Anthropological Evaluation of Traditional Dentistry in The Ethnic “Sangesar” in Comparison with Modern Dentistry

Abstract

Independency, adaptation to ecological environment and rational use of its elements are the most important historical characteristics of traditional forms of life. Savage plants are of these elements that have always had a lot useful functions in local traditional medicines. This ethnographical field work has been done in the field of medical anthropology and have focused on face to face and non face to face individual interview as well as documents for data gathering. The goal is to Describe and analyse the sangesari traditional dentistry on the basis of authentic participants narratives and then comparing them to objective aspects of modern dentistry. Findings showed that, traditional rationality of sangesari dentistry while facing to oral and dental illnesses and its consideration to the subjective aspects rely mostly upon body natural forbearance, maximom adaptation to natural environment, use of botanical elements of natural environment, least body manipulation and taking the ill person to a wholistic integration with his surrounding cultural and natural environments. Regarding to increasing process of medicalization in modern societies, attention to endogenous knowledges, techniques and approaches may be instructive in decreasing the side effects of modern societies medicalization.

Keywords

• sangesar the ethnic
• traditional dentistry
• medicalization
• medical anthropology
• ethnography