Szeptuchy jako specyficzne zjawisko znachorskie pogranicza na Podlasiu

Abstract

This article focuses on the phenomenon of folk healing in the Polish region of Podlasie. Folk healers, commonly known as szeptuchy (which translates as whisperers) are elderly women who treat a number of diseases by applying different methods of healing such as prayers and incantations. The practices of the folk healers are related both to magical thinking and folk medicine in which main remedy and the most essential part in the process of healing is a magic word. Szeptucha emerges herself in sacrum and by whispering incantations mainly of Orthodox provenience she persuades the disease to leave a sick person. The existence of the healers in Podlasie can be linked to the Orthodox faith and the East Slavic minorities present in this land since early Middle Ages.