This book about spirit healing and healership in Tanzania is based on a comparative ethnographic research. The study demonstrates the role, meaning, function and value of divination, dreams, ritual, music and trance which can go hand in hand with practical and traditional knowledge about plants. To capture an African point of view the book incorporates several descriptive sections. It also contains an online presentation of some healers and their clients who participate in diagnostic, ritual and musical healing sessions. The outcome of the book shows that spirit healing practices today are an outspoken means of reacting to and coping with the changes of time. When these constraints are not sufficiently relieved or remedied with the help of traditional or musical rituals, spirit affliction may be inherited as in a genetic disorder. Occasionally, it may even cause an epidemic of spirit affliction among lineages or ethnic groups. A resourceful book for anyone interested in African traditional religion or holistic health care in Africa.

Autorentext

Jessica Erdtsieck (1954) studied cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. Her interest in the role of spirituality and healing springs from her activities as a yoga teacher. The lack of detailed accounts on African traditional healing practices incited her to do in-depth research in this field in East-Africa.