, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences

    Stepanova, Olga B. — Ph.D. in History, Senior Researcher of the Department of Ethnography of the Peoples of Siberia, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) RAS (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). E-mail: stepanova67@mail.ru ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2130-2695

    For citation: Stepanova, O. B. 2024. Folk Medicine of the Northern Selkups. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 2: 263–276.

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Published

08.06.2024

Issue

No. 2 (2024): Herald of Anthropology

Section

Folk Knowledge and Traditions