health
Fipa Traditional Healers
A news story from Sumbawanga, Tanzania, on August 12 announced that the government of the Rukwa Region was urging traditional healers to register their healing medicines. The article does not mention the society the healers identify with, but most of them would probably be Fipa. The healers, members of the Tanzanian Society for Traditional Healers […]
Abortions among the Fipa
A news story in the Daily News from Tanzania on January 24 analyzed the sexual health and reproductive rights of women and girls in Tanzania with a special focus on the Fipa people. While the Fipa are not identified as such, the opening example narrates the traumas of a girl who recently had an abortion […]
Why Is the Birhor Population Declining?
Although the number of Birhor increased from 7,514 in the 2001 census of India to 10,726 in 2011, tribal rights activists claim that the population is now declining. According to a news story on July 25 in The Pioneer, an English language daily newspaper, a couple major research institutes are planning to conduct a study […]
Mysterious Illness Infects the Batek
A mysterious illness has struck a Batek community in Malaysia and the causes are uncertain. A report in Kosmo, a Malay-language news source, provided the puzzling clues in an article last week. Mamat Potok, the traditional headman in Kuala Koh, told the reporter that the outbreak of the disease began last October when about 50 […]
Birhor Benefit from a Health Center
Photojournalist Tanmoy Bhaduri provided an upbeat assessment last week of an Anganwadi center, located in a Birhor community in a remote corner of India’s Jharkhand State. He met a Birhor woman who is trying to improve the health and nutrition of the women and children in the village, the primary mission of India’s Anganwadi centers. […]
Promoting Health along Lake Tanganyika
A project among the Fipa villages along the shores of Lake Tanganyika has improved the health of residents of the region, according to a news report last Wednesday. Although the reporter did not identify the people as being Fipa, most of the villagers along that portion of the lake are, in fact, members of that […]
The Health of Indigenous Societies in Africa [journal article review]
Many Pygmy societies of Central Africa, as well as the San in Southern Africa, suffer more than other people in their countries from health problems. A recent article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet describes the health challenges of the two indigenous African cultures. Defining “indigenous” in the context of Africa is often a […]
Orang Asli Rarely Have Headaches
According to the Malaysia Star on July 10th, the Orang Asli don’t suffer from headaches as much as modern city dwellers do. Prof. Dr. Raymond Azaman Ali, a neurologist at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, indicated at an annual neurosciences conference in Petaling Jaya that 60 percent of the patients in neuro clinics in Malaysian city […]
