The Medicine-Man and the Healing Ministry Of Jesus - Sandawe Case Study
Loading...
Date
2001-02
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tangaza University College
Abstract
As long as life runs along smoothly, we can avoid facing the depths of existence.
The basic questions of life can go unasked. When things are comfortable and easy, we can
live as though life were shallow. However, in moments when the contradictions and crises
of life stand forth, these apparently comfortable and easy things become strangely
irrelevant. The encounter with sickness, tragedy and human limitation disrupts surface
appearances. We are forced to look deeper than previously. What was complacently
accepted about life must now be re-examined. This is where the necessity of participating
in man's struggle to find meaning comes in.
I would like to acknowledge a challenge that my confreres in Tanzania posed at
dinner while discussing the subject of the traditional African medicine man and his activity
in comparison with the Western scientific doctors. Rev. Fr. Cessare, our Regional
Superior of Tanzania put this question forward; "when people from the Western countries
get sick, they go to a doctor. He/she is diagnosed, a sickness is identified, let us say
malaria for example, and one is given medicine for it and eventually he/she is cured. Now,
when I want to be cured of a similar problem by the traditional medicine man, does the
diagnosis identify a disease and cure my sickness without involving me in their
provocative, pompous and ceremonious invocations of their ancestral spirits and gods- (in
a word, their faith) in the process?' It does not seem strange to find pastors, not only my confreres, lamenting that
many of their members seek the help of diviners and traditional medicine men. In the
process, make offerings to their gods and their ancestors when they are seriously ill or feel
their lives to be seriously threatened by mystical powers.
Experience has shown in Christianity that there are those who solely believe in
God, through his son Jesus, the saviour of the world. On account of their religious
conviction, they totally reject not only the traditional medicine with its resultant divination
but also scientifically prepared drugs and hospital treatment. Such people are convinced
that they no longer require any tangible help or medication in sickness. Some even believe
that they can never be sick. All they have to do is to have faith in God and prayer. To do
otherwise is a sign of lack of faith.' This is an extreme case.
On the contrary there are those who are so much taken up by the modem science
and technology that they believe that God only heals through drugs and hospitals.
Therefore they conclude, the only way through which the healing ministry of the Church
can be experienced in the world is through scientific medicine. This, too, is another
extreme.
Andrew Igenoza in his article Medicine and Healing in African Christianity, has
this to offer; "It is not to be doubted for a moment that God has used compassionate and
very selfless doctors and nurses, be they missionaries or otherwise, to bring life and hope
to countless Africans, through their modem scientific medicine knowledge. But the
question is does God work only through this medium? To answer in the affirmative, especially in relation to an African milieu, is to completely overlook the spiritual dimension
of sickness and healing so readily recognised by Africans.”2
It is timely at this juncture, to visit facts that history presents. Reading Fr.
Shorter's Jesus and the Witchdoctor, I was indeed impressed when he says that "modern
scientific medicine is scarcely two hundred years old... until systematic medical science
was born, all medical practice was 'alternative medicine'"3 This is to say of the Western
situation. Africa and the Sandawe community in particular, before the coming of the
foreigners, had its own way of contending and coping with the problem of sickness in their
midst. But the medicine concept in traditional eyes was and still is today in the context of
sacrifice, prayer and magic.
The Sandawe community and most of the African communities if not all, have such
a tremendous psychological back up that no wise man will dare to ignore it. That the
Traditional African never lived an isolated individualistic life but in a supposed harmonious
relationship with the socio-religious order. This was made up of himself/herself; the
community around; the departed ancestors; the divinities; the spirit world and of cause
The Creator -Warunge/Mumba.4
Everyone who dies in the Sandawe community is believed to pass into more
spiritual way of being. He/she is said to have followed the ancestors kOkeig<ha xhaing.
They are alive but unseen. This reminds me of what Theresia Gwae, my grand mother,
told me some time ago; "Hey! Don't talk too badly about your grandad, he is hearing
you. He used to be a great man, everybody came to him for some advice. After his death there were some mysterious happenings in our compound". And she went on and on
singing praises to her beloved husband to make him happy. Thus every family has its seen
and unseen members. From this point of view, the extended family is a vast sea of dynamic
relationships, each person bearing influence on the life of the other.
I am not saying that the Sandawe people live in a state of permanent mystical
ecstasy, but simply that their understanding and appreciation of the Ancestors stimulates
the memory, bringing depth, meaning and purpose to life. This in turn brings its own peace
of mind and its own healing even in the midst of terrible hardships.
Description
Keywords
Medicine-Man, Healing Ministry, Jesus, Sandawe, Healing, Practice of Medicine