Diagnostic Legitimacy and Colonial Medical Hegemony: Traditional Healing Practices in Sukuma Land, Tanzania, 1920s–1961

Abstract

The traditional healing practices of the Sukuma people in Tanzania are truly fascinating. Their healing practices were studied during the period when the British were in charge, from approximately the 1920s to 1961. This paper looked at what people said in interviews in Misungwi District, Mwanza, and at old records from the colonial time. This helped the author see how traditional healers of the Sukuma people of Tanzania figure out what is wrong with people in a way that makes sense and works. The British doctors back then did not pay much attention to the traditional healers of the Sukuma people of Tanzania and their ways of doing things. They did not think the traditional healing practices of the Sukuma people of Tanzania were as good as their medical practices. The Western medical system is really popular. The Sukuma healers think their way of diagnosing people is just as good. They can figure out what is wrong with someone even if someone cannot see it. The Sukuma healers are similar to doctors who use special tools to find tiny germs that make people sick. This paper looks at why the Western medical system and the traditional healing methods of the Sukuma people do not match. It shows how the people in charge of the medical system tried to make the traditional healing methods seem weak, but the Sukuma people kept using them anyway because they worked well for their community. The Sukuma healers and the Western medical system have different ideas about how to make people healthy, and this paper tries to understand these differences. The Sukuma healers and their traditional healing methods are still important today. The paper also helps tothink about how countries were run with kinds of medicine. It shows that the ways of thinking and knowing that people had before the colonizers came can still be strong when there are other powerful medical ideas around. The paper is really about administration and medical pluralism and how indigenous epistemologies can withstand dominant medical paradigms.