Colonial Powers Failed to Stifle Traditional Healing in Zimbabwe

Mental Health in Zimbabwe: The Role of Traditional Healers

In Zimbabwe’s Shona language, mental illness is known as mushandisi or hurumende. Before British colonial settlers arrived in 1890, traditional healers, known as baba vangu, played an important role in helping people to manage their mental as well as their physical health.

A Colonial Crackdown

However, from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the British colonizers, particularly Christian missionaries, cracked down on the work of the traditional healers. They insisted that communities should abandon their traditional beliefs and healing practices. Instead, people were cajoled and threatened to embrace Western biomedicine, relying on its psychiatric and psychological methods to treat mental illness.

The Witchcraft Suppression Act

The British government of what was then Rhodesia introduced the Witchcraft Suppression Act in 1899. It also used the colonial education system to push people away from what the British perceived as “superstitious” ways of understanding and healing illnesses.

The Impact of Colonialism

The colonial crackdown succeeded only in driving healing practices underground. Shona people no longer openly expressed their interest in using traditional rituals. Unfortunately, they did not always receive the help they needed from Western biomedicine, since there were only a limited number of nurses, medical doctors, psychiatrists, or psychologists available to treat those with mental illnesses. The system favored white “Rhodesians,” and Shona people weren’t given priority.

The Post-Colonial Era

In the 1980s, in the early post-colonial Zimbabwe, the government introduced several strategies to try to restore the respect and function of cultural beliefs and traditional healing practices. It created Zinatha (the Zimbabwe Traditional Healers Association) and later amended the witchcraft suppression law, so that traditional healers were no longer viewed as witches or “witch-doctors” or their healing practices as witchcraft.

A Recent Study

I am a researcher who focuses on traditional healing, mental health, and neoliberal regimes in north-eastern Zimbabwe. I wanted to know what role traditional healing plays in helping the Korekore (a sub-group of Shona people) in the country’s Rushinga district manage their mental health. I also wanted to know how people think about mental illness and what factors they believe influence it.

The Study’s Findings

The Korekore strongly believe that mental illness is largely caused by sorcery, witchcraft, the breaking of cultural taboos, or avenging spirits. They acknowledge that other psychosocial and physical factors can play a role, too, but largely see mental illness as a social and cultural issue.

Conclusion

This means that traditional healers are key to managing mental illness. I argue that the public health system, which still values Western biomedicine over other approaches to healing, needs to take the role of traditional healers more seriously and work towards helping patients holistically, in a way that patients value and recognize.

FAQs

Q: What is the role of traditional healers in managing mental illness in Zimbabwe?

A: Traditional healers are key to managing mental illness, as they believe that mental illness is largely caused by sorcery, witchcraft, the breaking of cultural taboos, or avenging spirits.

Q: How do the Korekore people in the Rushinga district perceive mental illness?

A: The Korekore people believe that mental illness is largely caused by sorcery, witchcraft, the breaking of cultural taboos, or avenging spirits, and that other psychosocial and physical factors can also play a role.

Q: How do traditional healers approach mental illness?

A: Traditional healers follow an overall pattern in their approach to mental illness. They divine the causes of the illness, suggest healing methods, and use various techniques, such as exorcising bad spirits, inducing vomiting, and using spiritualized and non-spiritualized herbs.