The Land Is Dying by Paul Wenzel Geissler Ruth Jane Prince

Author:Paul Wenzel Geissler, Ruth Jane Prince [Paul Wenzel Geissler, Ruth Jane Prince]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General, Health & Fitness, Diseases, Aids & Hiv, Death & Dying
ISBN: 9781845458027
Google: DqjPtujGvwgC
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2010-06-01T05:21:22+00:00

Treating chira

Chira is not easily spoken about. Flora and her mother told us and other neighbours that her body was aching and that she had diarrhoea and left us to draw our conclusions. Talking about rules of conduct, people say: ‘This was bad’ (rach) or ‘That was difficult/hard’ (tek) to indicate that a particular act spoiled kwer. Chira is often diagnosed by members of the household, who point out one or the other wrongdoing if a family member is sick (e.g. ‘This illness is seeing his father naked!’). Thus the act stands for the illness, and the term chira is not spelled out. If the manyasi (medicine for chira and other ancestor-related illnesses only; also called ‘earth medicine’, yath piny) that family members know of does not work, people suspect that the illness is a matter of more than a ‘small chira’, and the ‘root of’ (tiend) chira must be investigated through divination, either by a diviner (ajuoga) or more commonly by a priest of one of the African independent Churches. Even in the diagnosis the word itself is usually omitted and a turn of phrase such as ‘it is in their home’ suffices. Manyasi for ‘big chira’ is prepared by a healer, often the same who divined the cause; its ingredients are unknown to the patients, but it is said that, apart from herbs, it may include earth from the place where the kwer was spoiled or from another spot that has been in contact with the persons involved, pointing to the involvement of ancestral force in the causation and healing of chira. The fact that this treatment of chira can also be called hoso (like the reconciliation, mentioned in the previous chapter, between the evil-eye woman and her victim through the ritual sharing of food) suggests that the ingestion of herbs and earth is to contribute to the restoration of ties between ancestors and those who ‘spoiled’ the kwer and the resuscitation of the social and creative processes that were thereby obstructed. Some treatments, especially if the patient is very sick, are lengthy, expensive and administered by the healer. In other cases, the manyasi is taken home from the healer in a jerrycan and drunk when required (as in the case of a woman in Uhero who, lacking other help, had washed her sick father-in-law against the rules, and hoped to prevent chira by drinking manyasi).

In the case of Flora's sickness, several different diagnoses and treatments were discussed and tried out simultaneously. While staying in Uhero, Flora went to a Christian diviner (jalam) of Legio Maria. He folded a piece of paper into the Bible and when he removed it, he claimed that the writing that had appeared on the paper suggested that Flora's father-in-law had built his home before his elder brother, spoiling kwer and bringing chira over the home. Therefore, Flora's husband had died, as well as her children. He told Flora to buy cloth and candles so that he could perform a healing ritual, and to go back to her marital home to get some of their bed sheets.

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