Decomposition of the primitive communal system began in the X — V millennium BC. e. The main content of this process was the emergence of private property and private economy, classes and states. Decomposition of primitive society proceeded in two main forms: patriarchy and matriarchy, which developed in parallel

Patriarchy was the most common. It arose where social inequality was formed with the leading economic and social role of a man, which led to the gradual replacement of the matrilineal count of kinship by the patrilineal, matrilocal community by the patrilocal.

Matriarchy was a relatively rare form of decomposition of the primitive communal system and developed when social inequality was formed while preserving the leading economic role of women and the maternal clan (Ashanti, Nayar, Minangkabau, and other peoples). On our planet, to this day, tribes have survived that used to live according to the traditions of matriarchy (for example, the Iroquois). The traditional signs of matriarchy remained for a long time in such large slave-owning states as ancient Egypt or the Hittite kingdom, where throughout their history a high position of a woman took place and the throne was passed along the female line (Pharaoh must was to marry his sister, daughter or stepmother).

During the period of decomposition of the primitive communal system, differences in the rates of historical progress of mankind in different regions of the globe were clearly manifested. In the most favorable economic zones (fertile valleys of the largest rivers), the process of decomposition of primitive society ended in the III — II millennium BC. e. (Mesopotamia, Nile Valley, Indus Basin). In the least favorable for agriculture areas of Oceania, Australia, Africa, it continues to the present.

The most important event in the field of cultural development of mankind at the end of the primitive era was the invention in the IV millennium BC. e. hieroglyphic writing in the Sumerians and Egyptians, and later in the Cretans, the Chinese, Mayans and other peoples.

In the field of healing, traditional skills and techniques were consolidated and developed during this period, the range of medicines was expanded, the tools for healing were made of metal (copper, bronze, iron), and assistance was provided to wounded community members during frequent wars.

The operative methods of healing that were carried out in synopolite tribes that were at the stage of decomposition of primitive society also include ritual circumcision at the time of initiation, amputation of limbs, and according to some sources, and caesarean section.

In 1885 a book by R. Felkin (R. Felkin) was published in Marburg, in which the traveler gave a description of the cesarean section that struck him, which was successfully performed in his presence in one of the tribes of Central Africa:.

A twenty-year-old woman, Pervorozhnitsa, completely naked, lay on a slightly inclined board, the headboard of which rested against the wall of the hut. Under the influence of banana wine she was in a half asleep state. She was tied to her box with three bandages. The operator with a knife in his hands was on the left side, one of his assistants kept his knees, the other fixed the lower abdomen. Having washed out his hands and lower abdomen operated first with banana wine and then water, the operator, uttering a loud cry, which picked up the crowd gathered around the hut, made a cut from the pubic junction almost to the navel. With this incision, he cut both the abdominal walls and the uterus itself; one assistant burned the bleeding spots with a great art with a red-hot iron, another pushed the wound edges apart to give the surgeon the opportunity to extract the baby from the uterus. Having removed the placenta separated in the meantime and formed blood convolutions, the operator, with the assistance of his assistants, moved the patient to the edge of the operating table and turned it on its side so that fluid could flow out of the abdominal cavity. Only after all this, the edges of the abdominal covers were joined with seven thin, well-polished studs. The latter were wrapped with strong threads. A paste was applied to the wound, which was prepared by thoroughly chewing two different roots and spitting the resulting pulp into the pot; on top of the paste was applied heated; banana. • met and all these? fortified with your help; a kind of bandage.

... Recovery came on the eleventh day.

During the period of decomposition of primitive society, the formation of class inequality led to intra-tribal stratification, strengthening of tribal organization, and consequently, to strengthening the cult of tribal patrons and religious ideas.

This led to the emergence of professional ministers of worship (Fig. 6). The scope of their activities included: preservation and transfer of positive1 knowledge, interpretation of customs and religious functions, healing, legal proceedings, and so on. Often their main occupation was healing. Over time, religious rites became increasingly mysterious and incomprehensible to the majority of the community members.

The formation of healing magic took place against the background of already established empirical knowledge and practical skills of primitive healing, which began at the dawn of human history long before the appearance of religious rites. Consequently, the cult rituals of healing were a secondary phenomenon — practice and empirical experience, and not magic, were the basis from which the beginnings of healing appeared.

Nowadays, in some countries of Asia, America, Africa, on the islands of Oceania, folk healers — healers — have survived. They are called differently: in South America - Kuran-Déro, in some parts of Brazil - Paz, on the west coast of Africa - Ngdmbo, in Central Africa - Nganga, in the north of Africa and in Eastern countries - hack, in India - war and hakim in Bangladesh - cobie-rises, etc.

The healer perfectly knows the flora and fauna of the surrounding area, more than anyone from the tribesmen, he is devoted to the laws and customs of the tribe, unshakably keeps them and passes them by inheritance. Being a subtle psychologist, he perfectly understands his audience, who believes in him endlessly.

A profound professional analysis of the activities of the folk healers of the sinpolite tribes of America, Africa, Asia and Oceania of the middle of our century is given in the book of the American dentist G. Wright “Witness of witchcraft”, translated into Russian in 1971. G. Wright notes that healers that he had to meet, "all were people with a high level of professional training ... All these servants of ancient art perfectly know the means of controlling the mood of the masses, about which modern psychological science is only o begins to guess ”(pp. 72-73).

The healer is not trying to treat the "white man's disease." He knows that he is powerless against tropical or yellow fever, “but when the disease is within the limits of its primitive“ science ”, it is taken for treatment with all energy, enthusiasm and ... wisdom. Often he manages to cope with diseases before which even modern medicine could retreat ”(p. 66).

“He often uses herbs and drugs whose healing properties are dubious ... Using sleight of hand, he can“ materialize ”a spider or lizard, and he works in front of viewers, among whom there are no skeptics. He applies hypnosis and self-hypnosis. He uses fetishes to instill faith, and to create an atmosphere of fear, he does not stop before killing ”(p. 73).

"I had to witness how he, using all means of a magician, wizard and psychologist, completely subjugated the superstitious consciousness of his fellow tribesmen and achieved results that clearly exceeded the capabilities of modern medicine and the talents of its best representatives ... The healer with simplest methods in a few minutes achieves results for which our highly paid psychiatrists need months and even years ”(pp. 65, 64).

In general, G. Wright defines healers as an “economic parasite,” whose task is to maintain the health of the community, both physical and spiritual, and technology is a “strange combination of natural“ supernatural elements of intuition and common sense ”(p. 199).

Preparation of healers was conducted (and is currently underway) individually. Knowledge was kept secret and passed from parent to children or the most capable child of the tribe chosen for this purpose. Great importance was attached to the cultivation of courage and endurance. So, in Africa in synpolitean tribes of the valley r. Ubang's student choice began with a test, during which the boys were repeatedly forced, before fainting, to breathe smoke in a special hut, and then subjected to testing by very voracious large ants (standing ankle-deep in water, the boys held in their hands large pieces of an anthill, from where enraged insects ran out; the one who was the last to throw in the water won. In America, the future curandero had to prove that he had received his mission with the blessings of the great ancestors of the tribe, and then, apart from society, to prepare for his profession. In India, students of Vedya from childhood studied natural medicines and methods of their use, texts of sacred books that were supposed to be pronounced during healing, as well as mysterious techniques designed to defeat the mighty evil disease.

In the modern world, the evaluation of primitive healing is not straightforward. On the one hand, his rational traditions and vast empirical experience (despite a limited arsenal of medical remedies and techniques) HAVE BEEN DETERMINED of the Sources of traditional medicine of subsequent eras and, in the end, of modern scientific medicine. On the other hand, the irrational traditions of primitive healing emerged as a natural result of a perverse outlook and difficult conditions of the struggle of a primitive man with a powerful and incomprehensible nature; their critical: the day should not serve as a pretext for denying the centuries-old rational experience of the primitive zznia physician as a whole.

Medical treatment in the primitive era was not: - it was primitive for its time, and therefore cannot be called  primitive medicine. "

"... Gray-haired antiquity," wrote F. Engels, "under all circumstances will remain for all future generations an extraordinarily interesting era, because it forms the basis of all later higher development, because it has as its starting point the separation of man from the animal kingdom, and its content is the overcoming of such difficulties that the future associated people will never meet again. ” The end of the primitive era coincides with the beginning of the history of class societies and states when more than five thousand years ago the first civilizations began to emerge. However, the remnants of the primitive communal system persisted in all periods of human history. They continue to remain today in the tribes living on the constantly narrowing periphery of class societies. This makes it possible to scientifically study healing in modern synpolytic societies of Aboriginal people in Australia, Asia, Africa and the islands of Oceania, which is important for the development of modern scientific medicine and the development of national health systems in developing countries (involving popular healers in public health programs, using positive heritage traditional medicine), as is already done in several countries