marcus garvey pan african university - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 37 – Applied Afrikology, Restorative
Practices and Community Resilience in the Mt. Elgon Area
because ‘one-size fits all’ will no longer be allowed to
dictate global or local development. All human beings
have to assume responsibility for their own survival and
abandon the unilinear epistemology of looking at
complex and diverse realities in a one-dimensional
manner.
In the course of these dialogues, a consensus build up in
most participants that traditional role models of men and
women, respectively husband and wife defined their
behavior and how they perceived rights and
entitlements, this it emerged in the conversations, were
a help for both of them. For instance, in the dialogues,
community members agreed that most disagreements
could be settled in the homestead. This is better than
making the matter public and going to court. There were
only a few duties for a husband in relation to his wives:
to give security and to provide land, clothing and
protection for the children. A man who refused to take
care of these things or became violent was disciplined
by the elders. Women had to take care of the livestock
and to cook for their husband.
The rules in the village were simple for everybody. The
statement: “in the old days, there were not so many
options in life as there are today”, as one participant in
the dialogue put it, indicated that participants and the
community at large was suspicious of the new freedoms
perpetuated by modernist advocates.
Women participants in the dialogue recognised the
importance of women’s organizations in raising their
voice. Women organisations they said provides them
with a space in which to come together and discuss their
problems; many women who were not in a group
expressed their intention to form one in the future. Most
of the organisations they referred to are those oriented
around small income-generating activities or give out
loans, but women also described how these
organisations had helped them. As one woman group
leader in the dialogue explained, women’s voices are
now heard in public, whereas before ‘women were not
supposed to have a voice.’ I think this statement is
significant as it demonstrates the value placed by
women on having a voice, being heard, both as an
individual and collectively as a community. In all the
dialogues most women resonated the need to have a
voice as a key feature to the resilience of a community
and its sense of identity. Having a voice, for them,
means that they can participate in the decisions that
affect them and their community, it also allows them to
define their own future thereby repositioning the
feminine principle as a core constituent of afrikology.
-37- Traditional African Clinic August 2013
Case Study two:
P’Kwii Farm Community Site of Knowledge
In tracing the history and meaning of the heart or DNA
of Afrikology, one could easily ask: What would a
communal heart be like? What would have to happen to
bring such a thing into being? The answer in part lies in
P’kwii.
P’kwii community farm is a Community Site of
Knowledge engaged in re-centering the rural agenda
holistically through the epistemology of afrikology. Its
efforts and struggle over a period of twenty two years
has been to uphold and emancipate their heritage
enshrined in their inherited indigenous knowledge
systems, which have sustained them throughout
centuries. This knowledge was degenerated and
criminalized so that members of their community who
dared to propagate it and or try to practice it for their
self- sustenance were accused of practicing superstitious
and backward ideas and practices and were subjected to
prosecution under colonial penal laws. However the
members of this community did not give up the struggle
to preserve what was rightly theirs, including scientific
knowledge such as astronomy, which older women of
the clans were experts in its practice. Using this
knowledge they were able to observe stars and trace their
movements, which enable them to predict the weather
patterns to be expected in the coming months and to
determine which varieties of millet or sorghum should
be planted in the coming season with very good results.
However, the colonialists and the colonizers could not
accept such knowledge which was barred from practice.
In enforcing this Aduso who was the custodian of the
Iteso cultural spirits who fed all the lactating mothers on
very nutritious root plants (Ikorom) and leaves of Edusa
(Moringa) was regarded as source of superstitious,
backward practices and criminal ideas and practices.
With the introduction of Cassava to Teso in 1946, her
practices and ideas were criminalized and abolished by
the colonialists and their enforcers hence Aduso was
abused, demonized and belittled. To reinforce the
abolition of eating these nutritious plants Ikorom and
Edusa, a song was concocted and composed to
criminalize the practice, ideas and directly abuse Aduso,
as stupid, backward and barbaric. To spread their
message faster, this song was taught in all Teacher
Training Colleges in Teso so that the teacher trainees
would propagate it further by teaching it to be sung by
children as innocent agents in killing their own ancestral
heritage and knowledge. The song went as follows:-
Ebanga Aduso;
Chorus; enyami ikorom, Aduso x2
Continued on page 38