adminPathisa Nyathi
NATURE heals nature. Nature heals itself. This is a worldwide truism. However, in the African world there is much more than this. In matters of healing a people’s worldview is expressed through their medical practices. African cosmology posits that a human being has two components — the material and spiritual components. As a result, African medical practice has a holistic approach which encompasses and attends to both the material and spiritual or metaphysical aspects. What this means, in essence, is that Africans use natural medicinal extractions to heal and also invoke spiritual interventions to achieve the same results. Among the Balozwi there was a spiritual phenomenon known as mazenge, magwasha among the Babirwa and amagidel’endlini among the Ndebele people. These were powerful spirits inhabiting female mediums that healed without recourse to medicinal formulations.
Our recent visit to Emkambo brought us face to face with the traditional doctors who are selling various unprocessed and sometimes processed medicinal concoctions. Instead of rendering a mechanical narrative of their practice, we thought it prudent to deal with, in the first instance, the cosmological issues and intricacies surrounding medical practice among them. Western medical practice is grounded in and informed by the material nature of human beings. Their medical science deals with the physical world of empirical objects. For a spiritual people such as Africans, their medical philosophy and practice, as we have already pointed out, reflect a world of both material and spiritual reality.
Attending to the spiritual component of a human being does not make sense to Western medical practitioners. These practitioners have a tendency of demonising, trashing, dismissing and denigrating what they do not understand, let alone appreciate. On the other hand, the African believes there is mutual interaction between the material and spiritual components of reality. Spirit will affect the body which is material and will show signs of illness. Conversely, a sick body negatively impacts on the spiritual being of a person. Effective and sustainable medical practice among a people who hold such beliefs tends to offer a holistic approach.
The mazenge that we made reference to above heals without using medicines. Their spiritual intervention is enough to produce healing. This is recognition of the fact that spirits has power over things material. A person may seem afflicted with a sickness and yet the real problem is spiritual. For example this happens to be the case with persons destined to become traditional doctors or healers. The calling for such people requires that they initially fall sick. Their relatives then seek consultations regarding their illness from practicing traditional doctors. They may then be told that it is some ancestor who is revealing himself to the person and the solution is for them to undergo spiritual initiation. Once that is done their illness just disappears when they have been linked with some stellar constellation in a protracted and multi-faceted ritual known as ukuthwasa which is no more than a spiritual orientation that links the spirit of the trainee with some stellar constellation.
The person who has undergone this spiritual initiation has her work or spiritual operation guided by the cosmic bodies such as the moon. In fact, such a spirit person or medium is called inyanga which is the SiNdebele word for the moon. Her work is guided and controlled by the moon. The person spiritually operates best at full moon and her power diminishes in a direct proportion with the waning of the moon. Similarly, their power, of communicating with the active dead or living dead who themselves are linked to the cosmic bodies, increases with the waxing of the moon. This is not unique to these spirit people. The ocean tides rise and fall in response to moon phases. There are other sea creatures that exhibit similar behaviour that responds to cosmic cycles.
It is interesting to observe the congruence between cosmic cycles, work cycles of the spiritual persons and the cycles of economic and other activities. Planting of seed was done as close to the full moon as possible. There are people who even carried out the activity during the night when the moon was full. We have cases where those sowing the seed initially engaged in sexual activity. Sex symbolises fertility and continuity. Full moon represents maximum and fruitful performance while the new moon is symbolic of regeneration and rebirth.
As a result, the new moon was welcomed with joy, hope and expectation for a better life. When the crescent moon appeared on the western sky it was hailed with the words, “Kholiwe! Hamba lomkhuhlane,” among the Ndebele. It was hoped the new moon heralded better health, for it took away the diseases. The spirit people also, through their symbolic link with the moon, took away diseases from the people.
Among the hill dwellers such as the royal Balozwi, progress of the moon across the sky was closely monitored. There was an artefact fashioned out of clay which was used to gaze the western sky. The instrument was called ziso and looked like a mask. Once the moon was seen on the western sky the “darkness” associated with the “death” of the moon was washed away. The moon gazers bathed their faces with water. That was a symbolic act for rebirth, somewhat akin to baptism and its symbolic cleansing or parting with the old and evil ways. The water surface marks the boundary or interface of the two worlds — the one below the water level (evil) and the other above (good). Baptism essentially denotes moving away or abandoning the old evil ways by initially submerging them below the surface (sinking and killing through suffocation) and then emerging cleansed above the water surface or interface.
After the face was bathed some medicated “candle” was lit to give out white light and evil-driving smoke. The white light emitted by the candle drove away the darkness which is symbolic of evil. The scented smoke equally drove away evil smells and influences. The same instrument called ziso had all the three components: the two eyes through which to gaze the moon, the candle stand where the medicated candle was affixed and a small dish where water was placed with which to bath the face. Before all this was done the king remained in seclusion, hardly performing any serious royal duties. All the ritual activities described above were done by the monarch before he resumed royal duties.
Some important national ceremonies such as Inxwala were conducted at full moon when there was maximum communication with and blessing by the powerful active or living dead. The Imfazo II of 1896 took place in March at full moon — when a picture of a hare was visible within the full moon. When there was no moon at all, no economic activities were undertaken especially those of a spiritual nature. Some days before and after the ‘‘dead’’ or ‘‘dark/black’’ moon there were observances relating to abandonment of economic activities and those of a spiritual nature in particular. Death is said to defile and this is what renders “dark/black” days before and after the “death” of a moon. Even when a person died close relatives and neighbours abstained from all forms of work including ploughing, weeding and harvesting.
Clearly, the cosmos exerted tremendous influence on the operations of Africans on earth, in particular those among them with greater spiritual endowment. This was even more so among the Balozwi who harboured the grandiose desire to get to the moon — shungu dzeVarozvi! Have you ever wondered why the brass metal insignia worn around the necks by the Zimbabwean chiefs are the shape of a crescent moon? Now you ought to know — after all before the arrival of the Ndebele the Balozwi inaugurated all the chiefs.
With this philosophical background we are better placed to deal with the traditional doctors plying their medicinal wares at Emkambo.
Online Reporter