Traditional African medicine is a holistic discipline involving
indigenous herbalism and African spirituality, typically involving
diviners, midwives, and herbalists.
Practitioners of
traditional African medicine claim to be able to cure various and
diverse conditions such as cancers, psychiatric disorders, high blood
pressure, cholera, most venereal diseases, epilepsy, asthma, eczema,
fever, anxiety, depression, benign prostatic hyperplasia, urinary tract
infections, gout, and healing of wounds and burns.
Diagnosis
is reached through spiritual means and a treatment is prescribed,
usually consisting of an herbal remedy that has not only healing
abilities, but symbolic and spiritual significance.
Traditional
African medicine, with its belief that illness is not derived from
chance occurrences, but through spiritual or social imbalance, differs
greatly from Western medicine, which is technically and analytically
based.
In the 21st century, modern pharmaceuticals and
medical procedures remain inaccessible to large numbers of African
people due to their relatively high cost and concentration of health
centres in urban centres. In recent years, African medical practitioners
have acknowledged that they have much to learn from traditional medical
practice.
Colonial era
Modern
science has, in the past, considered methods of traditional knowledge as
primitive and backward. Under colonial rule, traditional
diviner-healers were outlawed because they were considered by many
nations to be practitioners of witchcraft and declared illegal by the
colonial authorities, creating a war against witchcraft and magic.
During this time, attempts were also made to control the sale of herbal
medicines.
After Mozambique obtained independence in
1975, attempts to control traditional medicine went as far as sending
diviner-healers to re-education camps. As colonialism and Christianity
spread through Africa, colonialists built general hospitals and
Christian missionaries built private ones, with the hopes of making
headway against widespread diseases.
Little was done to
investigate the legitimacy of these practices, as many foreigners
believed that the native medical practices were pagan and superstitious
and could only be suitably fixed by inheriting Western methods.
During
times of conflict, opposition has been particularly vehement as people
are more likely to call on the supernatural realm. Consequently,
doctors and health practitioners have, in most cases, continued to shun
traditional practitioners despite their contribution to meeting the
basic health needs of the population.
Modern period
In
recent years, the treatments and remedies used in traditional African
medicine have gained more appreciation from researchers in Western
science. Developing countries have begun to realize the high costs of
modern health care systems and the technologies that are required, thus
proving Africa's dependence to it.
Due to this, interest
has recently been expressed in integrating traditional African medicine
into the continent's national health care systems. An African healer
embraced this concept by making a 48-bed hospital, the first of its
kind, in Kwa-Mhlanga, South Africa, which combines traditional methods
with homeopathy, iridology, and other Western healing methods, even
including some traditional Asian medicine.
However, the
highly sophisticated technology involved in modern medicine, which is
beginning to integrate into Africa's health care system, could possibly
destroy Africa's deep-seated cultural values.
Diagnostics
The
diagnoses and chosen methods of treatment in traditional African
medicine rely heavily on spiritual aspects, often based on the belief
that psycho-spiritual aspects should be addressed before medical
aspects. In African culture, it is believed that "nobody becomes sick
without sufficient reason."
Traditional practitioners
look at the ultimate "who" rather than the "what" when locating the
cause and cure of an illness, and the answers given come from the
cosmological beliefs of the people.
Rather than looking to
the medical or physical reasons behind an illness, traditional healers
attempt to determine the root cause underlying it, which is believed
to stem from a lack of balance between the patient and his or her
social environment or the spiritual world, not by natural causes.
Natural
causes are, in fact, not seen as natural at all, but manipulations of
spirits or the gods. For example, sickness is sometimes said to be
attributed to guilt by the person, family, or village for a sin or
moral infringement. The illness, therefore, would stem from the
displeasure of the gods or God, due to an infraction of universal moral
law.
According to the type of imbalance the individual is
experiencing, an appropriate healing plant will be used, which is
valued for its symbolic and spiritual significance as well as for its
medicinal effect.
When a person falls ill, a traditional
practitioner uses incantations to make a diagnosis. Incantations are
thought to give the air of mystical and cosmic connections. Divination
is typically used if the illness is not easily identified, otherwise,
the sickness may be quickly diagnosed and given a remedy.
If
divination is required, then the practitioner will advise the patient
to consult a diviner who can further give a diagnosis and cure. Contact
with the spirit world through divination often requires not only
medication, but sacrifices.
Treatments
Traditional
practitioners use a wide variety of treatments ranging from "magic" to
biomedical methods such as fasting and dieting, herbal therapies,
bathing, massage, and surgical procedures. Migraines, coughs, abscesses,
and pleurisy are often cured using the method of "bleed-cupping" after
which an herbal ointment is applied with follow-up herbal drugs.
Animals
are also sometimes used to transfer the illness to afterward. Some
cultures also rub hot herbal ointment across the patient's eyelids to
cure Headaches. Malaria is cured by both drinking and using the steam
from an herbal mixture. Fevers are often cured using a steam bath.
Also,
vomiting is induced, or emetics, to cure some diseases. For example,
raw beef is soaked in the drink of an alcoholic person to induce
vomiting and nausea and cure alcoholism. In Bight of Benin, the natives
have been known to use the fat of a boa constrictor to cure gout and
rheumatism, it also is thought to relieve chest pain when rubbed into
the skin.
Medicinal plants
Africa
is endowed with many plants that can be used for medicinal purposes to
which they have taken full advantage. In fact, out of the approximated
6400 plant species used in tropical Africa, more than 4000 are used as
medicinal plants.
Medicinal plants are used in the
treatments of many diseases and illnesses, the uses and effects of
which are of growing interest to Western societies.
Not only are plants used and chosen for their healing abilities, but they also often have symbolic and spiritual significance.
For
example, leaves, seeds, and twigs that are white, black and red are
seen as especially symbolic or magical and possess special properties.
Preparing and drying out freshly dug traditional medicines (muti)
- Pygeum (Prunus africana):
Pygeum is not only used in traditional African medicine, but has
developed a following around the world, as a cure for mild-to-moderate
benign prostatic hyperplasia, claimed by its users to increase the ease
of urination and reduce inflammation and cholesterol deposits. In
traditional African practice, the bark is made into tea, whereas
elsewhere in the world it is found in powders, tinctures, and pills.
Pygeum has been sold in Europe since the 1970s and is harvested in mass
quantities in Cameroon and Madagascar each year.
- Securidaca Longepedunculata:
This is a tropical plant found almost everywhere across the continent
with different uses in every part of Africa. In Tanzania, the dried bark
and root are used as a laxative for nervous system disorders, with one
cup of the mixture being taken daily for two weeks. In East Africa,
dried leaves from the plant are used in the treatment of wounds and
sores, coughs, venereal diseases, and snakebites. In Malawi, the leaves
are also used for wounds, coughs, venereal diseases, and snakebites, as
well as bilharzia, and the dried leaves are used to cure headaches. In
other parts of the continent, parts of the plant are used to cure skin
diseases, malaria, impotence, epilepsy, and are also used as an
aphrodisiac.
A study, entitled
ACE Inhibitor Activity of Nutritive Plants in Kwa-Zulu Natal,
was conducted by Irene Mackraj and S. Ramesar, both of the Department
of Physiology and Physiological Chemistry; and H. Baijnath, Department
of Biological and Conservation Sciences; University of Kwa-Zulu Natal,
Durban, South Africa to examine the effectiveness of 16 plants growing
in Africa's KwaZulu-Natal region, concluding that eight plant extracts
may hold value for treating high blood pressure (hypertension).The
plants (known locally as muti) used by traditional healers that the team
examined were:
Of the 16 plants,
Amaranthus dubius,
Amaranthus hybridus, Asystasia gangetica, Galinsoga parviflora,
Justicia flava, Oxygonum sinuatum, Physalis viscosa, and
Tulbaghia violacea
were found to have some positive effects, with the latter proving to
be the most promising with the ability to lower one's blood pressure.
Spirituality
Famous
Bedik diviner outside Iwol, southeast Senegal (West Africa). He
predicted outcomes by examining the color of the organs of sacrificed
chickens.
Some healers may employ the use of charms,
incantations, and the casting of spells in their treatments. The
dualistic nature of traditional African medicine between the body and
soul, matter, and spirit and their interactions with one another are
also seen as a form of magic. Richard Onwuanibe gives one form of magic
the name "Extra-Sensory-Trojection."
This is the belief
among the Ibos of Nigeria that medicine men can implant something into a
person from a distance to inflict sickness on them. This is referred
to by the Ibos as
egba ogwu. To remove the malignant object, the
intervention of a second medicine man is typically required, who then
removes it by making an incision in the patient.
Egba ogwu
involves psychokinetic processes. Another form of magic used by these
practitioners, which is more widely known, is sympathetic magic, in
which a model is made of the victim. Actions performed on the model are
transferred to the victim, in a manner similar to the familiar voodoo
doll.
"In cases where spirits of deceased relatives
trouble the living and cause illness, medicine men prescribe remedies,
often in the form of propitiatory sacrifice, in order to put them to
rest so that they will no longer trouble the living, especially
children."
Using charms and amulets to cure diseases and
illnesses is an uncertain and clouded practice that requires more
scientific investigation.
In African cultures, the act of
healing is considered a religious act. Therefore, the healing process
often attempts to appeal to God because it is ultimately God who can
not only inflict sickness, but provide a cure.
Africans
have a religious world view which makes them aware of the feasibility
of divine or spirit intervention in healing with many healers referring
to the supreme god as the source of their medical power.
For
example, the !Kung people of the Kalahari Desert believe that the
great God Hishe created all things and, therefore, controls all
sickness and death. Hishe, however, bestows mystical powers for curing
sickness on certain men. Hishe presents himself to these medicine men
in dreams and hallucinations, giving them curative power.
Because
this god is generous enough to give this power to the medicine men,
they are expected to practice healing freely. The !Kung medicine men
effect a cure by performing a tribal dance.Loma Marshall, who took
expeditions to South West Africa with her family to study the !Kung
people, writing two books on their findings, describes the ceremonial
curing dance as follows:
At the dances not only may
the sick be cured, but pending evil and misfortune averted. The !Kung
believe that the great god may send Gauwa or the gauwas
at any time with ill for someone and that these beings may be lurking
awaiting their chance to inflict it. The medicine men in the dances
combat them, drive them away, and protect the people.c Usually there are
several medicine men performing at the same time. To cure they go into
trance, which varies in depth as the eremony proceeds... When a man
begins, he leaves the line of dancing men, and still singing, leans over
the person he is going to cure, going eventually to every person
present, even the infants. He places one hand on the person's chest, one
on his or her back, and flutters his hands. The !Kung believe that in
this way he draws the sickness, real or potential, out of the person
through his own arms into himself... Finally, the medicine man throws up
his arms to cast the sickness out, hurling it into the darkness back
to Gauwa or the gauwasi, who are there beyond the firelight, with a harp, yelping cry of "Kai Kai Kai."[8]
Loma
Marshall does not give any information as to whether or not the dance
is successful in curing the patient but says that it purges the
people's emotions for their "support and solace and hope."
Traditional medicinal practitioners
Many
traditional medicinal practitioners are people without education, who
have rather received knowledge of medicinal plants and their effects on
the human body from their forebears.
They have a deep and personal involvement in the healing process and protect the therapeutic knowledge by keeping it a secret.
Successful Cesarean section performed by indigenous healers in Kahura, Uganda. As observed by R. W. Felkin in 1879.
In
a manner similar to orthodox medicinal practice, the practitioners of
traditional medicine specialize in particular areas of their profession.
Some, such as the inyangas of Swaziland are experts in herbalism,
whilst others, such as the South African sangomas, are experts in
spiritual healing as diviners, and others specialize in a combination
of both forms of practice. There are also traditional bone setters and
birth attendants.
Herbalists are becoming more and more
popular in Africa with an emerging herb trading market in Durban that is
said to attract between 700,000 and 900,000 traders per year from South
Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. Smaller trade markets exist in
virtually every community.
Their knowledge of herbs has
been invaluable in African communities and they were the only ones who
could gather them in most societies. Midwives also make extensive use
of indigenous plants to aid childbirth. African healers commonly
"describe and explain illness in terms of social interaction and act on
the belief that religion permeates every aspect of human existence."
Payments
Traditional
healers, like any other profession, are rewarded for their services.
In African societies, the payment for a treatment depends on its
efficacy.
They do not request payment until after the
treatment is given. This is another reason many prefer traditional
healers to western doctors who require payment before the patient has
assessed the effectiveness of the treatment.
The payment
methods have changed over time, with many practitioners now asking for
monetary payment, especially in urban settings, rather than their
receiving good in exchange, as happened formerly.
Learning the trade
Some
healers learn the trade through personal experience while being
treated as a patient who decide to become healers upon recovery. Others
become traditional practitioners through a "spiritual calling" and,
therefore, their diagnoses and treatments are decided through the
supernatural.
In some cultures, a sign of calling can come from mental disarrangement said to be caused by
agwu Nshi,
the spirit of divining, through which the healer gains inspiration.
Through this training, psychological stability is eventually attained.
Another
route is receive the knowledge and skills passed down informally from a
close family member such as a father or uncle, or even a mother or
aunt in the case of midwives. Apprenticeship to an established
practitioner, who formally teaches the trade over a long period of time
and is paid for their tutoring, is another route to becoming a healer.
The
training is complex, depending on the kind of medical practice that
the aspiring practitioner wants to be a part of. Once the trainee is
officially initiated as a healer, they are, in some societies,
considered to be half-man and half spirit, possessing the power to
mediate between the human and supernatural world to invoke spiritual
power in their healing processes.
Importance
In
Africa, the importance of traditional healers and remedies made from
indigenous plants play a crucial role in the health of millions.
According to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), one
estimate puts the number of Africans who routinely use these services
for primary health care as high as 85% in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The
relative ratios of traditional practitioners and university trained
doctors in relation to the whole population in African countries
showcases this importance. For example, in Ghana, in Kwahu district,
for every traditional practitioner there are 224 people, against one
university trained doctor for nearly 21,000. In Swaziland, the same
situation applies, where for every healer there are 110 people whereas
for every university trained doctor there are 10,000 people.
According
to Nairobi-based specialist in biodiversity and traditional medicine
with the IDRC Francois Gasengayire, there is one healer for every 200
people in the Southern Africa region which is a much greater
doctor-to-patient ratio than is found in North America.
Ratios
of doctors (practicing Western medicine) and traditional medical
practitioners to patients in east and southern Africa:[2]
*TMP refers to Traditional Medical Practitioner
Note: References with an asterisk are in Cunningham, 1993.[2]
This
table showing the ratio of traditional medical practitioner to patient
and Western practitioner to patient shows that in many parts of
Africa, practitioners trained in Western medicine are few and far
between. Because of this, healers prove to be a large and influential
group in primary health care and an integral part of the African culture
and are required for the health of its people. Without them, many
people would go untreated.
Medications and treatments that
Western pharmaceutical companies manufacture are far too costly and
not available widely enough for most Africans. Many rural African
communities are not able to afford the high price of pharmaceuticals
and can not readily obtain them even if they were affordable;
therefore, healers are their only means of medical help.
According
to Dr. Sekagya Yahaya Hills, who is a university-trained dentist and a
traditional healer in Uganda, there are promising signs that some of
the plant-based remedies offered by medicine-men are not just
affordable, but also effective, even in treating AIDS.
Dr.
Hills read his Declaration of Traditional Healers at the 13th
International Conference on AIDS and sexually transmitted infections
(STIs) in Africa, which summarized the important role of traditional
medicine, stating: "As traditional healers, we are the most trusted and
accessible health care providers in our communities.
We
have varied and valuable experience in treating AIDS-related illness
and accept the great responsibility of continuing to do so."
Because
this form of medicine is "the most affordable and accessible system of
health care for the majority of the African rural population," the
African Union declared 2001 to 2010 to be the Decade for African
Traditional Medicine with the goal of making "safe, efficacious,
quality, and affordable traditional medicines available to the vast
majority of the people."
Relationship with Western medicine
Although
Western medicine is successful in developed countries, it doesn't have
the same positive impact in many of the underdeveloped African
countries. Though Western practices can make an impact in health care
practices, in certain areas such as in the spread of various diseases,
it cannot integrate wholly into the culture and society. This makes the
traditional African practitioners a vital part of their health care
system.
There are many reasons why the Western medical
system does not work in Africa. Hospitals and medical facilities are
difficult for many Africans to get to. With vast areas of land and poor
road and transportation systems, many native Africans have to travel
immense distances on foot to reach help.
Once they arrive
they are often required to wait in line for up to 8 hours, especially
in urban areas, as the lack of clinics and resources cause
over-crowding. Patients are often not told the cause of their illness
or much information about it all, so they have no way to prevent or
prepare for it. The technology used is usually of poor quality, which
affects the quality of treatment.
Western medicine is
also too expensive for the average African to afford, making it
difficult for them to receive proper care. Finally, Western medicine
removes native Africans from the culture and tradition and forces them
into a setting that they are not comfortable with, away from their
family and traditions which are of utmost importance to them. They do
not get the proper spiritual healing that their culture seeks and
traditional ideology requires.
However, there has been
more interest expressed recently in the effects of some of the medicinal
plants of Africa. "The pharmaceutical industry has come to consider
traditional medicine as a source for identification of bio-active
agents that can be used in the preparation of synthetic medicine."
Pharmaceutical industries are looking into the medicinal effects of the most commonly and widely used plants to use in drugs.
It's
apparent that there are some things that can be learned from
traditional African practice. In comparing the techniques of African
healers and Western techniques, Dr. T. Adeoze Lambo, a Nigerian
psychiatrist, stated, "At about three years ago, we made an evaluation,
a programme of their work, and compared this with our own, and we
discovered that actually they were scoring almost sixty percent success
in their treatment of neurosis. And we were scoring forty percent-in
fact, less than forty percent."
Prof Muluka
www.profmuluka.com
http://www.profmuluka.com/traditional-healer.html
info@profmuluka.com
Tel : +256 77 367 2940
