Kapherem: a Traditional Healing Through Chantings of the Karbis in Karbi Anglong, Assam

Every culture, irrespective of its simplicity and complexity, has its own beliefs and practices concerning diseases. Every culture evolves its own system of medicine in order to treat diseases in its own way. Sickness, diseases and their treatments were also prevalent before the advent of Western medicine. But how did they treat their sickness and diseases? It was done and is still practiced through their indigenous method of health care practices, traditional medicines and magico-religious healing, particularly in the simple societies. Northeast India and particularly Assam is a rich zone of ethnic diversity and the Karbis are the early settlers of Karbi Anglong. They have their own traditional cultural practices and indigenous knowledge of health care system. It has been noticed that, even in a number of cases if they do not have the accessibilities of western medical facilities, still they can redress their ailments through different medicinal plants which are available in their locality and forest, and also through rituals like se karkli and vur kamatha and also by an art of chanting known as kapherem. Kapherem is the process where they heal the illness like Gastritis, infection, fractures and also to ward off the malevolent effect by chanting. It is an oral tradition which is being carried forward through generations. The present paper will discuss on the importance of kapherem (chanting) related to various health issues and treatment of various malevolent effect of the Karbi people. Data were collected through empirical fieldwork by applying appropriate anthropological research methods. Application of the method had been recorded both from the individual cases as well as through the interviews as taken on the traditional healers. It had been found that the method was very successful to drove out the malevolent effect and to cure the patients from their ailments