Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Faculty Memeber

Abstract

Health, illness, and therapeutic practices are cultural components, so the meaning of these concepts varies throughout different cultures. There are different ethnic and religious groups in Iran, and this diversity makes the different meanings of these concepts. In this paper, we focused on the Zoroastrians of Yazd using the ethnographic method such as participant observation, interview and documents to understand how they construct health, illness, and therapy concepts. We used the conceptual lens of healing, the sacred phenomena, and cultural symbols to analyze our findings. Our study showed that Zoroastrians believed AngraMainyu create illness in the past but nowadays their belief have changed AngraMainyu has no external truth and is only in the human mind, and if human follow AngraMainyu, illness creat. we can try to follow teachings Zoroaster like wisdom, truth and we can overcome the illness by following them. Zoroastrians also perform ritual curing, herbal curing, and Mantra therapy.

Keywords

  •  

    • Choksy, Jamsheed K. (1989). Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrainism: Triumph over Evil. Austin: University of Texas
    • Creswell, John W. (2007). Qualitative & Inquiry Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches. London: Sage Publication
    • Dey, (1993). Qualitative data analysis: A User-friendly Guide for Social Scientists. Thousand Oaks. CA: Sage
    • Douglas, Mary. (1970). “The Healing Rite”. Man, New Series, 5(2),308-302.
    • Hammersley, Martyn, and Paul Atkinson. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice. New York: Routledge.
    • Moerman, Daniel E (1979). “Anthropology of Symbolic Healing”. Current Anthropology. 20(1), 80-59
    • Pilch, John J. (1995). “Insights and Models from Medical Anthropology for understanding the healing activity of the Historical Jesus”. HTC. 51(2), 337-314.
    • Pool, R, and Geissler, W. (2005). Medical Anthropology. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
    • Turner, Victor. (1977). “Symbols in African Ritual”. In Symbolic Anthropology: A reader in the Study of Symbols and Meaning, ed. J. L. D. S. Kemnitzer, and D. M. Schneider, 183-194. New York: Columbia University
    • Weisse, M G. (2018). “Chapter 13: Explanatory models in Psychiatry”. In Text book of Cultural Psychiatry. Edited by Dinesh Bhugra and Kamaldeep Bhui. 2nd 143-157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.