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Death in Abeyance
Christopher O. Davis
其他書名
Illness and Therapy Among the Tabwa of Central Africa
出版Edinburgh University Press, 2000
主題History / GeneralHistory / Africa / GeneralMedical / GeneralMedical / Alternative & Complementary MedicineMedical / DiseasesPOLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Cultural PolicyPolitical Science / World / AfricanSOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / CulturalSocial Science / Anthropology / Cultural & SocialSOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture
ISBN07486130569780748613052
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=Z9btAAAAMAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋This is a comprehensive survey, in both its theory and its practice, of the Tabwa who live on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo (fomerly Zaire). The following topics are covered: concepts of the body and of illness, illness categories and approaches to diagnosis, divination and the meaning of illness in the life-histories of individuals and lineage groups. Moving to a broader perspective, it embraces therapies both of bodily events ('medicine') and of social circumstances ('magic' and 'religion'), and relates them to the cosmological beliefs which link and underwrite all three.Based on nearly four years of fieldwork, Dr Davis' book is the most complete study so far of an African therapeutic system. In contrast to most ethnographies of medicine, which take social structures as primary and treat medical knowledge as an extension or reflection of it, this study focuses on the medical system itself. When medicine is thus considered first as an indigenous or vernacular science, it is soon seen that much of what passes for an inderstanding of ritual, magic and religion in Africa is thin and misconceived.Death in Abeyance was awarded the 2002 Wellcome Medal (Royal Anthropological Institute).