Life style : Medicine

Miens have a number of techniques for treating people with both physical and mental afflictions. They have a method to treat as drag or knead in the painful, treat with herbs, worship the spirits or go to the hospital in the event of an injury. Worship is conducted concurrently with this treatment.

The naturopathy by massage or knead and scrape on the body.      This technique is having pains and aches or exhaustion.      1. Nib-Sa involves using the back side of the index finger and the middle finger. After being dipped into water, they pull the flesh around the breast and the shoulder inside, left and right. Around the breast they have three to seven points to pull. When they finish the Nib-Sa procedure, the flesh will be red from bruising. The patient treated by this method will fresh because it causes bleeding. People who are fat cannot use Nib-Sa; they will use Gwau-Sa instead.      2. Gwau-Sa involves using a coin or razor blade to slit the patient’s skin and burn the paper and put it in the bottle, covers the skin that has slit by the bottle until the smoke in the bottle gone. The blood that area changes the color.      3. Gwai-Ti-Tan is for treating a person who has a fever and a backache. They pound ginger and mix it the lard and brush it on the area that has pain, then cover it with a bowl and scrape it down. If the back has toxicity as the skin has become tanned.                          4.ung-Sa is bloods test in fingertip. First, they drive the blood from the body to the arm and tie up the arm to restrict circulation; they then drive the blood from the arm to the wrist and tie again. They tie each finger up one by one. When the blood is dark in the fingertips, they jab the pin into the fingers. They do this to all the fingers and toes. Mien believes that they get better when they drive the waste bloods from themselves.

Treat with herbs.      Mien ancients passed down the wisdom that any plant in the forest is a potential herbal medicine. When Mien root a plant out, they will hold their breath because they believe that the herb has rich and be full-flavored.  If the Mien doctor himself has an illness, he cannot go to the forest and pick the herbs himself. Fortunately, even today, Mien has adequate knowledge of traditional herbal medicines to get their own herbs from the forest.

Treat by worshipping spirits.      When a person is treated with herbs but still does not recover, Mien believes that a ghost made them ill. Therefore, they will cast lots or Bowb-Gwa-Ton (casting lots by flipping a stone). The leader of the worship knows how to cast these lots. When the lots have been cast and the case is the same as the ghost tell is the stone will oscillate. They will have to make an offering of food to the spirit to satisfy the spirit and help the patient get better.  http://mien.hilltribe.org/english/