Med Anthropol Q. 1999 Sep; 13(3): 316-37.

Sacrifice, plants, and western pharmaceuticals: money and health care in northern Ghana.

Bierlich B.

National Commission on Culture, Accra, Ghana.

In this article I discuss the role of money vis-Ã -vis health care among the Dagomba, an agrarian people living in northern Ghana, whose pluralistic medical culture involves the use of both plants and Western pharmaceuticals in the treatment of various symptoms. In Dagomba society monetary exchanges in the domain of healing cannot be equated with self-interest, and nonmonetary exchanges cannot be compared with altruism in any straightforward fashion. Exchanges and their purposes are made meaningful by the contexts in which they occur. Exchanges may involve money and be commoditized. However, the very fact that such an exchange is made in a "benevolent and considerate manner" (which often means selling/buying on credit) transforms otherwise impersonal relationships between medicine sellers and their customers into displays of solidarity with the communal (collective) goals of Dagomba society.