This book entitled "Hill Kharia and Health Care Practices: Perspectives and Problems' explores the concept of health and health care practices prevalent among the Hill Kharia, a marginalised tribal group inhabit in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is evident that various preventive and curative health care practices are found in different cultures; although each culture has its own dimension of health care model and it is characterised by self sufficiency until it experiences and interacts with the outer world. Tribals and their cultural context of illness and health is a broader known fact. Tribals across the world follow certain traditional norms related to their wellbeing and illness irrespective of the regions, religions and nationalities. Tribal health is one of the important aspects of tribal development which has been ignored or overlooked for long years. The age old health care practices of simple society generally do not contain sufficient knowledge to cope up with emerging ailments. It is presumable for the first time that any sort of in-depth medical anthropological study has been carried out among the Hill Kharia population of West Bengal with reference to health care practices. It was really difficult task to access the villages because the road condition and as well as transport communication system was not up to the mark and it passes through the forest areas. The common beliefs, customs and practices connected with health, disease and treatment have found to be intimately related to their traditional health care practices with certain notable limitations. Present study has been conducted among the Hill Kharia of district Purulia and Bankura, West Bengal and this work is based on the empirical data collected on the said community. This book also explores the cultural scenario with reference to economic, education and social status among the Hill Kharia. The field work was carried out during 2013 to 2019 in various phases. Chapter 1 primarily deals with the background of the history of Medical Anthropology along with review of studies including methods opted during the present work. This chapter has also emphasised about the aims and objective of the work. The review of literature is one of the imperative sections of the chapter. Chapter 2 elaborates the geographical location of the study area and also elucidates the status of said tribal in the larger society. The main feature of this study is selection of the villages. The distance from urban centre, transport and communication, modern health care services are the main criteria for the selection. Altogether five villages have been selected on the basis of the above-mentioned characteristics that is Type-1 and Type-II. Two villages are categorised as Type-I and the name of the villages are 1) Rahıdı ın Purulia district, 1) Ladda in Bankura district. Another three villages are considered as under Type-II and the name of the villages are i) Damodarpur in Purulia district 1) Sarasdanga and in) Borda Sabar Para in Bankura district. The Hill Kharia mainly inhabit in some pockets of western part of the Indian state of West Bengal more specifically in Purulia, Bankura and some areas of Jhargram and Paschim Medinipur district. This chapter has also demonstrated the religion and worshipped with reference to the health care practices. The chapter-3 reveals that the Hill Kharia population are more or less accustomed with the process of traditional health care practitioners. The said community belief, bad health is a consequence of evil eye and affect of supernatural entities. The traditional healthcare system of the Hill Kharia is very much associated with supernatural phenomena conspicuously comprised with witchcraft and black magic. The considered Hill Kharia population are reported to avail traditional, modern and both (traditional and modern) system of medical practices. This study reveals the relationship between health practicing culture and life cycle related rituals and its implication on health behaviour. The cases of availing the traditional health care system compared between Type-1 and Type-II villages, the later sought more modern health care system as a preferred category of treatment. The issue of village level participation for observing taboos and worshipping deities in context of health, disease and treatment are also furnished in this chapter. According to the Hill Kharia's concept, bad health is the consequences of irregular diet in addition with consumption of excessive country liquor. Chapter-4 deals with the modern health care services availed by the Hill Kharia population. This chapter provides the information regarding health policies and present infrastructural set up in rural areas. The detailed information regarding tribal health and government initiatives has also been discussed at the initial segments of this Chapter.
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