Publication

Abstract : In many countries, traditional medicines provide the only affordable treatment available to indigenous community. In developing countries, up to 80% of the population depends on traditional medicines to help meet their healthcare needs (WHO Fact Sheet: 2002). Traditional knowledge has played a vital role in the daily lives of the vast majority of tribal people. Traditional knowledge is essential to the food security and health of millions of people including tribal in the developing country like India and state like Orissa. Tribal people have very symbiotic relationship with forest. In Odisha, the tribal people are rich depositary of indigenous knowledge and known for their unique and distinctive tribal culture and enjoy their own unique traditional living styles. They have their own tribal traditional healing practices and knowledge that they have possessed from generation to generations. There is a need to document the indigenous knowledge related to Indian herbs and plants and their medicinal and other uses by tribal and other groups. This will help the other sectors who are interested to know about our Indian Systems of Medicine; This paper has tried to capture some of the indigenous knowledge’s related to traditional healing practices of Bonda, and Saora , Particularly Vulnerable tribal Group (PVTG) and other scheduled tribal groups like Kandha and Paraja of Southern part of Odisha State .The study captures some of the alarming situations within the tribal groups regarding continuity of the traditional systems of healing and well being vis-à-vis the modern induced medical practices and facilities. Again the depletion of the natural forest resources in terms of medicinal plants also draws immediate attention to taken care of. The rich knowledge base of traditional medicines that still continue to exist in the souls of the tribals should be acknowledge and restored before its looses its existence for the progeny.