Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
thE SPECIaLISt
There are many more traditional healers whose highly specialized skills have not been dis-
cussed here. Some are priests; others are gifted ordinary people with the secrets to cure some spe-
cific intractable diseases. In Western medicine, such healers would be referred to as “consultants,”
but in traditional African medical practice, they are respected more as priests and are consulted
only on the advice of a fortune-teller. Such fortune-tellers include representatives of the many river
goddesses, deities, oracles, and leaders of ancient religious cults.
It is perhaps convenient to introduce at this stage the cure of repeated infantile deaths in a
family. The healers involved in such cases are specialists who deal exclusively with intractable
pediatric diseases, often fatal, ascribed to the child's primordial wish to die very early in life.
Abiku
in Yoruba,
elanaso
in Efik, and
ogbanje
in Igbo all refer to children condemned by fate to a cycle
of early death and rebirths to the same mother. In Central Africa such “spirit-children” and sur-
viving twins are protected with amulets made from eagle feathers, the nests of some insects, and
secret plants. Achebe
11
and Mobolade
12
studied this phenomenon among the Igbos and Yorubas of
Nigeria, respectively. These children are believed to have made a pact in their spiritual world to
visit Earth briefly. Such children often subject themselves to several reincarnations only to die each
time shortly after birth to torment their unsuspecting parents. With the fall in the infant mortality
rate in Africa because of modernization, the demand for the services of these specialists is now
greatly reduced. Another variant of the same kind of phenomenon is Di-uwa, in which young girls
are believed to have been married to spirits before they were born into this world, and any attempt
to marry them to mortals is usually fatal. The jealous deity usually attacks the prospective suitor or
the girl herself with a serious disease or even death.
The belief in ogbanje is so strong among the tribes of southern Nigeria that it has been argued
as an attempt to explain the high infant mortality due to sickle-cell anemia, leukemia, and even
malaria. Such explanation is too simplistic to be true and does not accommodate tales of identical
birthmarks and knife scars observed on branded ogbanje children during their brief visitations
to Earth.
Other groups of specialists who constitute a blessing to the livelihood of the African are the
rainmakers. A traditional African society depends on rain; both farmers and pastoralists rejoice
when it rains. Rain is so important that, among the Luvedu, the queen is also their supreme rain-
maker. “He who brings rain brings life,” the Zulu will say, and they speak of rainmakers as the
“shepherds of heaven.” The natives of Karamojo (Uganda) who witnessed the severe drought of
1979 cannot but echo such high praises for the rainmaker. The Koma and the Udhuk venerate rain-
makers as gods, offering the rainmakers gifts and homage.
The process of rainmaking is rather complicated and varies enormously from place to place.
The Igbo people burn sacred herbs and call on the rain god with broomsticks; the Koma rainmakers
live in caves and restrict their drinks to milk, and only drink water publicly to initiate rainmaking
ceremonies. It
is alleged that the Akambas formerly buried a living child as part of the ceremony
for rain during severe drought. The rainmakers play a definite role in the treatment of pandemic
diseases, when their rain is needed to “wash” away the plague. The most important thing is that
African rainmakers are not fakirs; how they make rain, however, is yet to be understood. Rain is
viewed as a sacred and phenomenal gift from God, the most explicit expression of God's goodness,
providence, and love. This important herald of creation serves as a first sign (droughts and flood) of
the anger of the creator. Rainmakers represent the people's contact with the blessings of time and
eternity, a link between humans and the divine. The rainmakers do not rely exclusively on their
spiritual powers; they are well versed in weather and environmental matters and may spend long
periods of apprenticeship acquiring their knowledge.
13
They obtain information from other rain-
makers; from interpreting the clouds; by studying the habits of trees, insects, and animals; and from
