ETHNOMEDICAL PRACTICES AND INDIAN SCHEDULED TRIBES.

Traditional healing systems are indigenously rooted arrangements of social relationships, cultural patterns and therapeutic activities involving use of locally available or adopted resources which are used in the management of illness. All of the 705 scheduled tribes of India have their own distinct healing systems catering to natural and supernatural caused illnesses. The paper tries to look at and understand the ethnomedical systems of the Indian scheduled tribes by identifying common characteristics, healers and efficacy. Such healing systems needed to be seen as alternative forms of knowledge and medicinal practices having strong bearing for amelioration of the health care needs of the scheduled tribe communities as well as the larger humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]