Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the knowledgeable and the initiated. This belief has erroneously been classified as animism. The
objects and animals so considered are not “worshipped” but consulted or used as instruments or
means of achieving certain objectives, including healing. They are essentially inert, and the force
imbued by nature in them is restricted by the physical manifestation of their existence. This force
of nature is actually the very essence of the thing itself: human, beast, tree, or stone. Thunder,
lightning, and other natural phenomena, usually explainable and accommodated by physical laws
of modern science, are personified and given a cosmic place. Each has its own personality, which is
specific, limited in definite ways, and very much like the object it inhabits or its form of manifesta-
tion. It is common to see a traditional healer talking to a tree or a stone—challenging the material
obstacle of the object to appeal to the life force within, to control and use it for the benefit of his
or her patient. To the traditional African, the struggle for existence between all creatures, includ-
ing plants and even stones, is a very real struggle, each individual holding its place by some innate
strength of personality. “On the other realm is the delicate coexistence of the living forms, inani-
mate forces, spirits gods, the apparently dead and the living dead.”
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Life itself is seen as inseparable
from religion. The preservation, restoration, and enhancement of health necessarily involves the
whole human community, the apparent dead, spirits and gods, the natural environment, and God.
To an African, there are two levels of the intellect: the “normative” or practical and the “resid-
ual” or habitual. It is the active intellect that controls cleverness, tactfulness, slyness, and learn-
ing; the residual intellect is concerned with what Jahn calls “habitual intelligence”: wisdom, active
knowledge.
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It is therefore possible for one to be endowed with an active intellect, excel in topic
intelligence, and yet remain empty in the residual intellect.
The rural African, though unable to read and write, still considers his or her urban brethren
and their Western neighbors as “really disarmingly naive!” and as having no intelligence. Jahn
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(p. 1137), recounted that when a Ruwandese woman was challenged with the following: “How can
you say something so stupid? Have you been able, like them, to invent so many marvels that exceed
our imagination?” she was credited with offering the following reply with a pitying smile: “Listen,
my child! They have learned all that, but they understand nothing!” The “uneducated” woman was
merely emphasizing the apparent ignorance of Western-oriented minds regarding the fundamental
nature of the world and laws governing the relationship between things.
A healer's power is determined not only by the number of efficacious herbs he or she knows but
also by the magnitude of the healer's understanding of the natural laws and ability to utilize them
for the benefit of his or her patient and the whole community. The healer should be knowledgeable
of the taboos and totems, without which the entire community will disintegrate.
The African healer therefore questions strongly any form of treatment that focuses on only the
organic diseased state and ignores the spiritual side of the illness. The sterile use, per se, of different
leaves, roots, fruits, barks, grasses, and various objects such as minerals, dead insects, bones, feath-
ers, shells, eggs, powders, and the smoke from different burning objects for the cure and prevention
of diseases is only an aspect of traditional African medicine. All creatures and objects are believed
to possess some psychic quality. If a sick person is given a leaf infusion to drink, the person drinks
it believing not only in the organic properties of the plant but also in the magical or spiritual force
imbued by nature in all living things and the role of his or her ancestors, spirits, and gods in the
healing processes. The patient also believes in the powers of the incantation recited by the healer
and assists the healer in the designation of the ingredients of the remedies given, from mere objects
into healing tools.
The art of healing is part of African religion; there is a peculiar unity of religion and life that
is characteristically African. Healing in Africa is concerned with the restoration or preservation of
human vitality, wholeness, and continuity. It is a religious act, perhaps superseded by only the ritu-
als of birth, puberty, marriage, and death.
A fundamental belief that is central to all African philosophy is the belief in the existence of one
supreme being, God; but, he is not viewed in the same manner as the Christian God or the Moslem
