magazine - Somerville College - University of Oxford

12 | Somerville Magzine
Of Witchcraft
In the last couple of years, college travel grants have enabled
students to reach far-flung destinations, such as Australia,
CATHERINE BORG
(2008, Human Sciences)
Medical mysteries in Malawi
A fantastic insight
into the reality of
anthropological
research in a
place with such a
different culture
from our own.
Why do so many Malawians turn first to traditional
healers when they are ill? Is western medicine less trusted
because it lacks a spiritual dimension? These were the
questions that the Wilma Crowther travel fund helped me
attempt to answer in July and August 2009.
I fi rst found myself asking the questions during my gap
year, when I taught English in one of the most rural and
untouched areas of Malawi, the Lower Shire Valley. Last
summer I returned with Rosalie Lear, a fellow Human
Scientist from Keble. We stayed in a Catholic mission
in the village of Mitumbiri and, with the help of a local
translator, arranged several interviews with people from
the surrounding Namitembo parish.
We questioned a diverse cross-section of people of
varying ages and levels of education, living within
different distances from the nearest western-style health
clinic, as well as religious leaders, nurses and doctors,
and most importantly, “a’singanga” – traditional healers.
The interviews were very broad to begin with, as Rosalie
and I began to understand who uses traditional healers,
who uses western medicine and who uses both, in
which situations and for which reasons. As we spoke to
more and more people, we gained a greater insight into
the methods used to treat various illnesses.
Most interesting of all perhaps was the response to
HIV/AIDS and the methods chosen to work alongside
antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) to prevent its progression.
Whilst there was a general consensus that HIV is an
incurable disease, a wide range of remedies were
used by the different healers – including the Moringa
tree. It turned out that Western doctors and nurses
also advocated its use, thanks to its immune-boosting
properties. This is certainly something I would like to
follow up to fi nd out whether the tree is ever used in
European medicine.
We also learnt about the great importance to healing
of “ufi ti” – that is, witchcraft – something we hadn’t
anticipated. The experience was a fantastic insight into
the reality of anthropological research in a place with
such a different culture from our own, the diffi culties
that come with it, and the need for a great variety of
techniques to get accurate and useful information.
The opportunity to experience both the biological and
anthropological aspects of my course in the fi eld helped
me put into practice what I learnt and read about in
my fi rst year at Oxford. I am confi dent it will help me
through the rest of my degree too. I am very grateful
indeed to Somerville and to the donors of the fund. One
day I hope to return to Malawi and further my research
into its ethnographies, particularly the “a’singanga”.
Photo: Rosalie and myself (from I – r) learning to make the staple “nsima” in front of a crowd of interested villagers