Magic and medical practice of the komi in the Omsk region (summary)

© 2013 E.E. Ermakova

2013 – № 1 (5)


Key words: The Omsk Komi, assimilation, traditional folk medicine, the personality of the doctor, the rational methods of treatment, spells and incantations, magic

Abstract: The article presents the data collected by the author during her expedition in 2008 to the Komi of the Omsk region. The author focuses on the representation of the system of medical and magical knowledge of Komi, dividing them between rational and irrational methods.


Brief demographic information, as well as an overview of the historiography of the issue is presented; particular aspects of magic-and-medical knowledge of the Omsk Komi are considered: individual personality of the physician, rational knowledge (bone-setting, massage, phytotherapy, herbal medicine, treatment by natural remedies), magical practices. All field data are presented in a scientific article for the first time. The study was conducted as part of the complex expedition of the Institute of problems of Development of the North of SB RAS in the Field grant of the Presidium of the RAS and the program of Fundamental research of RAS «The Adaptation of peoples and cultures to changes of the natural environment, social and technological transformations».

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