Muthi, Medicine and Witchcraft: Regulating ‘African Science’ in Post-Apartheid South Africa?

Abstract

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Ambiguities of ‘Culture’ and the Antiretroviral Rollout in South Africa

“…One of the problems involved in harnessing metaphors from putative 'indigenous knowledge' about illness and healing in the pursuit of good adherence to HAART is that they risk connecting with fears regarding the 'African science' of witchcraft (Ashforth, 2005a;2005b). This can serve to confuse, rather than clarify, ambiguities concerning the notion of 'cure'.…”

“…The 'African science' of witchcraft and healing rests on a different set of propositions about illness and healing to conventional science (Ashforth, 2005a(Ashforth, , 2005b. This poses a problem for the TAC which, as argued below, promotes a scientific world-view, but wishes also to communicate effectively with its membership -many of whom may choose to use traditional remedies as well.…”

“…The snake serves in two distinct guises when it comes to witchcraft: as an emissary or 'familiar' dispatched by a witch in order to cause harm and misfortune and as a creature manufactured by a witch and dispatched in muthi which, when eaten with food (either in a real meal or food taken in a dream), consumes the victim from within (see Ashforth 2005aAshforth , 2005b. This form of witchcraft is known, in Zulu, as idliso.…”

“…When referring to poison in English, however, Africans with a vivid sense of the powers of muthi invoke a much wider field of action and intention in relation to the agency of substances than that typically imagined by toxicology (Ashforth, 2005b). A video embracing both the image of the snake and the idiom of poisoning is entering a cultural zone where interpretations of meaning cannot easily be predicted.…”

Who Are ‘Informal Health Providers’ and What Do They Do? Perspectives from Medical Anthropology

“…In India and Southern Africa alike, practitioners of 'traditional' medicine -healers and Ayurvedic doctors -draw on biomedical symbols, treatments, instruments, and diagnostic technologies, as a source of legitimating authority (Lambert 1996;Reynolds Whyte et al 2003: 9;Nisula 2006: 209). In South Africa, this is manifested also in efforts to construe African traditional healing as 'African Science' (Ashforth 2005).…”