spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

obtain particular medicines or to learn new techniques in foreign countries, and they bring these
resources to the locus of their healing business. A well-known example of these circulation and
indigenization processes, within the African traditional healing discourse, is the use of injections.
Under colonial rule, the frontier between Africa and Europe was crossed when a number of
medical techniques were incorporated into indigenous healing systems. The injection appeared to
be the most popular treatment because its healing effects were swift and obvious (Vaughan
1991:24; Whyte 1997:26; White 2000:99ff; Good 2004:10). Most of the examples of bordercrossing
by healers suggest that a healing technique, or a medical substance, is regarded more
powerful and effective when the healing resources originate from the other side of a border. The
same preference or need for unfamiliar sources of healing exist when healers move beyond
borders that give access to the invisible world, the unmapped realm of the ancestors and other
spirits who can distribute divine healing power.
Both the physical and the conceptual frontiers are equally important in the healing activities.
They often support and complement each other because the processes of healing and restoration
center on physical places of treatment, places of the mind where powers of affliction and healing
compete for dominance, (demarcated) stages in time, somatic areas affected by sickness and the
patient’s seclusion from and participation in the community. Sometimes it is difficult to see a
clear distinction between the literal and conceptual nature of these borders, since they are
simultaneously dividers between particular moments, locations, persons, spiritual beings, objects
and ways of thinking. Good (2004:22f) elaborates on African frontiers under colonial pressure,
showing that the many indigenous healing systems (firmly rooted in African metaphysics)
formed a sort of cultural shield, a frontier, against the geographical border-crossing of Christian
missionaries and their activities. The physical and conceptual borders that healers encounter and
cross in their healing activities, then, are often intertwined with and dependent on each other for
their existence.
2.4.3 The need for borders in African healing
For healers who participate within cults of affliction, the issue is not so much about the nature of
frontiers, but the very existence of frontiers. Healers essentially depend on borders and the
variety of these borders in order to be effective in their healing ministry. They need markers and
boundaries, “as bounded spaces are often necessary for the construction of a healing community”
(Luedke & West 2006:6. See also Landau 1996:263). The dealing with affliction, the process of
healing, and the manifestation of transformation can only be fruitful when a safe haven has been
created. The importance of demarcation explains why, for example, in the ngoma framework a
suffering patient first needs to undergo an initiation rite before accessing ngoma therapy. Healers
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