Folk Medicine Traditions of Alar Buryats Revisited

Abstract

Introduction. The article provides a first insight into local and regional folk medicine traditions of Alar Buryats (once a part of Balagansk Buryats) nowadays inhabiting Alarsky District of Ust-Orda Buryat Autonomous Okrug (Irkutsk Oblast, Russia) and clustering with Buryats from the western coast of Lake Baikal, the latter therefore referred to as ‘western’ or ‘Cis-Baikalia’ (sometimes ‘northern’) Buryats. Healing practices of present-day Alar Buryats include richest experiences of previous generations, the former largely determined by a number of natural and  geographic factors and conditions of the forest-steppe zone that resulted in consistent combinations of economic patterns, such as arable farming, semi-sedentary livestock breeding, seasonal hunting and fishing. Folk medicine of this sub-ethnic group retains strong ties to shamanic beliefs to have survived the long decades and centuries of persecution. The research topic proves interesting enough since the region under consideration — like the entire Baikal Region — is characterized by a lack of Tibetan medicine influence to have resulted from Orthodox Christianity’s resistance to the expansion of Buddhism. This factor made it possible to preserve the unique ancient traditional treatment techniques, while shamanic healing patterns based on a mythological worldview also constitute a large unexplored area of Baikalia at large. So, local healing traditions remain somewhat understudied. There are only fragmentary data in some works on this subject. Goals. The study aims to analyze the available data on traditional healing practices of Alar Buryats — publications, archival materials, and field notes. Results. The article classifies a set of animal and plant medicines, methods of psychological impact, irrational practices, preventive healthcare approaches and shamanic healing methods. Special attention is paid to etymologies of names of certain diseases and dialect medical terms. An effort is made to analyze the nature of some diseases and phenomena in comparison to healing traditions of other ethnic groups with due regard of modern medical knowledge.