TRADITIONAL MEDICINE IS DEEPELY ROOTED IN SWAZI CULTURE

…IS UNLIKELY TO BE REPLACED BY WESTERN INFLUENCED PHARMACIES

 

I am one person who has been raised in the most common township in the country. Msunduza, skom, ekasi; whichever name you prefer where’ in my early days of primary level seeing a sheeben in the area was like today seeing the restaurant at Gables in Ezulwni. During these days there were a lot of police crackdowns on the sheebens which were operating ‘illegally’ brewing the area’s favourite traditional brew. Such was acceptable in the society but it could not deter the area’s Sheeben Queens from operating their illegal trade and as I write this piece there are a couple who are still operating in the area’s dark city….

Enough of the drunk talk but one should know that I have been prompted to raise this issue because of recent and current continuous arrests of traditional healers under the tag ‘Operation Worthy’ .According to local press reports this is done by local police in a bid to tackle animal parts syndicates.

Apart from the Mbabane Swallows / Black Swallows crazy feat in the soccer filed, I personally feel such an issue has recklessly been handled or police have become overzealous regarding the arrests.

One should not forget that traditional healer have long been here even before the Game Protection Act was inscribed in the country and some of the people who today trample on the traditional healers trade consult some of the traditional healer for ‘magic/ healing potions.

Now that the law enforcers are coming hard on the healers trade one has to wonder is this means that the traditional healing profession which is highly associated with the Swazi Cultural beliefs would be buried and there would be no hope of resurrection.

Personally I am a qualified human Rights Defender having being armed with Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, Rights of the Child and Human Rights Law and thus feel my bitterness at the manner the issue of the healers is being handled by the country’s law enforcers.

Being Swazis we should know that despite being westernized by Capitalism of the world’s heavyweights most Swazis still believe that health, disease, success or misfortune are not chance events but the result of the active influence of individuals or ancestral spirits.

It is for this reason that the country’s citizenry always thrive on holding high esteem on traditional healers are held in high esteem in Swazi Culture and are held in high proportion of the country’s population.

Even though some consult healers secretly due to the modernized and religious values instilled the country’s citizenry but is no hidden fact when the going gets tough most people consult traditional healers to find long lasting solutions of their problems.

Going through the local newspapers advertisements, one’s eyes is always tackled by the increased number of traditional healers adverts which literally shows that the consultancy of  traditional healers is alive.

With conservation being used to curb the possession of  ‘protected game’  parts , I therefore  made my research with emajaha lamadzala from the traditional circles who confirmed with authority  that in the past conservation of  traditional medicine plants used to be achieved by various customary conservation practices such as taboos, religious controls and seasonal and social restrictions.

For example, menstruating women were not permitted to collect certain species as this would remove the "power" of the plant. Inadvertent restrictions such as the use of inefficient digging sticks to remove bulbs and roots also prevented overexploitation. Traditional healers and their plant gatherers collected enough for their needs and no more.
Many traditional healers, unlike most commercial gatherers, still adhere to traditional conservation practices in modern times. Among plant gatherers, however, the situation is very different and the collecting and selling of medicinal plants has become highly commercial.
I am not sure of how much animal species have been lost due to poaching or traditional healers in search of certain animal species are being used for traditional medicine all those in support of the crackdown they should know that it means that if traditional medicine disappears then primary and assuming that a primary health to a traditionalist would be compromised and thus would be substituted  with western medicines which would definitely bring a negative spat on the true Swazi Culture which has contributed immensely on luring tourists into the country.