Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - November 30, 2004
Joe Nam
This select society are custodians of knowledge that could wipe away many diseases afflicting the population today. This includes cancer in all its forms, STDs, tuberculosis, asthma, malaria and less fatal infections such as cough and worms.
A number of obstacles stand in the way of traditional healers.
Most do not hold academic qualifications and are unlikely to command respect from a society obsessed with 'papers.' They are associated with witchcraft, ritual murders, defilement and the dark world of black magic.
The colonial state and organised religion mounted a devastating campaign against herbal medicine and its practitioners, which continues to this day. Herbal practitioners were branded witches, satanists and dangerous people.
So, what is the world of a traditional healer like?
"Interesting," says Erifasi Keita, the chairman of traditional healers at Rukararwe in Bushenyi. "I found myself working with my father and grand father when I was a boy, they had knowledge of many herbs, in our home, knowledge of herbs is a family heritage. But then I went to work in Uganda Transport Company in those days.
After that I worked in Queen Elizabeth National Park and Busenyi Town Council. During this time, I would give herbal medicine free of charge to sick friends. Now that I am back home I am offering treatment on full time basis."
Keita, who with over 20 colleagues dispenses herbal medicine at a clinic in Rukararwe Partnership for Rural Development, says his knowledge of herbal medicine is mainly from his father and grandfather. "My grandfather showed me many herbs.
I have come to discover other herbs by intuition, whenever I see a plant, I suspect something, then I take extracts from the plant and try it out, most of those I have tried are successful," he says Like many herbalists, Keita is not a spiritist. "I don't dream the source of medicinal herbs. I know more than 1000 medicinal herbs.
True herbalists do not harm people, they heal people, it is witch doctors who harm people and cast spells on gardens. People fear me, they think I will bewitch them but I am a Christian and serve and rely on God, I go to church of Uganda.
Keita however, said all his children have taken to other jobs and are not interested in mastering herbal medicine. He hopes to train one of his grandchildren.
Frank Ndibaleme, another traditional healer says he dreams up trees and plants with medicinal values, in addition to the herbs he learnt from his father, grandfather and fellow healers.
He became a herbal medicine apprentice at 13. "It's in our blood,' he said, "Sometimes i dream I am in a certain place seeing the medicinal tree, when I go there, I surely get it. At times, a voice in a dream describes to me the plant and the disease it cures."
Uganda currently has no policy streamlining the use of herbal medicine. This has made the sector unpredictable. Since the Colonial Government backed Witchcraft Act 1957 which sought to regulate practices involving the use of supernatural powers, but did not discriminate between genuine traditional healers and witches, traditional healers have found themselves on the wrong side of the law.
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