Most people goes to tribal herbal healer as their last resort, making it too difficult for the healer to treat the disease as he would have done, if patient was on time. However there are other reason as well for people not trusting healers. We need to understand WHY?

1. Dilemma and Trustworthiness of a Tribal Herbal healer.
A tribal healer popularly known as Bhumka or Bhagat is a person, treat who so ever come to him through
different preparation of medicinal plants culminated out of age old tried, tested and trusted traditional
herbal practices, he inherited from his ancestors. He is
a Godly person concerned about your wellbeing in most
adverse circumstances and demands no money for his
expertise and services. People in urban area have no
direct access with tribal herbal healers as they reside
amidst forest, most often not easily reachable.
Whenever people suffer from any health disorder, they
do not go to tribal healers in the first place. This
attribute is due to their social stigma and vulnerable
mindset. After roaming around all the health services
when they give up their hope, they turn to tribal healers
as their last resort. In most of the cases they are
referred by some friends or acquaintance who is been
benefited in the past. They approach him with a hope of
miracle and when outcome is not as per their
expectation, they abuse healer and the person who has referred them as well. At the end of the day, it is
the tribal healer whom you blame and credibility of his age-old knowledge is put on stake. Why?
For this, we need to understand some very important factors which influence the outcome. First, we
should know in what stage of illness you are taking patient to a tribal herbal healer as in the last stage
body didn’t reciprocate to any system of medicine. Second most important factor is time of your visit
because it decides the availability of a particular herb in that given season. Suppose the person who
gave you the reference of a herbal healer had given you the feedback that he was cured in a month’s
time then without taking stage of illness in both the cases into account you are bound to have high
expectation and your mind is not ready to settle anything less than that. On the other side, herbal healer
wants to heal you but the most efficacious herb he would have used is not available. So now, he is in
dilemma, like any medical practitioner he can refuse you to treat or can request you to come later.
However, he never do that, instead he choose to treat you with some alternative herbs, which perhaps
may take relatively longer time to heal. Now you are running on 30 days expectation and when you did
not achieve it, you are disappointed and abuse him and the worst part is that you put his age-old
knowledge and trustworthiness on stake.
When you go to medical practitioner, you submit yourself with imposing your trust wholeheartedly on him,
never questioned him about the grade he got in his final exams, never asked why he has recommended
certain expensive test or why his consultation fee is so high. You religiously follow his instruction without
expecting the nature and time of outcome. But when you go to a herbal healer you want him to deliver
within your expected time, although he is giving you a month dose, you pay as per your wish because he
did not ask for anything, moreover you feel you will pay better next time after seeing the improvement in
your patient health. You are acting as if you are testing his ability, your vulnerable mind prevent you to
have faith on him. Most often after first dose cycle, you refused to visit him, as you do not want to take
physical challenges required to reach him. This is not justified.
We should not forget that 1
st
anti malaria drug was obtained through the tribal traditional knowledge of
Peru, still 25% of present drugs are plant derived and the science is yet to discover the whole plant
science. It is our limitation that we fail to explain these knowledge scientifically but certainly it didn’t mean
that it doesn’t exist. Like China and its people, we need to have faith on our tribal traditional herbal
knowledge. It can very well act as a cost effective source for new drug development. Proactive approach
of our people and government can put the tribal traditional knowledge on the mainstream. Let the good
health prevail.