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African Healers
This article is a repost from Dr. Maria Frances Daly's now defunct .com website, thewomenshealthinstitute. All rights reserved to the owner of said intellectual property.
Patient Education--- Cultural Differences in Healing---African Healers
Disease and misfortune are Religious experiences. Gods punishment for wrong deeds.
Illness is caused by spirits, another person, or God, for mischief or misdeeds.
Health and illness are balances in conflicting forces of ancestors, or other living people.
Mental disease is caused by spirits and witchcraft.
Illness is caused by ill will or ill action of one person against another.
Treatment is both Spiritual and Physical within tribal customs and traditions. There are about 3,000 African Tribes, each with its own religious system which governs economics, education, and health care.
Religion is the greatest influence upon thinking and living.
African Healing Systems revolve around secrecy. Knowledge is an index of Power and Influence.
Definitions:
Man: those alive and those about to be born.
Time / present and past. No true vocabulary for long term future, 2 weeks to 2 months at most. Events
African Traditional Healers-The Medicine Man (Waganga) Swahili.
As long as Africans see illness as a religious experience, the Medicine Man will be the most revered body of knowledge next to the chief of the village. He or She is the custodian of the theories of healing, the hope of society. God removes disease with the help of the Medicine Man. The Medicine Man must undergo formal or informal training. He is given medicine to eat to give him power, and prophecy to strengthen his soul. He is initiated into the public by giving witchcraft phlegm to swallow, shown herbs, scrubs, and teas to make medicine. He learns the cause, cure, prevention of disease, misfortune, bareness, poor crop yield, magic, witchcraft, sorcery, and how to combat or even use them to treat his people. He must find the cause of an illness, find the criminal who sent it, diagnose the nature of the illness, apply the proper treatment, and prevent misfortune from happening again. He must purge witches, detect sorcery, and remove failure from hunting and farming.
His medicines are made from plants, herbs, powder of bones, seeds, roots, juices, leaves, and minerals. His treatments may include massage, thorns, bleeding, incantations, needles, ventriloquism, asking for sacrifice of a goat or chicken, or avoiding certain foods.
Urban Africans use the hospitals, but will also use the Medicine man, since hospitals do not deal with the religious etiology of an illness.
Medicine Diviner (Witch Doctor) Links humans with Living Dead. Rigorous training boys 9 months, girls-3 years. May also be a medicine man.
Traditional Birth Attendant: mature woman, no formal training.
Herbalist-heals with herbs, roots, animal skins, bones, fat. (The traditional Pharmacist)
Barber surgeon-blood letting for muscle aches, joint pains and sprains,
Western trained physician at the University and religious clinics.
Puberty Rites-Stress endurance of physical and emotional pain as a great virtue, since life in Africa is surrounded by pain.
Menopause-No Rite or initiation-Women die prior to menopause. Average life expectancy is 49.9 years.
What influence do African healing systems have today in the Developed world, in Arizona, in Maricopa county,on
on our approach to health care for the Afro-American?
