Uygurlarda Halk Tıbbı

Abstract

Uyghur Folk medicine, which has a special place in forming and developing Turkish folk medicine, is based on a well-developed system both in the past and today in terms of sense of health and disease, diagnosis of diseases, methods used in treatments and healers’ qualifications. Belief system, interactions of Estern Turkestan with different cultures which is on the route of Silk Road, translations made in the field of medicine and rich accumulation of the settled life; all became touchstone in formation of Uyghur folk medicine. Uyghurs, who developed this historical and cultural accumulation, provided for folk medicine to become systematic and to be prescribed in terms of both performers of tradition and methods used, and elements they used in the healing. Uyghurs sought remedy for diseases by imitating the healing power of nature, and they applied and transfered traditional knowledge in the folk medicine by experience as a result of a life in touch with nature. That Turks deemed nature as macrocosmos and human as microcosmos, constituted fundamental philosophy of Uyghur folk medicine. As is in most societies, also in Uyghurs, the first treatment methods were based on magical treatment. However, addition to magical treatments of folk medicine by Uyghur healers, it is possible to say that they also used physical treatment contents, and at the same time they were skillful in the field of traditional pharmacy. Islamic elements were added to magical treatment methods, formed by religious beliefs such as animism, natural cults and tengri, with acceptance of Islam among Uyghurs, and some practices were put on the back burner. At this point, herbal- and animal-containing physical treatment methods, used by healers additionally, made progress and became diversified. Nature perception by Uyghurs, who applied the healing power of nature by imitating to human body, took shape on the basis of fire, air, water and earth (anasır-ı erbaa: four elements), and four humours (ahlat-ı erbaa: four fluids) came to the forefront as representatives of those four elements in the human body. Also diagnosis of diseases, prevention methods from them and treatment of them took shape within the scope of this philosophy. In the study, we addressed formation process of Uyghur folk medicine and sources which it was fed, performers and performance forms, diseases and treatment methods, based on both the written sources and data obtained from field studies which were carried out in Kazakhstan, and we presented creation and transfer processes of Uyghur folk medicine, and its content and function features.