The Obstetric Connection: Midwives and Weasels within and beyond Minoan Crete

The Minoan peak sanctuaries call for systematic comparative research as an island-bound phenomenon whose significance to the (pre)history of medicine far transcends the Cretan context: they yield clay anatomical offerings attesting to the earliest known healing cult in the Aegean. The peak sanctuary of Petsophas produced figurines of weasels, which are usually interpreted as pests, ignoring their association with votives that express concerns about childbirth, traditionally the first single cause of death for women. The paper draws from primary sources to examine the weasel’s puzzling bond with birth and midwives, concluding that it stems from the animal’s pharmacological role in ancient obstetrics. This novel interpretation then steers the analysis of archaeological evidence for rituals involving mustelids beyond and within Bronze Age Crete, revealing the existence of a midwifery koine across the Near East and the Mediterranean, a net of interconnections relevant to female therapeutics which brings to light a package of animals and plants bespeaking of a Minoan healing tradition likely linked to the cult of the midwife goddess Eileithyia. Challenging mainstream accounts of the beginnings of Western medicine as a male accomplishment, this overlooked midwifery tradition characterises Minoan Crete as a unique crucible of healing knowledge, ideas, and practices.

Ravitsejad Siberi eesti kogukondades

The article is based on manuscripts as well as sound and video recordings on folk medicine collected during fieldwork conducted by the researchers of the Estonian Folklore Archives in 1991–2013 from Estonians born and raised in different Siberian Estonian communities. The ancestors of the visited Estonians had either left their homeland in search of land in the last decades of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries or were descendants of those deported and exiled by the Russian tsarist authorities in the first half of the 19th century. Fieldwork at Siberian Estonians in the last decade of the 20th century enriched the Estonian Folklore Archives with invaluable lore material, including the material related to folk medicine. Although the advance of the state medicine system with small hospitals and first aid posts had reached Siberian villages half a century before, and the activity of healers had been banned for decades, the collectors were surprised by the number of healers in villages and the extent of the practical use of folk medicine. The folk medicine tradition was upheld mostly by older women (as was the case also with other fields of lore), which resulted, on the one hand, from the demographic situation, and, on the other hand, from women’s leading position in the preservation of communal traditions. In the older Siberian Estonian communities, which had been established by the deportees (e.g. Ülem(Upper)-Suetuk, Ryzhkovo), it was believed that healing words and skills were available and could be learned by anyone; they were often compared to God’s word. Some people thought that knowledge and skills could only be shared with those younger than yourself. In the villages established by exiles people were considerably more cautious about passing on healing words and the like. In most villages with southern Estonian background, healing charms were kept in secret, as it was believed that when sharing their knowledge, the healers would lose their abilities. It was only at their death’s door that the healers selected their successor. Not all the people who were offered to learn the healing skills were ready to accept the responsibility. The first or last child in the family was thought to have more prerequisites for becoming a good healer. In the first decade of the 21st century, the situation with passing on the healing words and skills had changed considerably in older Siberian villages. Many of the healers had passed away, and there were not enough young people who were interested in continuing the tradition. So the healing skills inevitably concentrated into the hands of a few wise women. Currently, the folk healing tradition in Siberian Estonian communities is fading away, above all, due to the fast aging and diminishing of the communities.

Are Dalit Women Healers Allowed to Claim “Tradition”?

This essay uses Dalit women’s mediumship as a healing tradition that provides something of a “limit situation” from which to review basic assumptions about the varied ways in which we can understand what it is to “have” tradition—as an acquisition and inheritance that Dalit women enjoy like everyone else, but also as formal claims to value and recognition that are largely denied to Dalit women. Comparing Dalit women healers with male performers in ritual theater and more privileged healers in rural Tamil Nadu, the essay addresses dimensions of inequality comparatively neglected in studies of tradition as either constructed or invented within modernity. The essay moves us away from discussions of tradition that center on conscious claims to a consideration of the elements that mean that some traditions may never reach the level of being articulated as claims, let alone achieve recognition.

Dziedinošās darbības un to veicēji folkloras un valodas liecībās

This article summarizes the various healing-related activities used in the Latvian healing tradition. To explain these activities and describe their performers and specialization, folklore sources and linguistic materials were used. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the diversity of folk healing activities and their names, while also clarifying their nature and use as much as possible. The linguistic and etymological analysis was used to investigate the healing activities and the names of their performers, but folklore examples were used for clarifying the meanings. By studying the healing tradition, the names of medical practitioners were collected from various sources, adding up to over 60 labels. When compiling the report, the representatives of the healing activities were divided into conditional groups according to the type of their main medical activities. Thus, the following groups of healing activities were formed: healing activities using the body, actions with spoken word and blowing, ritual and magic activities, defense techniques and liberating rituals. In addition to the medicinal practitioners who were active in healing, there were also counselors who sought out the causes of diseases through various means and searched for their best remedies. The survey in the article shows that the healing tradition uses diverse and specialized medical terms. However, as the examples show, most of them have used a combination of different practices. The name of the healer in question usually described the skills that were particularly developed and had been used most frequently. During tradition bans, names of healers became more general, and tabooed names were used instead. The general term “healer” has only been naturalized into society after the restoration of national independence.

براہوئی درمان تیٹی لوز، ہچکاری نا مانہ او گشاد

Vernacular healing tradition in Brahui folk literature shows the folk wisdom of nomadism in Balochistan. The healing tradition by remedies and herbs. The people of Balochistan were had knowledge of traditional treatment before the scientific and medical awareness. The basic knowledge of herbs and healing tradition got from the nomadic life, with the passage of time people used to live in mountain’s ranges of Balochistan. It was the reason to knowing the basic knowledge about healing tradition with remedies or folk methods. The believes and experiences of people in healing or remedies treatment had introduced a word Hichkaari it means the absolute treatment or better treatment about a disease. The word Hichkaari shows authority in itself about traditional herbs or remedies. Beside verbal and public knowledge it can observed worthy knotweed about vernacular and remedies healing tradition in Brahui folk lore. The theory of Bricolage introduced by Liwi Strass a follower of Post modernism theory has been applying to conduct this research paper. A social and psychological analysis have been adapted to complete this research in approach of qualitative methodology.