Materials

Issue 153: Omonzejele, Peter F.: African Concepts of Health, Disease and Treatment [A Future for Traditional Medicines and Spiritual Healings? A Postscript on Peter F Omonzeleje by Hans-Martin Sass]. April 2004

Peter F. Omonzejele investigates and discusses concepts of health, disease, and medical treatment in African traditional medicine. His recent research is based on field trips to diviners / healers / medicine men around Benin in Nigeria in the spring of 2004. He emphazises the interaction and integration between African traditional medicine, metaphysics, and cosmology. Disease as well as health are concepts which include individual, familial, and communal medical wellness but encompass harmony with and guidance by ancestors; a dozen principles in African traditional philosophy and ethics and some rituals and remedies are explained. Health literate people are aware of the negative as well as the healing spiritual powers, visible and invisible.