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201 pages

English

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Indexed in Clarivate Analytics Book Citation Index (Web of Science Core Collection)

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Sociologie, société et politique

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Publié par	WITS University Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776140206
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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HEALING
THE
EXPOSED
BEING

Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg 2001
www.witspress.co.za
First published in South Africa in 2017
Copyright © Robert J Thornton 2017
Cover photograph by Fiona Simmons © Fiona Simmons 2017
Photographs by Robert J Thornton. Copyright © Robert J Thornton 2017
Selected images reproduced with permission of British Museum, London (Licence No. 1165314001); Naprstek Museum, Prague; and University of the Witwatersrand Entomology Collection, Johannesburg.
All images remain the property of the copyright holders. Wits University Press gratefully acknowledges the publishers, institutions and individuals referenced. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce all images. Please contact the publisher at the address above in case of any omissions or errors.
ISBN 978-1-77614-018-3 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-77614-019-0 (PDF)
ISBN 978-1-77614-020-6 (EPUB N & S America, China)
ISBN 978-1-77614-021-3 (EPUB Rest of World)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the Publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
Project managed by Hazel Cuthbertson
Edited by Pat Tucker
Proofread by Alison Lockhart
Indexed by Marlene Burger
Cover designed by Hothouse South Africa
Typeset by Newgen
Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgements and dedication CHAPTER 1: Bungoma or ‘philosophy of the drum’ in the South African Lowveld CHAPTER 2: The material logic of evil and the augmented self CHAPTER 3: ‘Cleaves Water’, eats intwaso : Becoming a healer in the bungoma tradition CHAPTER 4: The transmission of knowledge in bungoma CHAPTER 5: Healing conflict: The politics of interpersonal distress CHAPTER 6: Marginal utilities and the ‘hidden hand’ of zombies CHAPTER 7: The market for healing and the elasticity of belief CHAPTER 8: Apotropaic magic and the sangoma’s patient CHAPTER 9: Magical weevils and amaryllis in southern African ritual landscapes CHAPTER 10: Magical empiricism and the ‘exposed being’ in public health and traditional healing
Conclusion
References
Index
List of figures
All images copyright the author unless otherwise specified.
Acknowledgements FIGURE 1: Alice Slone Thornton, my great-grandmother, a true healer in the Appalachian and Eastern Cherokee traditions.
Chapter 1 FIGURE 1.1: The mantis, symbol of deep knowledge and precarious wisdom in southern Africa. FIGURE 1.2: Map: Umjindi district in eastern Mpumalanga province, showing location of Emjindini village and Barberton, the primary research sites.
Chapter 3 FIGURE 3.1: The healer is under flowing water, the basic metaphor of bungoma education. FIGURE 3.2: Magodweni prepares the goat for slaughter beside the garden with new herbs and the lees of beer spilled for the ancestors under a white cloth on the umsinsi tree branch. FIGURE 3.3: Magodweni sits on his stool, looking regal. FIGURE 3.4: The gall-bladder and the knucklebone (astragalus) from the goat. FIGURE 3.5: A ring is tied to DabulaManzi’s forelock. FIGURE 3.6: Magodweni and DabulaManzi.
Chapter 7 FIGURE 7.1: Sandwiched between a beauty shop and a furniture repair shop on a Barberton main street, Doctor Mukasa offers a range of healing services attuned to the people’s needs. FIGURE 7.2: Price list posted by the healer Magodweni in his indumba , Emjindini.
Chapter 9 FIGURE 9.1: The label of the ‘Bamangwato beetle amulet’. It reads ‘Necklace worn by a woman at M[?, illegible], got from her with difficulty’. Naprstek Ethnological Museum, Prague. FIGURE 9.2: Brachycerus ornatus . This local variant has a rougher shell and variably shaped red spots. University of the Witwatersrand Entomology Collection, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences. FIGURE 9.3: The ‘Bamangwato beetle amulet’ consisting of six beetle exoskeletons on a leather thong. Naprstek Museum, Prague. FIGURE 9.4: Two beetle amulets from the British Museum. * FIGURE 9.5: Accession book with description of the single-beetle amulets, British Museum, London. FIGURE 9.6: Brachycerus ornatus exoskeleton (front and back) incorporated into a necklace/amulet from the Henry Wellcome Medical History Collection, now in the British Museum, London. FIGURE 9.7: Definition of |Xam term !nu!nurussi as ‘Brachycerus’ (African Ground Weevil). FIGURE 9.8: Drawing (ca. 1870s) by George Stow of ‘Bushman’ rock engravings, showing a six-legged spotted creature that may represent B. ornatus (lower right), with other unidentified images – possibly patterns of beads and magical bundles. FIGURE 9.9: Isibhuko , ‘mirror’, from Muti King and College shop, Roodepoort, Johannesburg. FIGURE 9.10: Boophone disticha , photographed in the field approximately 12.5 km south-west of Machadodorp, Mpumalanga, 2012. FIGURE 9.11: Site of Boophone disticha specimen in Figure 9.10. Note the presence of large stone circles in the vicinity. The green arrow marks the location of one of the B. disticha specimens shown here. FIGURE 9.12: Inflorescence of Boophone disticha from the same ecological environment as the plant in Figure 9.10. The flowering head is nearly 0.5 m across. FIGURE 9.13: A sangoma’s herbal medicine garden, Barberton, Extension 11. The garden was planted and tended by Magodweni. FIGURE 9.14: The black headring ( incotho ) can be seen on the head of the senior representative of King Mswati of Swaziland (right front in photograph), in attendance at the Chief’s ummemo or annual community levy, October 2009. FIGURE 9.15: Dolerite (diabase) rock, recently chipped to obtain a stone tool used for digging medicinal herbs in the veld. Three strike points and a bulb of percussion are visible in the centre of the cusp between the two faces of this core. FIGURE 9.16: Characteristic holes (centre) and flat stone digging tools (bottom centre) are left by healers (herbalists and sangomas) digging for herbs in the veld. The holes are left open to maintain the potency of the herb.
* The British Museum permits Wits University Press to use this image under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.
Acknowledgements and dedication
I am grateful for the assistance of many individuals – sangomas, healers, colleagues in anthropology, botany, ethnobotany, archaeology, history, curators and other specialists.
I especially wish to acknowledge the close friendship with my collaborators during my work in Barberton: my teacher of bungoma , Magodweni (Fani Nkosi), my friend and assistant in many endeavours, Zelda Gama, my former student, Shado Dludlu, who became a sangoma and led me to Barberton, and guide and mentor, Joel Mnisi, in particular. Most of these friends have now passed away, as have most of the participants with whom I began my research in Barberton in 2000. They are deeply missed.
There were many others whom I do not name, but I am deeply grateful to them all.
In particular, I honour Sophie Jardim and the family of HIV orphans she raised together with her own children. I learned much from her and enjoyed her company and the meals she prepared from donated food for her large family. One member of her family, Catherine Mabila, helped me a great deal with the transcription and translation of material from videos that I shot with Zelda Gama, Joel Mnisi and Magodweni.
James G Harrison (Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg) identified the beetle discussed in Chapter 9 as B. ornatus . He provided significant original research on the distribution of B. ornatus and supplied specimens from the university’s collection for photography.
Jana Jiroušková (Naprstek Museum, Prague) gave me access to the Naprstek Museum archives and storerooms to enable me to examine the beetle amulet and associated materials in the Emil Holub Collection. Helena Gaudekova assisted me in exploring the collections. Gaudekova and Jiroušková also provided a forum for the first presentation of some of these ideas by inviting me to present a talk at the conference ‘Museum and Cultural Identity’ of the Réseau Internationale des Musées Ethnographique in Prague, 8–10 October 2012.
Catherine Elliott (Museum Assistant, Africa Collections, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum) provided information relating to the British Museum examples of B. ornatus strung with beads.
Mark McGranaghan (Rock Art Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand) steered me towards the Bleek-Lloyd online archive and pointed out that a beetle was referenced there. Sam Challis also provided guidance.
David Morris (Kimberley Museum, Kimberley, South Africa) provided invaluable assistance in understanding the Driekopseiland site where the rock engraving of B. ornatus was found (although the image is also part of the Bleek-Lloyd online archive).
Professors Anitra Nettleton (Wits Art Museum) and Kevin Balkwill (Botany, University of the Witwatersrand) had important discussions with me and supplied information that I have used in this book.
I profited greatly, too, from the comments and support of my readers and the conference attendees and seminar participants who listened to much of what is assembled here. Professor Richard Werbner and the members of the Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Religion and Ritual, held annually in Grasmere, England, were especially helpful.
The chapter on markets was significantly improved by discussions with Rijk van Dijk and Marliese Dekker at the seminar in Leiden out of which that chapter emerged.
Sarah A Bologne did an excellent job of editing the complete manuscript, suggesting many substantive changes as well as making the text more readable. I am grateful, too, for the insightful and helpful comments and suggestions from the anonymous readers.