Folk Knowledge of the Semeyskiye of Buryatia about the Symptoms of Diseases

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2021-54-2/144-156

Abstract

Despite the achievements of scientific medicine, in the ХХI century Russians still recourse to healers according to the ethnographic data. Modern traditional folk culture demonstrates the popularity of treatment by magic among the Russians. This raises the question of how people decide whether they should turn to a healer or a doctor. What symptoms are they guided by? The present study considers symptoms of diseases as an element of the traditional Russian folk culture. This approach allows us to compare the folk medical culture of the Buryat old believers (Semeyskiye) with other traditions of Russians of the European part of Russia concerning the diseases cured by healers. It was found that the folk understanding of the symptoms among the Semeyskiye revealed in the 90-s of the XX century is often similar to general Russian knowledge observed by ethnographers and doctors in the end of the XIX century– beginning of the XX century. The symptoms and the diseases known to the old believers of Buryatia that can be cured by magic fall into two categories: physically obvious and materially imperceptible. The study revealed the difference between traditional folk culture and scientific medicine in type and variety of diseases and what conditions are considered diseases.

For Citation: Stadnik, Y.A. 2021. Folk Knowledge of the Semeyskiye of Buryatia about the Symptoms of Diseases. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 2: 144–156.

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