Film African Herbsmen Ritual and Healing along the Bight of Benin

2016

Faced with the vicissitudes of life and the vulnerability of man in the society, constant efforts are made to preserve one"s being so that total annihilation could be averted. As such, whenever man"s life is threatened by disease and other misfortunes, various steps are employed to exterminate the sources of danger. And to maintain a wholesome well-being man reclines to one source of Medicare or the other. In a typical African setting recourse is made to the medicine men/women, the healers who are divinely vested with vast knowledge in restoring health to normalcy. This paper from historical approach, analysis of participatory interview and related literature considered the general concept of life and health in Igbo cosmology and found that (a) various herbalists are variously called, (b) a times rituals and sacrifices are involved before offered healings could be claimed. However some herbalists disclaim the later assumption as they claim herbs can remain effective without rituals. It is concluded that for a better or improved health-care delivery to people, a good understanding of the whole process is required, after all a good percentage of orthodox drugs are extracted from plants and shrubs. These trees and shrubs are also the basic ingredients of African medicine which without rituals can be efficacious. Indeed there is assurance of healing, without the incumbencies of rituals and fetish practices in African medicinal heritage. This research, therefore, recommends that African heritage of holistic healing be explored and improved upon to attract people of all faith.

Herbs, health & healers: Africa as ethnopharmacological treasury, 1999

Lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogue developed and written for the Dutch Africa Museum, which depicts and discusses the material culture of diseases and traditional medicine in sub-Saharan Africa. It is best consulted in conjunction with a thorough scientific review about these topics that appeared in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1998;63(1-2):1-175 (also accessible on Academia.edu)

Despite the vast literature on healing in African contexts, comparatively little is known about historical use of popular species in herbal medicines. Given the prominence of plants in healers’ assemblages past and present, the lack of attention to plant origins, how practitioners acquire them, and to beliefs surrounding these processes, is surprising. This study, at the interface between archaeology and anthropology, approaches these issues through qualitative interviews and an ethnopharmacological survey with thirty healing specialists in a migrant community in Accra, Ghana. Over two seasons of fieldwork in 2010 and 2011, 141 unique plantbased medicines were documented, with samples of all constituent ingredients collected and botanically identified. Analysis of the ethnopharmacological results revealed 15 percent of species in the sample were botanically ‘exotic’: introduced, non-local plants found outside their native distributional range. Given that healers typically define their medicines as ‘traditional and ancestral’, such ‘exotic’ provenance is significant. This paper uses ethnography to explore contemporary assimilation of exotic plants at herbal markets, and in the beliefs and practices of individual healers. Drawing on historic and archaeological sources, these findings are used interpretively to broaden possible perspectives on introduction of new plants within the materia medica of West Africa over time. http://www.anthropologymatters.com/index.php/anth_matters/issue/view/55

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2016

Background: In attempting to understand how the use of medicinal plants is symbolically valued and transformed according to specific cosmologies, we gain valuable insight into the ethnopharmacologial practices, in terms of the major role played by healers, as custodians of local ethnobotanical knowledge, but also as ritual masters. Thus, the goal of this paper is to understand how medicinal plants are used differently depending on a combination between the healers’ field of expertise and personal history on the one hand, and the diversified religious and symbolical frameworks on the other. Methods: This essay is based on intense ethnographical research carried out amongst the Nalu people of Guinea-Bissau. Methods included participant observation and semi-directed interviews with six locally-renown healers (four men and two women). The progress of their work and the changes operated within the sets of beliefs associated with ethnopharmacological practices were registered by means of repeated field visits. Results: A total of 98 species and 147 uses are accounted for, as well as a description of the plant parts that were used, as well as the methods of preparation and application according to the different healers’ specialized practices. At the same time, this research describes those processes based on pre-Islamic and Muslim cosmologies through which medicinal plants are accorded their value, and treatments are granted their symbolic efficiency. Conclusions: Medicinal plants are valued differently in the pre-Islamic medicine and in the medicine practiced by Islamic masters. The increasing relevance of Islam within this context has affected the symbolic framework of ethnopharmacological practices. Nevertheless, the endurance of those processes by which symbolic efficiency is attributed to local treatments based on plants is explained not only by the syncretic nature of African Islam, but also by the fact that patients adopt different therapeutic pathways simultaneously.

Alternative medicine review : a journal of clinical therapeutic, 2005

This exploratory ethnobotanical study took place in Kumasi, the capital city of the Asante, one of the Akan tribes. Data was collected using the multi-method approach of descriptive review, semi-structured interviews with traditional medical practitioners, and brief scientific review. Traditional Akan medicine is holistic and does not separate the physical world from the supernatural world. It is deeply rooted in traditional religion, with illness seen as a departure from the natural equilibrium. Traditional healers are either spiritually based or non-spiritually based. This study found the traditional knowledge of healing and use of medicinal plants is disseminated through generations by family members. However, the acquisition of academic qualifications is now a priority, and formal training is taking place in the workplace and a university. Techniques used in diagnosis and treatment consist of a fusion of traditional and biomedical methods. Treatment of hypertension was used as a...

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2012

The use of psychoactive plants by traditional healers in southern Africa appears to be a neglected area of ethnobotanical research. This article explores the healing dynamics involved in the use of popular psychoactive plant preparations known as ubulawu in the initiation rituals of Southern Bantu diviners. Research methods include a review of the literature, fieldwork interviews with Southern Bantu diviners, and an analysis of experiential accounts from diverse informants on their use of ubulawu. Findings reveal that there is widespread reliance on ubulawu as psychoactive spiritual medicines by the indigenous people of southern Africa to communicate with their ancestral spirits-so as to bring luck, and to treat mental disturbances. In the case of the Southern Bantu diviners, ubulawu used in a ritual initiation process acts as a mnemonic aid and medicine to familiarize the initiates with enhanced states of awareness and related psychospiritual phenomena such as enhanced intuition and dreams of the ancestral spirits, who teach the initiates how to find and use medicinal plants. The progression of the latter phenomena indicates the steady success of the initiates' own healing integration. Various factors such as psychological attitude and familiarization, correct plant combinations/synergy and a compatible healer-initiate relationship influence ubulawu responsiveness. Keywords-medicinal plants, psychotropic plants, psychospiritual healing, South African traditional medicine, traditional healers, ubulawu Anyone can use the plants [ubulawu] to connect with their ancestors. The plants give you what you are. Mama Maponya-Northern Sotho Diviner

African Journal of Religion Philosophy and Culture, 2021

This paper centres on the contentions between the use of African Traditional medicine and convoluted beliefs among some Christianity groups. It is argued that most Pentecostal churches in Africa vilify African cultural practices and deter their converts from using African traditional medicine. Feelings of disgrace and trepidation when asked about traditional healing frequently make it difficult, particularly for the individuals who have become Christians and have acknowledged western medicine, to reveal their insight into non-western treatments. Against this backdrop, the primary aim of this paper is to unveil the conflict between Christianity and the use of African traditional medicine. The broad aim is to create a platform for a conjectural dialogue towards appreciation for a ‘new world order’ that necessitates an integration of African Traditional Religion and Christianity through adopting a comprehension of cultural differences. The paper draws in the existing scholarly literatu...

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2012

The use of psychoactive plants by traditional healers in southern Africa appears to be a neglected area of ethnobotanical research. This article explores the healing dynamics involved in the use of popular psychoactive plant preparations known as ubulawu in the initiation rituals of Southern Bantu diviners. Research methods include a review of the literature, fieldwork interviews with Southern Bantu diviners, and an analysis of experiential accounts from diverse informants on their use of ubulawu. Findings reveal that there is widespread reliance on ubulawu as psychoactive spiritual medicines by the indigenous people of southern Africa to communicate with their ancestral spirits-so as to bring luck, and to treat mental disturbances. In the case of the Southern Bantu diviners, ubulawu used in a ritual initiation process acts as a mnemonic aid and medicine to familiarize the initiates with enhanced states of awareness and related psychospiritual phenomena such as enhanced intuition and dreams of the ancestral spirits, who teach the initiates how to find and use medicinal plants. The progression of the latter phenomena indicates the steady success of the initiates' own healing integration. Various factors such as psychological attitude and familiarization, correct plant combinations/synergy and a compatible healer-initiate relationship influence ubulawu responsiveness. Keywords-medicinal plants, psychotropic plants, psychospiritual healing, South African traditional medicine, traditional healers, ubulawu Anyone can use the plants [ubulawu] to connect with their ancestors. The plants give you what you are. Mama Maponya-Northern Sotho Diviner

2020

Literature on traditional medicine in Africa is diverse and broad but most are country based, regional based or time based. There is the need for a systematic review that focuses on the nature of traditional medicine and its healers, the impact of the changing society on traditional medicine, and an analysis of same based on scholarly literature. African Traditional medicine, a mixture of herbal (physical), mystical (spiritual) and social elements of society, is quite varied but share similarity in its dependence on the socio-cultural and religious indigenous knowledge systems of the people. Indigenous traditional healing in Africa has always been a highly contentious subject matter due to its nature and a source of disagreement between the different colonists and Africans. What has enabled this practice to survive is the secrecy technique employed by the healers as well as the inability or unwillingness of colonial and postcolonial governments to provide a better or sometimes a mor...