ArticleJournal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine2013
Johan Turi's animal, mineral, vegetable cures and healing practices: an in-depth analysis of Sami (Saami) folk healing one hundred years ago.
Article in Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The therapeutic use of the dog in Spain: a review from a historical and cross-cultural perspective of a change in the human-dog relationship.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2017Pooled it
- From traditional remedy toFrontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Medicinal Plant Use in North Karelia, Finland, in the 2010s.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Traditional sports and games among the Sámi people in Northern Fennoscandia (Sápmi): an ethnobiological perspective.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2022Article
- Sámi traditional medicine: practices, usage, benefit, accessibility and relation to conventional medicine, a scoping review study.International journal of circumpolar health · 2021Article
- Naukan ethnobotany in post-Soviet times: lost edibles and new medicinals.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2017Article
- From economic survival to recreation: contemporary uses of wild food and medicine in rural Sweden, Ukraine and NW Russia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2015Article
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2 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe healing knowledge of a Sami (Saami) hunter and reindeer herder was surveyed as a window into the concepts of health, healing, and disease in early twentieth-century Sapmi (Northern Sweden). The two books of Johan Turi (1854-1936)--An Account of the Sami (1910) and Lappish Texts (1918-19) were examined to determine the varieties of recorded zootherapeutic, mineral, chemical, and ethnobotanical lore, as well as the therapeutic acts, identified conditions, and veterinary knowledge included.
methodsTabulation of the materials and species mentioned in Turi's descriptions (n = 137) permitted analysis of the relative frequency of differing types of healing in Turi's overall therapeutic repertoire, his relative attention to chronic vs. acute ailments, and the frequency of magic as a component of healing. A qualitative appraisal was made of the degree to which outside influences affected Sami healing of the period. A further assessment of the possible clinical efficacy of the recorded remedies was undertaken.
resultsTuri's remedies consist most often of zootherapeutics (31%), followed by physical acts such as massage, moxibustion, or manipulation (22%). Ethnobotanical cures make up a significantly smaller portion of his repertoire (17%), followed by mineral and chemical cures (12%). Magic rituals (including incantations and ritual acts) make up a significant portion of Turi's repertoire, and could be used alone (17%) or in conjunction with other types of healing (38%). Turi's healing aimed primarily at acute ailments (65%), with chronic conditions addressed less often (35%). A literature review revealed that Turi's remedies held a marked frequency of likely efficacy, at least in cases in which it was possible to ascertain the precise species, conditions, or substances described. Although it is possible at times to recognize foreign sources in Turi's repertoire, it is clear that Turi understood all his healing methods as distinctively Sami.
conclusionThe research illustrates the variety and depth of a single informant's healing knowledge, and demonstrates the value of both historical sources and in-depth data collection with single experts as useful means of assessing and characterizing an indigenous population's healing traditions.
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