Paper short abstract:

Health is an urgent need for human development and is essentially concerned with the betterment of humankind.Traditional knowledge always plays an important role in the health care system of each indigenous community, though in contemporary times the modern medicare system has influenced the same.

Paper long abstract:

The overall health status of the tribal community is the outcome of the several interacting factors. The health of the tribal people has been invariably connected with socio-cultural and magico-religious practices since ancient times. They have developed indigenous way of healing practices to protect their health against various kinds of diseases. There is a popular belief prevalent among them is that some of the diseases are caused by evil spirits as well as malevolent deities for which they observe specific rituals to appease them. Again, the pristine method of curing diseases and ailments in general are done by application of varieties of wild roots, herbs, plant as well as animal parts. However, with the establishment of modern Medicare facilities within the rural tribal areas, they avail the benefits of the same along with integrally sticking to their pristine medicare system. The Deori is an important schedule tribes distributed mainly in the plain areas of Upper Assam. Among the Deoris of Assam pristine preventive and curative measures are found till today. In this paper a humble attempt has been made to examine the continuity and change of the health care system of the Deoris of two homogenous Villages of Upper Assam.