spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

ancestors and other spirits is important to one's well-being. Yet placating the spiritual world is
not the only way to achieve or maintain health. The holistic nature of reality also directs the
attention of health-seekers to inter-human relations and their connection with the ecosystem
(Mbiti 1969:108; Twesigye 1987:109; Sindima 1990:144,146). Even these relationships have an
impact on and define one’s state of being and health-seeking practices.
The configuration of health (and healing) is reflected in the concept of relationality. Relationality
as the complete interrelatedness of the spiritual, social and environmental aspects of reality
forms a framework that facilitates the complicated process of the flowing of power (cf. Ranger
1991:109-112; Magesa 1998:65ff; Ellis & Ter Haar 2004:125). Since it is this life power that is
required for health and healing, it is clear that maintaining and mending relationships as the
channels of life power is key to administering health and healing. In his contribution on vital
participation in African life, Mulago affirms the idea of well-being and relationships: “vital
union is the vital link which unites vertically and horizontally the living and the departed; it is
the life-giving principle which is found in them all. It results from a communion or participation
in the same reality, the same vital principle, which unites a number of beings with one another.
What is this life? It is a whole life, individual inasmuch as it is received by each being which
exists, and communal or collective inasmuch as each being draws from a common source of life”
(1972:138). The holistic perspective on reality is closely linked with the perception that
everything is relational and that relationships are the vessels of life and well-being.
In the same vein, illness and affliction are also relational matters. Suffering is often interpreted as
the effect of decreasing life power. Just as the rise of life power is marked by relationships with
spirits, human beings and the environment, so is the cause of diminishing power also embedded
in relationality: someone else is trying to attack one’s vital force because of jealousy, resentment,
a quarrel, revenge or other relational deficiencies. Furthermore, relationality not only is the root
of affliction, it also provides the remedy. By assessing and addressing the relational
circumstances and networks of the suffering patient, the healer is able to discern a way out of
affliction and towards restoration.
2.5.2 Healing as a community service
The complex network of relationships does not only generate health and illness. In the discourse
of African traditional healing, relationality is also the means to achieve restoration and healing.
The way to become healed is a path that needs to be travelled together with kin and persons who
have gone through a similar experience. African traditional healing methods are intrinsically
always personal and sometimes individual. The situation of affliction ties together particular
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