Cultural Construction of Childhood Diseases Among The Migili-Koro Ethnic Group of Nasarawa State, Nigeria

The paper is an explorative description on cultural construction of childhood diseases among the Migili-Koro society of Nasarawa State. There are little or no empirically studies on the cultural construction of childhood diseases in Migili-Koro society. The paper is focuses on exploring the world view of parents in Migili-Koro society on their cultural knowledge about the causes of certain childhood diseases. It adopted Adebayo Lambo's Culture-bound Theory of diseases as Framework. Data were obtained through the qualitative approach that consisted of In-depth interview,' Key informant and Focus group discussions. The paper revealed that, cultural beliefs pervades the Migili-Koro society, and is still very strong in spite of modernization, advent of Western education and even Christianity. Empirical findings revealed that, traditional religious beliefs associated with the evil manipulation of malevolent forces, superstitious belief, the lack of moral conduct, especially on the part of mothers as it relates to marital infidelity, as well as evil intention of relations or neighbours in form of anger, envy, and jealousy were major underlying cultural construction in childhood diseases in Migili-Koro society.