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Chapter 21: Prayer, Amulets, and Healing
- Ohio University Press
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CHAPTER 21 Pral1cr, Amulcts, at1~ Hcalit15 P r~l1crs ~11tl ~l11«lcts are two ofthe common means by which Airican societies have addressed illness. Through such agencies, the spiritual causes of sickness are appealed to, or confronted, to let go ofafRictions. The theory ofdisease that ascribes illness to spiritual sources reflects a philosophical dualiry in which the outer signs of ailments are ascribed to hidden spiritual imbalance. The explanation ofsickness as presented above is not a suggestion that these societies have no appreciation of natural causation ofillness. In fact, as Dennis Warren has explained in an essay on the Bono of Ghana, or as in separate presentation by W Z. Conco and Gloria Waite on the Bantus of the southern tier ofAfrica,! natural causes are anticipated for "ordinary and common human illness." Conco observed ofthe Bantu that "in the beginning of disease no supernatural danger is felt [for sickness] and home remedies are given." Thus, it is in relation to prolonged and dangerous conditions that thoughts of spiritual origination of illness have been expressed.2 The tradition by which sickness is attributed to spirit causation is widely accepted . From Steve Feierman's discussion of the social roots ofhealth and healing in modern Africa, to the collection of essays in African Therapeutic Systems, edited by Z. A. Ademuwagun and others, the medical tradition in which the spiritual world is believed to be source for the endangerment of mental and physical health is articulatcd .3 To be sick, therefore, is to be in the hold ofa spirit-causing agent and, hence, it is the ultimate purpose of healing to restore normal health. Conditions perceived to be abnormal are many and varied. The fear ofa difficult birth, the possibiliry of loss ofwealth and properry, the loss ofchildren to childhood diseases, barrenness, sudden deaths (especially of individuals in the prime of life), and chronic sickness are but a short list of maladies that undermine the stabiliry of personal and communiry life. As in all societies, indigenous communities have developed ideological interpretations of disease causation and a list of agents believed responsible for the ailments. In her general reference to the Bantu of East Central Mrica, Waite classified the disease causing agents to include ancestral spirits, witchcraft , and violation of taboos that protect society from spiritual pollution. Among the Bantu, the High God is even thought ofas a disease-causing agent. But while the Supreme Being featured prominently in Waite's list, among the Akan-speakers of West Africa it is the host of intermediary lesser gods, witches and family ancestors, that are often thought of as culprits. As to which of these agents might a sickness be attributed, ordinary persons can only speculate. It is for this reason that expert services are sought. Religious personages are collectively identified by the public as possessing expert diagnostic and healing capabilities. Louis Brenner's "esoteric paradigm" is an excellent summary of the epistemological foundation upon which religious knowledge is evaluated. Here, Brenner revisits the concept of duality in which he classified knowledge as belonging to either a public or sacred domain.4 In the profane environment, religious ideas and concepts take the form of myths, songs, and prayers that are often recited during public rituals.5 For the sacred or esoteric category , expert knowledge is acquired only through formal training and long periods of apprenticeship and initiations-a process that is best represented in BrookmanAmissah 's work.6 Using case interviews conducted with trainees at the Akonnedi Shrine in Ghana, Brookman-Amissah investigated the vocation of the call to the priesthood as it was understood in Ghanaian societies. Several of the interviewees were being trained to become attendants at family shrines, but it was also noted that many had become possessed by spirit sources with which they had no previous contacts-a condition that illustrates access to sacred knowledge as being a privilege bestowed by the spirit world. The critical value of the priesthood profession then is to serve both the spirit and the profane worlds-that is, to mediate between the visible and the invisible domains and to protect society from spirit pollution. It was on this important priestly function that Brookman-Amissah focused. Brookman-Amissah researched how trainees at the shrine were prepared to communicate with the spirit world. The priests were instructed to become highly disciplined so as to receive clear and accurate prognostications from the gods-the logic being that, the better disciplined and well trained the specialist was, the more reliable would...