Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
an integral part of African life. In sickness, the situation is more a case of the grass suffering as
elephants fight. This explains why there is little thought of physical preventive medicine or prophy-
laxis. How can one prevent an event, an activity, or a situation beyond the control of human forces?
At best, the African performs all the sacrifices, rituals, and death rites demanded and resigns him-
or herself to the gods, his or her ancestors, and God. It is wrong to ascribe this belief to some 'creep-
ing metaphysical pessimism,' or a fatalistic resignation to fate and predestination, or a metaphysical
excuse for a culture of defeatism. The African merely acknowledges a limitation to human ability
to determine the order of things.
SPIrIt POSSESSION
In nearly all African communities, some diseases are attributed to effects of spirit possession.
Such sicknesses are manifested in different forms, depending on the type of spirit involved. This
type of spirit possession should not be confused with the type observed with several priestly heal-
ers, who need to make contact with spirits of the departed lineage members and the deities to solicit
their help in the healing process. In East and Central Africa, it is the mbyi (pi. Wabuyi) that are
expected, through such possession, to relay the decisions of the spirits at times of calamity and to
determine the origin of serious illness.
Such positive spirit possession could be used for the improvement of fertility, increase in harvest,
and the induction of rain. The Nsenga people of East Africa, for example, have a spirit medium, the
enevula,
that is possessed by the
Ngwesa
spirit that controls rain, while the
Chiuta
spirit possession
gives the medium power to uncover sorcerers and other forms of divination.
It should be noted that spirits of children and sorcerers are not usually honored or expected to
possess anybody. It is believed that the spirits of children did not reside on Earth long enough to
develop an interest in its well-being, and those of sorcerers exhibited their lack of interest in the
strength and continuity of the community by their evil deeds. Furthermore, spirits are connective
links between the living and departed members of the community, and possession by the spirits of
relatively young children serves no useful purpose.
Makhwango, Mashawe,
and
Malombo
are some of the generic names used in parts of southern
Africa (the Ngoni-, Nsenga-, and Swahili-speaking peoples) for spirit possession by deities.
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The
symptoms or collection of symptoms are easily recognized; treatment is usually sought from the
Waganga (traditional healers), with experience appropriate for such illness. It is considered futile to
treat an illness due to spirit possession with herbs alone.
SYMBOLS aND artIFaCtS IN aFrICaN EthNOMEDICINE
One of the most often misunderstood aspects of the practice of traditional medicine in Africa
is the use of symbols, artifacts, and rituals in healing and as part of the healer's paraphernalia. The
artifacts are simple material objects, whether animate or inanimate, that through consecration or
invocation have become activated as ritual objects or serve as symbolic representatives of an actual
phenomenon. It is the transcendence of their physical form to become subjects rather than objects
that informs their use in rituals.
According to Aniakor,
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(quoting Robert Armstrong in parts), they have become special by vir-
tue of the fact that, through invocation, they serve as power centers or channels of power. Ordinarily,
they have no power, or at least not of the magnitude imbued to it by invocation. Instead of being
things, they acquire a transcendent status to become forces or powers of presence.
It can never be overemphasized that the powers bestowed on these artifacts have to be willed
or invoked by humans in the first instance. Anything can be used as an artifact: statuary objects
