Building the body: the resilience of nurturing practices to build the immune system with traditional medicine among Purko Maasai

Abstract

The benefits of traditional medicine have long been recognized by the World Health Organization. However, as formal education, urbanization, and deforestation increases; the use of traditional medicine has decreased. Within this phenomenon, this paper discusses the continued importance of preventive health practices among the Purko Maasai. Using nurturing as an explanatory framework, qualitative data is analyzed to understand the cultural importance of specific traditional medicine with the goal of building the body with ‘engolon’ (strength). Results address the importance of nurturing children by administering traditional medicine in order to build the body’s immune system. Our data show an interesting gender divide in which both genders play a critical nurturing role, however at different timeframes in the child’s life. Findings demonstrate concern with changing frequency of herbal medicine given to children, however there is resiliency within some nurturing components of using preventative traditional medicine to build up children’s immune system.

Keywords:

• Traditional medicine
• nurturing
• resilience
• continuity
• Maasai
• ethnobotany

Acknowledgments

We want to acknowledge and thank the Purko Maasai community members who have taken the time to tell us their thoughts and share their perspectives on family health care decisions. We are honored to be trusted with protecting this knowledge for future generations. We also want to acknowledge colleagues who helped reviewing earlier drafts of this article, Jamie Lewis Hedges, Cathleen Osborne-Gowey and Ivy Pike. This research was made possible through funding by Grand Valley State University’s Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence.

Ethics statement

This research was approved by the Grand Valley State University Human Research Review Committee (17-159-H) and the Kenyan National Commission for Science, Technology, and Innovation (NACOSTI/P/17/73653/17823. In addition, the first author had an affiliation (NMK/CBD/TRN/4) with the National Museums of Kenya to conduct this research. All participants recruited during this project went through the approved informed consent process.

Author contributions

KH and JK conceived of the study, and participated in its design, recruitment, data collection and coordination. KH performed data analysis with consultation with JK. KH was the primary author with consultation with JK. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing or conflict interests.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible through funding by Grand Valley State University’s Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence.