THE TREATMENT METHODS AND THE MATERIALS USED FOR CURE IN THE TREATMENT SEEDBEDS IN ADANA

The struggle for abstaining from the illnesses and searching for remedies is as old as the history of the humanity. Folk medicine and the practices related to it have a crucial place in Turkish folk culture. For centuries on the one hand humanbeings have struggled for protecting themselves from illnesses and the things causing them, on the other hand they have searched for having a healthy and long life. For this searching, the first institution that people have applied is the ocak (seedbed) which is a centre of treatment. These treatment ocaks, which were brought from Turkistan to Anatolia by Turkish people, have emerged as a result of this aim and they are still in practical use to this day. Lots of practices which are carried out during the determining and curing in these ocaks where treatment is done carry on the traces of old Turkish belief system. These traces reflect the old Turkish belief system via the medication prepared with the roots of plants and mine. Although in the course of time it has been forgotten why these practices have been originally carried out many of them preserve their original form. Treatment ocaks having the traces of old Turkish beliefs and the practices related to them still exist in Adana as well as many places of Anatolia. The materials which are used for treatment are not coincidental or randomly chosen. Each of these materials is related to cults that are extensions of Old Turkish belief system. The ocaks which are related to cults such as fire, water, tree, iron, ocak, stone still continue their existence as the most commonly used alternative medicine remedy. In this study, the treatments implemented by the people who are referrred as “ocak” or “ocakl？” from Adana and its surroundings who use these cults and materials for these treatments will be studied. These materials’ mythological source, the relation to magical applications and the connection to the shamanic period will be explained