The Medicine Man among the Zaramo of Dar es Salaam

The traditional medicine man still plays a central role for the modern urban African population coped with its various social and physical problems. This book, a rewriting of a University of Dar es Salaam doctoral thesis, looks at the practice of 84 traditional medicine men and nine Muslim cleric healers in the city of Dar es Salaam. Analysis of the practice of these numerous traditional healers, the problems brought to them, and their method of healing was substantiated by following a hundred cases of their clients as well as by interviews with several hundred more on their experiences with traditional healers. Through the situational analysis of numerous case studies and quantitative data, this study substantiates the hypothesis that the medicine man working in African cities today continues to preserve and promote traditional therapeutic practices and beliefs, but also adapts to present changing social conditions of his urban clientele and he obviously fills a need that the formal health system fails to meet.

As an urban anthropologist, pastor and teacher the author has lived for many years among the Zaramo. This revised doctoral thesis is an important and well documented study of the traditional healers in the urban setting.