Native African medicine : With special reference to its practice in the Mano tribe of Liberia

George Harley, a medical missionary in Liberia, has spent many years at the Ganta Dispensary on the upper St. John River near the border of French Guinea. In the present work he gives an excellent ethnographic picture of the Mano tribesmen of northeastern Liberia, agriculturalists whose whole political and social system is bound up in a graded secret society called the Poro Bush. This is, or was, an initiation school, held every six years, in which the adolescent boys are given instruction in three groups: one for the commoners in arts, crafts, and farming; one for the sons of noblemen in government and leadership; and one for practitioners of the magical arts, including medicine. The Mano curative practices may be divided into those which are wholly overt or practical, in our sense, those which are purely magical, and those which combine the two principles. Their use of drugs is their chief claim to medical renown, but they are also good at bone-setting and perform some surgery. The book will be valuable to both medical men and anthropologists. INTRODUCTORY NOTE PREFACE CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. THE ΜΑΝΟ PEOPLE CHAPTER II. MEDICINE IN GENERAL, OR MAN’S CONTROL OF HIDDEN POWER CHAPTER III. MEDICINE DISTINGUISHED FROM RELIGION CHAPTER IV. THE ΜΑΝΟ CONCEPTION OF DISEASE CHAPTER V. RATIONAL TREATMENT OF DISEASE CHAPTER VI. MAGICAL TREATMENT OF DISEASE CHAPTER VII. TREATMENT OF DISEASE, PARTLY RATIONAL, PARTLY MAGICAL CHAPTER VIII. TREATMENT OF SNAKEBITE CHAPTER IX. THE BA KONA, A SOCIETY FOR THE TREATMENT OF SNAKEBITE CHAPTER Χ. MEDICINE IN THE PORO CHAPTER XI. MEDICINE IN CERTAIN OTHER SECRET SOCIETIES CHAPTER XII. BLACK MAGIC AND POISON CHAPTER XIII. DIVINATION CHAPTER XIV. SPECIAL MEDICINES AND SACRED OBJECTS CHAPTER XV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER NATIVE MEDICAL PRACTICE IN AFRICA AS A WHOLE APPENDIX. EXCERPTS FROM THE LITERATURE ON AFRICAN MEDICINE BIBLIOGRAPHY BOTANICAL LIST INDEX ## PREFACE list of botanical names was checked by Dr. Richard Evans Schul tes. In the spelling of Mano words the phonetic scheme used by Westermann and by Migeod has been generally followed, but the sound of short "a" as in "fat," "hat," etc., is represented in this book by the symbol "a." It is understood that a resume of this study is to be included in a comprehensive volume dealing with the culture of certain Liberian tribes which is now being prepared from material collected by George Schwab and myself. The present study will attempt to describe the practice of medicine largely as the native understands it, rather than simply to interpret his ideas in terms accepted by anthropologists and therefore having previous meanings.