Healing - Cultural fundamentalism and syncreticism in Buganda

Journal/Book: Africa. 1996; 66: Trade Dept, 22 George Square, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland EH8 9LF. Edinburgh Univ Press. 183-201.

Abstract: The article is based on a six-month survey of healers and sources of everyday medicine in and around Kampala, Uganda, during 1992. Four case studies of healers and their lives demonstrate the range of healing practice available to the sick or anxious. The emphasis is on the return to 'our things', to the techniques and beliefs of traditional Bugandan culture, in the face of ordinary people's poverty and the scarcity, cost or failure of biomedicine. But this 'cultural fundamentalism' is combined with practical syncretism, as the healers remain Muslims or Christians and readily recommend hospital treatment whenever it seems more appropriate.

Note: Article

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