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The Phu Tai still retain their own unique culture resent the diversity of the Phu Tai traditional healers.
and beliefs, and health-care system, which is still A variety of research tools were used to generate
strictly practiced in most settlements. Because of this, data on the perceptual framework of the diseases/
the ethnomedicine and herbs used among the Phu illnesses and health conditions treated, and the meth-
Tai have high potential for contributing toward the ods of treatment. These tools include profile inter-
knowledge of Thai traditional medicine. In the past, view, socio-demographic interview, free-lists, health
studies of traditional medical knowledge of the Phu condition logs, observation and unstructured inter-
Tai focused mainly on their spiritual ceremony, or çYaoé views, treatment method interviews, participatory ob-
3 9,10
(‡À¬“) , and on herbal uses in particular provinces of servation and specimen collection.
4-6
the Northeast.
Population and sample of healers
Five major aspects of ethnomedicine include the
system of treatment, health condition and treatment Since most of the Phu Tais live in four north-
range among healers, preparation methods, materia eastern provinces of Thailand: Kalasin, Sakon Nakhon,
medica, and the defining characteristics and socio- Nakhon Phanom, and Mukdahan, list of the Phu Tai
3
demographic characteristics of the healers. By fo- traditional healers from these provinces was retrieved
cusing the research on these topics, it is possible to from the databases compiled by the provincial public
build a comprehensive study of the Phu Tai tradi- health offices. The sample size of the healers in-
tional medical system. cluded in this research was calculated using the fol-
11
This paper is the first part of a report on tradi- lowing formula:
2
tional medical knowledge of the Phu Tai in north- Z α/2 P (1-P)
sample size (n) =
eastern Thailand and will be focused on the research d 2
methodology applied in this research and on the popu- Purposive sampling or judgement sampling,
12
lation of sampled healers. as described by Bernard, was developed for further
selection of the limited sample of healers for in-depth
Objectives studies according to established criteria.

The purposes of this research are (1) to define
the health conditions treated, and treatment meth- Profile interviews
ods, (2) to identify the herbs or remedies used in their A structured interview was used to collect data;
treatments, including the methods of preparing them, it was used to determine whether the healers passed
(3) to examine the relationship between traditional the established criteria to enter the final sample group
healers and local natural resources, and (4) to deter- for in-depth studies.
mine the effect of socio-demographic factors on ma-
Socio-demographic interviews 13,14
teria medica knowledge. However, the objectives of
the work reported in this paper are (1) to discuss the The socio-demographic interviews were applied
general research methodoloy applied in this research, in this study to record variables on the process used
and (2) to select the healers who will represent the in obtaining and passing on knowledge, treatment
Phu Tai healers in northeastern Thailand for the in- activities among healers, birthplace and ethnicity, sex
depth study. and age, number of years of practice, multiple treat-
ment skills, languages and literacy, household wealth,
Methodology family size, population of village, ethnicity of village,

The framework of this study is based on the and distance to district center and health clinic. The
principles of ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, and interviews were conducted among two groups of
7,8
ethnomedicine. Social science methods were used people. Among the leaders of the village, socio-de-
to determine a population and sample which well rep- mographic interviews were conducted as structured