Death in Abeyance: Illness and Therapy among the Tabwa of Central Africa (International African Library)

This is a comprehensive survey, in both its theory and its practice, of the Tabwa who live on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo (fomerly Zaire). The following topics are covered: concepts of the body and of illness, illness categories and approaches to diagnosis, divination and the meaning of illness in the life-histories of individuals and lineage groups. Moving to a broader perspective, it embraces therapies both of bodily events ('medicine') and of social circumstances ('magic' and 'religion'), and relates them to the cosmological beliefs which link and underwrite all three.Based on nearly four years of fieldwork, Dr Davis' book is the most complete study so far of an African therapeutic system. In contrast to most ethnographies of medicine, which take social structures as primary and treat medical knowledge as an extension or reflection of it, this study focuses on the medical system itself. When medicine is thus considered first as an indigenous or vernacu This is a comprehensive survey, in both its theory and its practice, of the Tabwa who live on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo (fomerly Zaire). The following topics are concepts of the body and of illness, illness categories and approaches to diagnosis, divination and the meaning of illness in the life-histories of individuals and lineage groups. Moving to a broader perspective, it embraces therapies both of bodily events ('medicine') and of social circumstances ('magic' and 'religion'), and relates them to the cosmological beliefs which link and underwrite all three.Based on nearly four years of fieldwork, Dr Davis' book is the most complete study so far of an African therapeutic system. In contrast to most ethnographies of medicine, which take social structures as primary and treat medical knowledge as an extension or reflection of it, this study focuses on the medical system itself. When medicine is thus considered first as an indigenous or vernacular science, it is soon seen that much of what passes for an inderstanding of ritual, magic and religion in Africa is thin and misconceived. Death in Abeyance was awarded the 2002 Wellcome Medal (Royal Anthropological Institute). CONTENTS 8 List of Maps, Tables and Figures 9 Acknowledgements 10 By way of an introduction 12 PART I: The defile of the signifier 48 1 Dimensions of the Body 50 2 The Disorder of Things I: Diagnostic Categories and the Classification of Illness 80 3 The Disorder of Things II: Aetiology of Disease and the Process of Divination 104 4 The Defile of the Signifier: From Symptom to Life History 121 PART II: Generation of identity, (re)production of history 142 5 Illness and Personal Identity: Kiabu’s Case 144 6 Illness and Local History: Mwanga Village 174 PART III: Intervening in the substantial real 228 7 Bodily Therapies 230 8 The Logic of a Substantial World 255 9 Events Objectified: Words into Things 269 10 Futures Realised: Events out of Things 298 Notes 313 Bibliography 327 Index 342 A 342 B 342 C 343 D 343 E 344 F 345 G 345 H 345 I 346 J 346 K 346 L 348 M 348 N 350 O 350 P 350 Q 351 R 351 S 351 T 352 U 352 V 353 W 353 Z 353 Kiba Is A Genre Of 'traditional' Music In South Africa. This Book Is About Its Performance And Social Meaning. Women Migrants From The Country's Northern Province Have Developed The Genre, Formerly An Exclusively Male One, In Vibrant And Stimulating Ways. Through An Exploration Of The Richness And Variety Of The Songs, The Social Background To Their Performance, The Life-histories Of Female Performers, And The Women's Own Running Commentaries, Deborah James Opens Up Novel Pathways Of Interpretation Of The Significance Of Such Music.--jacket. Christopher O. Davis. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.