Disease

As the birthplace of humankind, Africa has the longest history of addressing disease and its spread among the population. Africans were aware of the history of many diseases and catalogued their course in society. The ancient Egyptians (Kmts) were among the first Africans to study and treat disease.

First and foremost, the idea of disease (sickness, illness, disorder, etc.) in traditional African societies is most commonly associated with the legacy of spirituality and the mind-body-spirit connection. In this worldview, disease is explained, in part, through natural circumstances, but always in terms signifying the primacy of the supernatural realm. Men and women in early Africa actively sought to explain the nature of disease, define its origin, and explain the disturbance manifested in the physical body and how it could be confronted. Many African societies have held this fundamental analysis of disease. Primarily, it involves the flow and awareness of god energy (which included the role of nature, orishas, ancestors, ashe, chi, etc.) and the limitations of the physical body.

Within the larger African medical system, the intention is to restore balance to the human mind-body-spirit. The elimination of disease is an important occupation to people because illness causes suffering, injury, and death among the populace. Specially trained healers, mainly women and men who have studied herbs and human psychology, are the front-line doctors in most societies. Diseases (even those suffered by plants and animals) not only affect the person, but the dysfunctional consequences of the illness also affect the family and the entire community. Since the HIV epidemic in many countries, healers have had to deal with the wasting disease with traditional medicines. There has been some evidence of success among some of the doctors in Ghana and Zimbabwe. However, it is an epidemic that has been attacked by African and Western medicines.

In most traditional African societies, the origins of disease are evident. The overarching focus comes from the Supreme Being (God), the ancestors, or individuals who manipulate the cosmic energy negatively against other people. Instilling negative energy into an individual may cause disease. In addition, disease is believed to appear if a person in community fails to adhere to admonitions against carefully conscribed sociospiritual activities (such as sexual abstinence during menses, eating certain animals/plants, and failing to honor the ancestors). There are some ethnic groups that believe that disease manifests itself through a form of spirit possession, which can involve the specter of the dearly departed. A more complex way that individuals can become sick is the loss of their soul through means other than spirit possession. Finally, many ethnic groups [Page 205]believe that persons devoted to inverting the process of healing (sorcerers) can also induce disease. Africans consistently distinguish between those practitioners of traditional healing and those inverters of the right order of things.

Various African ethnic groups have developed, over time, a catalogue of ethnobotanical methods (instructions, recipes) to combat disease. There is a strong presence of indigenous African beliefs and practices regarding disease within the transplantation of African culture to the Americas. For example, the orisha Babaluaiye (Obaluaiye, Omulu) continues to be propitiated as the God that transforms disease. Another result of this African trait has been the spiritual systems of Santeria, Vodun, Umbanda, and Candomble—each with a class of traditional healers that trace their philosophical origins to the continent of Africa in the treatment of disease.

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