healingor moral concerns, healers often function as religious specialists, such as
the shaman, spirit medium, priest, or other holy person.
The intimate connection between healing and religion suggests that
illness is culturally defined and that illness possesses a culture-specific
nature. Within the religious cultural context, a way is provided for a per-
son to think about, have certain expectations, and deal with various forms
of illness. It is the religious cultural context and assumptions made within
such a situation that enables the healer to effectively treat patients. In
other words, because the healer and patient share the same worldview,
the former is able to work effectively by assigning a meaning to an
illness.
The healer uses various possible rationales for a particular illness, such
as the intrusion of an object into a sick person’s body, spirit intrusion,
the patient’s loss of soul, or the use of sorcery to cause a disease. The
various reasons for the causation of illness can be countered by methods
such as confession by the patient, which is often done in public. This type
of remedy presupposes a relationship between morality and illness, which
can include a direct or indirect infringement of moral codes or violation
of taboos, and it assumes that without confession healing cannot occur.
By making the method public, the patient dispels negative thoughts and
deeds, enabling the healer and community to deal with the underlying
problems causing the illness. For the Ndembu of Zimbabwe, for instance,
sickness is often related to the anger and aggression of male ancestors,
who cause illness when a law or customary rule is broken. This type of
illness is called ihamba and is identified with the central incisor of a dead
hunter believed to possess the power to kill animals. The cure consists of
a combination of confession by the victim and kin and removal of the
ihamba by ritual. Among the Ndembu, it is presupposed that secrecy is
not healthy.
Another major way to cure an illness is to transfer it from the patient
to some object ritually, symbolically, or psychologically. The healer or
ritualist works to condense, objectify, and bind the illness before it is
dramatically destroyed or banished. Among the Yoruba of Nigeria, a
healer performs a rite at a river after the patient strips naked and dons
new white clothing. The sick person’s head is shaved and cuts made in
the scalp. After this action, the healer and patient go waist deep into the
stream. The healer uses a dove as a sponge, wetting it and rubbing it over
the patient’s body. This procedure is intended to draw the illness out of
the patient and transfer it to the dove, which is finally drowned and
thrown downstream along with the disease. After a second dove is killed
and its blood smeared on the head and upper body of the patient, the
vitality and calmness of the bird is transferred to the patient. The patient,