O impacto e o poder da etnomedicina no tratamento de possessões e traumas de guerra nos tsongas do sul de Moçambique

Abstract

The Impact and Power of Ethnomycine in the Treatment of Possessions and War Trauma in Tsongas in Southern Mozambique. The study presented here was prepared and carried out within the scope of curricular research activities linked to the defense of the degree thesis. A theme related to Health Anthropology was chosen due to the fact that the country is mostly rural and with a small number of health units in relation to the population it boasts. Consequently, a large number of the population is deprived of biomedical and medication assistance, having the only resource for treatment and cure, the “traditional” and religious methods, that is, the use of so-called ethnomedicine. The central debate focuses on the impact and power of ethnomedicine in the treatment of possessions and some collateral diseases, such as war trauma, mental illness and HIV / AIDS in the Tsongas of southern Mozambique. For this purpose, we propose an exchange on the matter with ethnomedical practitioners, namely; healers and religious leaders, biomedical and even with patients who previously suffered from certain diseases, which in a decisive way helped this work to become reality, both in terms of collecting bibliographic material, as well as clarifying doubts that arose during throughout work. Only in this way was it possible to carry out and present a work as close to reality as possible. The document presented is composed of six distinct parts; Introduction, Contextualization, Study, Research, Conclusions and Recommendations.