‘ Why Are There So Many Drums Playing until Dawn?’ Exploring the Role of Gamba Spirits and Healers in the Post-War Recovery Period in Gorongosa,Central Mozambique
Restricted accessOtherFirst published online December, 2003
‘ Why Are There So Many Drums Playing until Dawn?’ Exploring the Role of Gamba Spirits and Healers in the Post-War Recovery Period in Gorongosa,Central Mozambique
In the wake of a civil war, local resources can play a potential role in shaping the recovery process by providing both old and new exegeses for the disturbing effects of the past. Using the case of Gorongosa, this article aims to explore the ways in which the war has impacted upon traditional medicine by creating Gamba spirits that cause havoc but can also transform the psychosocial hurts of war survivors. Historically, traditional healing practice was under the sole responsibility of the Dzoca, an ancestral spirit that for generations was embodied in living people through lineage descent to exercise its healing powers. There is consensus among healers that the Gamba spirit and healers emerged after the war and are rapidly spreading throughout Gorongosa. I explore the emic theories to explain the Gamba’s puzzling origins and the role they are currently playing in Gorongosa.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press .
2.
Barltrop, D., & Sandhu, B. (1985). Marasmus, 1985 . Postgraduate Medical Journal, 61, 915–923 .
3.
Bolton, P. (2001). Local perceptions of the mental health effects of the Rwandan genocide . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 189(4), 243–248 .
4.
Chingono, M. (1996). The state, violence, and development: The political economy of war in Mozambique, 1975–1992. UK: Avebury .
5.
Cohen, S. (2001). States of denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering. Cambridge: Polity Press .
6.
Csordas, T., & Lewton, E. (1998). Practice, performance, and experience in ritual healing . Transcultural Psychiatry, 35(4), 435–512 .
7.
Das, V., Kleinman, A., Lock, M., Ramphele, M., & Reynolds, P. (2001). Remaking a world: Violence, social suffering, and recovery. Berkley: University of California Press .
8.
de Girolamo, G., & McFarlane, A. (1996). The epidemiology of PTSD: A comprehensive review of the international literature. In A. Marsella, M. Friedman, E. Gerrity, & R. Scurfield (Eds.), Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and clinical applications (pp. 33–85). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
9.
de Jong, J., Scholte, W., Koeter, M., & Hart, A. (2000). The prevalence of mental health problems in Rwandan and Burundese refugee camps . Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 102, 171–177 .
10.
de Jong, J. T., Komproe, I., van Ommeren, M., El Masri, M., Araya, M., Khaled, N., van de Put, W., & Somasundaram, D. (2001). Lifetime events and posttraumatic stress disorder in 4 post-conflict settings . Journal of the American Medical Association, 286(5), 555–562 .
11.
Devereux, G. (1980). Normal and abnormal. Basic problems of ethnopsychiatry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press . [Original published 1956]
12.
de Vries, M. W. (1996). Trauma in cultural perspective. In Van der Kolk, A. McFarlane, & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic stress: The effects of over-whelming experience on mind, body, and society (pp. 398–413). New York: Guilford Press .
13.
Dolan, C., & Schafer, J. (1997). The reintegration of ex-combatants in Mozambique: Manica and Zambezia Provinces. Final Report. ( Oxford: Refugee Studies Program). University of Oxford .
14.
Eisenbruch, M. (1991). From posttraumatic stress disorder to cultural bereavement: Diagnosis of Southeast Asian refugees . Social Science & Medicine, 33, 673–680 .
15.
Ellenberger, H. F. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious: The history and evolution of dynamic psychiatry. New York: Basic Books .
16.
Englund, H. (1998). Death, trauma, and ritual: Mozambican refugees in Malawi . Social Science and Medicine, 46, 1165–1174 .
17.
Feierman, S. (1985). Struggles for control: The social roots of health and healing in modern Africa . African Studies Review, 28(2,3), 73–147 .
18.
Geffray, C. (1990). La cause des armes au Mozambique: Antropologie d’une guerre civile. Paris: Editions Karthala .
19.
Hall, M., & Young, T. (1997). Confronting Leviathan: Mozambique since independence. London: Hurst .
20.
Hanlon, J. (1991). Mozambique: The revolution under fire. London: Zed Books .
21.
Harrell-Bond, B., & Wilson, K. (1990). Dealing with dying: Some anthropological reflections on the need for assistance by refugee relief programs for bereavement and burial . Journal of Refugee Studies, 3, 228–243 .
22.
Hiegel, J. (1994). Use of indigenous concepts and healers in the care of refugees: Some experiences from the Thai border camps. In A. Marsella, T. Bornemann, S. Ekblad, & J. Orley (Eds.), Amidst peril and pain: The mental health and well being of the world’s refugees (pp. 293–309). Washington DC: American Psychological Association .
23.
Honwana, A. (1998). Sealing the past, facing the future: Trauma healing in rural Mozambique. Accord, 3. London: Conciliation Resources .
24.
Igreja, V. (2003) The effects of traumatic experiences on the infant–mother relationship in the former war-zones of Central Mozambique: The case of Madzawde in Gorongosa . Infant Mental Health Journal, 24(5).
25.
Igreja, V., Schreuder, B., & Kleijn, W. (1999). The cultural dimension of war traumas in central Mozambique: The case of Gorongosa. Transcultural Mental Health On-line (pp. 1–13). Available from http://www.priory.com/psych/traumacult.htm
26.
Janes, C. (1995). The transformations of Tibetan medicine . Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 9(1), 6–39 .
27.
Janzen, J. (1992). Ngoma: Discourses of healing in Central and Southern Africa. Berkley: University of California Press .
28.
Junod, H. (1934). Les cas de possession et de l’exorcisme chez les VaNdau . Africa, 7(3), 270–299 .
29.
Junod, H. (1996) Usos e costumes dos Bantu, vol 1 [The uses and costumes of the Bantu people]. Maputo: Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique . [Original published 1927]
30.
Kirmayer, L. (2000). Broken narratives: Clinical encounters and poetics of illness experience. In C. Mattingly & L. Garro (Eds.), Narrative and the cultural construction of illness and healing (pp. 153–180). Berkeley: University of California Press .
31.
Kleinman, A., Das, V., & Lock, M. (1997). Social suffering. Berkley: University of California Press .
32.
Marlin, R. (2001). Possessing the past: Legacies of violence and reproductive illness in central Mozambique. Unpublished PhD dissertation, New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
33.
Marsella, A., Friedman, M., Gerrity, E., & Scurfield, R. (Eds.) (1996). Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and clinical applications. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
34.
Nathan, T. (2001). La folie des autres: Traité d’ethnopsychiatrie clinique (2nd ed.). Paris: Dunod .
35.
Ngubane, H. (1977). Body and mind in Zulu medicine. London: Academic Press .
36.
Nordstrom, C. (1997). A different kind of war story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press .
37.
Nordstrom, C. (1998). Terror warfare and the medicine of peace . Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 12(1), 103–121 .
38.
Perera, S. (2001). Spirit possessions and avenging ghosts: Stories of supernatural activity as narratives of terror and mechanisms of coping and remembering. In V. Das, A. Kleinman, M. Lock, M. Ramphele, & P. Reynolds (Eds.), Remaking a world: Violence, social suffering, and recovery (pp. 157–200). Berkley: University of California Press .
39.
Reis, R. (2000). The ‘wounded healer’ as ideology: The work of Ngoma in Swaziland. In R. van Dijk, R. Reis, & M. Spierenburg (Eds.), The quest for fruition through Ngoma: Political aspects of healing in Southern Africa (pp. 61–75). Oxford: James Curry .
40.
Reynolds, P. (1990). Children of tribulation: The need to heal and the means to heal war trauma . Africa, 60(1), 1–38 .
41.
Richters, A. (1998). Sexual violence in wartime: Psycho-socio-cultural wounds and healing processes. The example of former Yugoslavia. In P. Bracken & C. Petty (Eds.), Rethinking the trauma of war (pp. 175–199). London: Free Assn Books .
42.
Schafer, J. (1999). Soldiers at peace: The post-war of demobilized soldiers in Mozambique, 1964–1996. PhD thesis, St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford.
43.
Schreuder, B., Igreja, V., Van Dijk, J., & Kleijn, W. (2001). Intrusive re-experiencing of chronic strife or war . Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 7, 102–108 .
44.
Suárez-Orozco, M., & Robben, A. (2000). Interdisciplinary perspectives on violence and trauma. In A. Robben & M. Suárez-Orozco (Eds.), Cultures under siege: Collective violence and trauma (pp. 1–41). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
45.
Summerfield, D. (1995). Addressing human response to war and atrocity: Major challenges in research and practices and the limitations of western psychiatric models. In R. Kleber, C. Figley, & B. Gersons (Eds.), Beyond trauma: Cultural and societal dynamics (pp. 17–29). New York: Plenum Press .
46.
Tang, S., & Fox, S. (2001). Traumatic experiences and the mental health of Senegalese refugees . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 189(8), 507–512 .
47.
Taylor, C. (1992). Milk, honey, and money: Changing concepts in Rwandan healing. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press .
48.
Turner, S., McFarlane, A., & van der Kolk, B. (1996). The therapeutic environment and new explorations in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. In B. van der Kolk, A. McFarlane, & L. Weisaeth (Eds.), Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society (pp. 537–558). New York: Guilford Press .
49.
Van der Geest, S., & Rienks, A. (Eds.). (1998). The art of medical anthropology readings. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis .
50.
Vines, A. (1991). Renamo: Terrorism in Mozambique. Bloomington: Indiana University Press .
51.
Whyte, S. (1997). Questioning misfortune: The pragmatics of uncertainty in Eastern Uganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
52.
Wilson, K. (1992). Cults of violence and counter-violence in Mozambique . Journal of Southern African Studies, 18(3), 527–583 .
53.
Young, A. (1983). The relevance of traditional medical cultures to modern primary health care . Social Science and Medicine, 17, 1205–1211 .
54.
Young, A. (1995). The harmony of illusions: Inventing post-traumatic stress disorder. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
55.
Zur, J. (1998). Violent memories: Mayan war widows in Guatemala. Boulder, CO: Westview Press .
