Ethno Medicine Therapy for Oral Health Problem in Hinterland

Abstract

The focus was on a study of babalian in healing oral hygiene problem. Ethnography research with semi-structured depth interview was done for two shamans (balian) who live in Paramasan Bawah village. The interview was done to investigate the factors of having the disease, the history of medicinal plants, the way of healing the disease by processing the plants, and how to get the knowledge hereditarily. Medicinal plant specimens were collected, identified and kept at Plant Conservation Center which located in Botanical Garden (LIPI). The collecting and the analyzing data were done based on developmental research sequences by James Spradley. Babalian ethno medicine is belonging to the people’s personalize belief while the ethno medicine therapy for dental and oral health problem consists of basambur ritual and herb (pelungsur). It was found that 8 out of 13 species families of pelungsur commonly used for treating dental and oral health problem. Basambur ritual refers to the local wisdom which comes from their philosophy and belief system of their tribes. It also can be related to the belief system induction in predicting positive perception toward thinking system. The last step of basambur could become the positive biology response either. Meanwhile, herb (pelungsur) was used as traditional medicine and the effect was able to be increased through basambur ritual.