Priests preferred to Doctors for cure

Here are tribal people of Arunachal Pradesh state in India who still believe in community priests rather than medical practitioners to cure diseases.

Close to half of the 1.1 million population of the state, bordering Tibet and Myanmar, are either animists or believers of a primitive faith called Donyi Polo whose followers worship the sun and moon gods.

Lui Sena had been running a high fever accompanied by a splitting headache for the past 10 days. After herbal remedies and a visit to a doctor failed to cure the eight-year-old boy, Sena's parents carried him in a makeshift stretcher made of bamboo staves to 72-year-old Dera Topu, the village priest.

Squatted on the wooden floor of his stilted bamboo and straw hut, Topu was engrossed in prayers with his eyes closed and hands folded. The priest chanted hymns and fanned Sena with a multi-coloured hornbill feather.

"This boy is haunted by evil spirits and now I have to ward off the spirit. No medicines or doctors could cure the boy. You did the right thing by coming to me," the priest told Sena's parents.

An hour later, the little boy said he was feeling comfortable.

Isn't it strange that in this "Scientific, 21st century world", still there are people who believe in all such weird practices!!!!

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