Prehistoric people's health

The study of ancient people and their illnesses is known as paleopathology. Although the focus of this science is on old and ‘dusty’ specimens, the field itself is one that is brimming with new discoveries.

In the Paleolithic Age, the earliest stage of human evolution, social structures consisted of small groups of hunters and gatherers, and life was dangerous with numerous challenges to health.

The burials sites of Neanderthals provided a great deal of evidence that enabled scientist to study about prehistoric peoples. Some of the skeletons showed signs of bone disease such as arthritis, that must have developed over many years.

Prehistoric humans initially had simple approaches to health, which became more complex as their behavioral and cultural repertoire developed.

Ancient medicine evolved over millennia, in interchange with culture and society. It later provided a platform for traditional medicine, which continues to be practices today, for modern biomedicine.

Disease was present on earth long before human life, and scientists can only speculate about the human practice of prehistoric medicine.

Prehistoric people probably treated their wounds similarly to the way animals treat themselves: immersing themselves in cool water and applying mud to irritated areas, sucking stings, licking wounds and exerting pressure on wounds to stop the bleeding.

Anthropologists have found that some primitive peoples employ a variety of means for staunching the flow of blood, for example using herbs or roots, often with astringent or antibacterial qualities, that they apply to the wound on the form of powders or poultices.
Prehistoric people's health

Malay Music for Healing

Malay Music for Healing
Traditional Malay medicine encompasses various kinds of ritual ceremonies intended to communicate with the world of spirits to determine whether the nature of an illness is physical or psychological.

In such ceremonies, the aim is to summon and exorcise the spirits causing illness.

A ritualist serves as a medium, and a small ensemble often provides the musical component.

Known by different name, healing rituals appear in different forms.

The main saba (a curing ceremony, incorporating dance around a saba tree) and main lukah (a fisherman’s curing ritual performed in Pahang) are regional types using song, dance and drumming.

The main puteri (peteri), another form that extensively uses music, is found in Kelantan and Terengganu.

In the main puteri, a medium (tok puteri, tok teri, bomoh) becomes possessed by the spirit causing an illness.

The performance of vocal and instrumental pieces helps him enter a state of trance.

A trance dance (tarian lupa) is a prominent feature of the ceremony.

An assistant, the tok minduk, plays the rebab as he converses and sings in dialogue with the medium.

The orchestra used in Kelantan is larger, perhaps because of the occasional performance of the main puteri with mak yong.

The contemporary main puteri orchestra of Kelantan includes the core mak yong orchestra (a rebab, a pair of gendang and a pair of tetawak), plus two or more canang, a pair of kesi and sometimes an oboe.

The dialogue between the tok minduk and the tok puteri is sung in a slow tempo, with long gong units, ling rhythmic patterns in the drum part, and a vocal line featuring a basically syllabic style of singing.

The rebab accompanies the vocal lines of both singers by either playing heterophonically with voice or reiterating, short melodic phrases as ostinatos.

The trance dance sections feature the repetition of brief gong units and short drummed rhythms, a fast tempo and the reiteration and emphasis of the running beat by the small gongs and the hand held cymbals.
Malay Music for Healing