INFECTIOUS DISEASES - Blackherbals.com

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Continued from page 3–The Meaning of Peace in ATRgood and just. As God’s messengers and intermediariesbetween God and humans, they are the targets ofnumerous cults and prayers.There is yet another class of spiritual beings who arenot always good. Some of them are good, some are, tosay the least, mischievous, while others are outrightevil. And they are innumerable! Some of these arehuman, like the wandering spirits of some dead personswho due to some lack did not make it to the home ofthe ancestors and also the spirits of witches and wizardswho, though still alive, are believed to be able to leavetheir bodies and inhabit lower animals in order to harmother persons.Perhaps the most dearly loved spiritual beings in ATRare the ancestors, those “living-dead” (to borrow theexpression of John Mbiti), who are effectivelymembers of the family and clan, now living in a statethat permits them to enjoy some special relationshipwith God, the divinities and the good spirits. They arealso believed to have some power over the evil spiritsand are therefore able to protect the living members oftheir respective families from harm. To qualify to be anancestor, it is not enough just to be dead. An ancestor isone who died after having lived a life judged to be fullyrealized and morally upright, an integral life. Theancestors are so dear to the heart of Africans and socentral in their traditional religious practices that someoutsiders have mistakenly described ATR simply as“ancestor-worship.”b) WorshipReligion for the Africans embraces life as a whole andworship touches every aspect of their lives. Strictlyspeaking, only God and the divinities are worshippedand this is done through sacrifices, offerings, prayers,invocation, praises, music and dance. In many localitiesin Africa there is no direct cult of the Supreme Being,yet God is the ultimate object of worship whom thepeople approach through intermediaries: religiousfunctionaries, the ancestors and the divinities. There isno clear separation between the spiritual and thematerial, the sacred and the profane. Nevertheless,there is an abundance of temples, shrines, groves andaltars used for public and private worship in most partsof Africa. Some special trees, some rivers, forests,mountains, considered manifestations of the sacred,often serve as places of worship. This has led somescholars to imagine that it is these natural objects thatare being worshipped – to the amusement of thetraditional religionists.Some of the good spirits and all the ancestors arevenerated and constantly implored to intervene onbehalf of humans. The evil spirits are neverworshipped, even though some evil persons arebelieved to align themselves with the evil spirits inorder to tap their evil powers and use them to harmothers. The veneration of the ancestors, which usuallytakes the form of libations, offerings and prayers,sometimes also becomes more elaborate and intenseleading to the blurring of the line which usuallyseparates worship and veneration. But this is notpeculiar to ATR, as Christians who also have the cult ofthe saints can testify to.(The story is told of a lady who went everyday to herparish church to pray. Each time she entered the churchshe would go straight to where there was the statue ofthe Our Lady, light a candle, kneel in prayer for a verylong time and at the end would leave, without even asmuch as a bow in the direction of the BlessedSacrament. The sacristan, who had watched this go onfor several months and felt irritated by thismisplacement of emphasis, one day decided to play atrick on the lady. He hid behind the altar and just as shebegan her usual prayers he started saying in a voicemeant to rouse awe: “I am Jesus! I am Jesus! I amJesus!” The lady, unable to bear this any longer burstout: “Shut up! I am talking to your Mum!”)c) MoralityThe practical aspect of belief in ATR is not onlyworship but also human conduct. Belief in God and inthe other spiritual beings implies a certain type ofconduct, conduct that respects the order established byGod and watched over by the divinities and theancestors. At the centre of traditional African moralityis human life. Africans have a sacred reverence for life,for it is believed to be the greatest of God’s gifts tohumans. To protect and nurture their lives, all humanbeings are inserted within a given community and it iswithin this community that one works out one’s destinyand every aspect of individual life. The promotion oflife is therefore the determinant principle of Africantraditional morality and this promotion is guaranteedonly in the community. Living harmoniously within acommunity is therefore a moral obligation ordained byGod for the promotion of life. Religion provides thebasic infrastructure on which this life-centred,community-oriented morality is based. John Mbiti’sfamous phrase “I am because we are; and since we are,therefore I am,” captures this ethical principle well. Theimplication is that one has an obligation to maintainharmonious relationships with all the members of thecommunity and to do what is necessary to repair everybreach of harmony and to strengthen the communityContinued on page 21-20- Traditional African Clinic December 2006
Continued from page 20 – The Meaning of ATRbonds, especially through justice and sharing. And this isnot simply a social need but a religious obligation sinceGod, the divinities and the ancestors, the guarantors ofthis order of things, are quick to punish defaulters. Anyperson who infringes a moral norm in traditional Africansocieties has not only the members of the community tofear for reprisals but also God and the spiritual beings.“In order to aid man in ethical living, God has put in himthe ‘oracle of the heart’… the ‘inner oracle’… This‘oracle of the heart’ is a person’s conscience, the law ofGod written in him. A person is at peace when he obeyshis conscience.” On the contrary, when he disobeys this‘inner oracle,’ he lives in constant fear, especially in fearof all natural manifestations of divine power. The Igboexpress this in a proverb: “Ọbụ onye ñụlụ iyi asị ka egbeigwe na-atụ egwu” (It is only one who has committedperjury that is afraid of the thunder). It has been notedthey say is not the truth.Perhaps because of their strong attachment to thecommunity, Africans have a very strong sense of justice.Without justice, life in the community would beimpossible; there would be no harmony. A victim ofinjustice often makes a direct appeal to God. Africansbelieve that God, who is just and who sees and knowseverything, hates injustice as is illustrated by thefollowing Akan proverb: “Nyame mpe kwaseabuo nti enawama obiara edin” (It is because God hates injustice thathe has given each one a name). Traditional Africanmorality has cosmic dimensions which will emerge fromour brief look at the world-view implicit in ATR.Excerpts from The Meaning of Peace in African TraditionalReligion and Culture. Part III of IV to be continued in thespecial December issue.http://afrikaworld.net/afrel/goddionah.htm☻☻☻☻☻☻☻EPIDEMIC IN AFRICAEbola Virus Kills Thousandsof GorillasSPIEGEL ONLINE - December 8, 2006Outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus has killed up to5,500 gorillas in West Africa. A study released on Fridaysays that together with commercial hunting, the viruscould threaten the species with extinction.An outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa hasn't justkilled people. It has also caused the deaths of up to 5,500gorillas in the region, according to a study published onFriday. Over 90 percent of the regional gorilla populationperished between 2001 and 2005, and the outbreak --combined with commercial hunting -- threatens to send thespecies into extinction, the researchers said.The report, published in Friday's edition of the journalScience, says "ape species that were abundant and widelydistributed a decade ago are rapidly being reduced to a tinyremnant population." The survey is the first comprehensiveassessment of the deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo andGabon in 2002 and 2003 that killed anywhere from 3,500 to5,500 gorillas and an uncounted number of chimpanzees.Ebola has killed 1,287 people in Africa since 1976according to the World Health Organization Web site."The Zaire strain of Ebola virus killed about 5,000 gorillasin our study area alone," said research team leaderMagdalena Bermejo of the University of Barcelona inSpain, according to the report. "Add commercial hunting tothe mix, and we have a recipe for rapid ecologicalextinction."Bermejo's team began studying a group of western gorillasin 1995 in the Lossi Sanctuary in north-western DemocraticRepublic of Congo. "By 2002 we had identified 10 socialgroups with 143 individuals," the researchers wrote. Butthat year, an outbreak of Ebola killed dozens of people inthe region, as well as 130 of the gorillas. The researchersturned their attention to another group of 95 gorillas, but a2003 outbreak killed all but 4 of those animals.That prompted the team to analyze the regional pattern ofgorilla deaths. Friday's report concludes that the virusspread primarily from gorilla to gorilla in a southwarddirection. They arrived at the 5,500 figure based on thenumber of observed deaths and the known mortality rate ofthe Ebola virus, which kills between 50 and 90 percent ofits victims.Ebola hemorrhagic fever causes severe fever, headaches,joint and muscle aches, sore throat and weakness, followedby diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and internal andexternal bleeding. The virus is transmitted by direct contactwith bodily fluids such as blood, urine or saliva. There is nocure or effective treatment, and vaccines are still indevelopmentThe virus seems to be spreading faster among gorillas thanamong humans, Friday's report finds. Peter Walsh, anecologist at the Max Planck Institute for EvolutionaryAnthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has an explanation. Hesays gorilla groups share territories, often eating fruit fromthe same tree. Feces from a sick gorilla could easily infectothers. Moreover, gorillas and chimpanzees are known tohandle the bodies of sick or deceased apes when they findthem, which will often transmit the virus.Continued on page 22-21- Traditional African Clinic December 2006
Page 1: African Traditional Herbal Research
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Page 10 and 11: Continued from page 7 - Pfizer Faul
Page 12 and 13: Continued from page 11 - The Virus
Page 14 and 15: Continued from page 13 - Virus Canc
Page 16 and 17: Continued from page 10- Custom-Buil
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Page 24 and 25: Chik Virus Has NowSpread To the USF
Page 26 and 27: Continued from page 25 - Chik Virus
Page 28 and 29: Malaria Fuels HIV/AidsSpread In Afr
Page 30: Mission StatementOur aim at The Afr

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