Indigenous Medical Systems

Question 1

philosophy of indigenous healing systems

Answer 1

holistic

• health is about how we are in the world
• not necessary on an individual level (balance biologically and socially and spiritually)

embedded relations

• community
• nature and environment
• relationship to one’s own healing ability

diverse healing methods
-preserved through generations (oral stories, ceremonies, written documents)

Question 2

Who uses indigenous healing?

Answer 2

global first nations and indigenous communities
60%-80% of Africans and Asians
~$60 billion world wide spent on indigenous healing

Question 3

Types of healers in South Africa

Answer 3

diviners: diagnosticians who communicate with ancestors/spirits
herbalists: pharmacists who collects plants and plant knowledge
midwives: obstetricians/gynecologists

Question 4

Sangomas

Answer 4

diviners, healing physical/emotional/spiritual illness, rituals of birth and death, finding cattle and husbands, protection, counter-acting witches, narrate history, explaining cosmology and tradition

Question 5

ancestors

Answer 5

dead kin in the spirit world, who remain active in lives of the living, intermediaries between supreme being and the living
consult and pray to receive benefits/avoid harm
feared and respected
sacrifice gifts of cows and rum/beer offered to them
enforce a moral code
know and control the future
mostly contact the living in dreams

Question 6

supreme high god

Answer 6

created the world and then withdrew

-not involved with everyday life

Question 7

lesser spirits

Answer 7

can be beneficial or harmful
-can be influenced with prayer, flattery, and sacrifice
live in the earth, water and sky
-mountains, plants, rivers, streams, plants, animals, storms, lightning, thunder
more accessible by humans

Question 8

zar spirits

Answer 8

among Hofiyati in South Sudan

• rituals held to ask/bribe spirit to regrain from further damage
• drumming ceremony summons spirits
• spirit manifest in women’s body the woman enters a trance, spirit demands that if met, will return the woman back to health
• Zar spirits are everything that is “not” Hofriyati (prostitutes, nuns, Europeans; space for same-sex romantic and sexual relations)

Question 9

spirit possession is important

Answer 9

culturally sanctioned articulation of distress. Dealing with stresses of daily life, alleviating tensions, deterrant against abuse/neglect/deprivation. Way of exerting power, way to demand material goods, emotional benefits, way to change martial status

Question 10

why women for spirit posession?

Answer 10

women are socially subordinate

women are culturally defined
-confined to domesticate sphere

female “fraility” invites spirits in
-especially attracted to married women