Abstract:

Medical beliefs and practices play an important role in every culture. All cultures have a set of ideas for defining and treating disease and ways of prescribing cures. The paper deals with the traditional system of medicine prevalent among the Nicobarese of Car Nicobar Island.  The aim of the study was to cover all the aspects related to their traditional system which includes their traditional beliefs and practices regarding health and sickness, home remedies, magico-religious treatment and plant folk medicine. Although Tsunami has caused total destruction of the medical infrastructure, tremendous loss to the villages many of which are almost washed away, but this vast knowledge of ethnomedicine certainly is a most valuable thing to treasure before it gets lost with the passage of time.