A Medical Anthropological Study of Traditional Medicine of the Vedda People for the Prevention and Control of Epidemics

Abstract

People around the world use a variety of medical methods to treat diseases. Of these, the traditional medicine methods of the indigenous people are unique because they are built in conjunction with their culture. The ‘Vedda people’, known as the indigenous people of Sri Lanka, use their own medical techniques to cure diseases. What are the treatments they use for the prevention and control of epidemics using their traditional medical methods? This is a research problem in this research. The objective of the research is to study what are the traditional medical treatments of the Vedda people for the prevention and control of epidemics. The research is based entirely on secondary sources. Only qualitative data is used for this. Traditional healers of Vedda community believe that the cause of all diseases is the influence of gods and demons. For this reason, various rituals are one of the main methods of treatment for the epidemics and other ailments of the Vedda people. They perform these rituals to please the evil spirits of their dead relatives who are endangering them. It is the belief of the Vedda people that after doing so, the demonic spirits of the dead relatives will be happy and they will stop endangering themselves. Here, various treatments could be identified in the traditional medicine of the Vedda people for the prevention and control of epidemics. Among them are the use of medicines, the use of Manthra, and the holding of ritual offerings. According to the study data, it can be concluded that the influences of Sinhala medicine have been added to the traditional medicine of the Vedda people.

KEYWORDS: Traditional medicine, Vedda people, epidemic, rituals