Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 419
the effects of sorcery. We think it was this supernatural ability that made a powerful sorcerer,
while someone particularly selfish who did not have that ability might have been more prone
to committing witchcraft (wadighe). Unfortunately we do not have any oral data to ascertain
whether wadighe was seen more to be committed by females and therefore had a less
intentional aspect and was therefore more seen to be driven by negative personality traits than
male sorcery.
Next we want to briefly discuss the term kwiya (mentally disturbed). My oral source from
Kwalika pointed out that someone could either naturally become kwiya or become kwiya
through witchcraft or sorcery. While certain kwiya were treatable, others were not. Also, some
people who had become kwiya would fight, meaning they could be physically dangerous,
while others did not fight at all. It was further explained to me that regardless of whether an
individual developed mental health problems through the action of a witch (wadighe), a
zalghede (sorcerer) or naturally became mentally ill, in all cases a gwal ngurɗe (specialist
healer) would be able to help. However I was informed that in the case of mental health
problems which had developed naturally (meaning not through a sorcery attack), the healing
process of a developing mental illness would only be successful during the early stages. This
statement sounds similar to the psychiatric distinction between a first onset and a chronic
mental illness.
I was also told by my Kwalika source that someone could become kwiya as a result of being
possessed by God (gwazgafte). They pointed out that this type of mental illness caused by
gwazgafte might have been triggered by something unexplainable that had happened while
the person was walking around in the night. For example, a person might have seen
something that did not exist for others. Such a person would then go to a diviner, and the
diviner would deduce whether or not the person who believed they were going mad was at
risk of developing a mental illness. This example demonstrates that the fear of being
confronted with supernatural events was quite high, and that it was not only humans who
were seen to have the ability to transform into something else, but we will learn more about
that in the next chapter section.
During my inquiry it seemed difficult to identify a gwal ngurɗe who was specialised in
treating kwiya, and it was explained to me that in the case of the first episode of such a mental
illness, the family of the affected person would immediately go and find a branch from a
shrub called rɗa khutimbe (rɗa = sex; khutimbe = a certain wild animal without a tail,
somewhat like a rat but with legs like a rabbit). They would take this plant and hold it under
the nose of the mentally disturbed person. The smell was very strong and was supposed to
remove the hallucinations or delusions. Only if this medicine did not work would the family
go and consult a diviner. The diviner would investigate the cause and then tell the family how
to tackle it. The diviner might have also recommended a gwal ngurɗe (specialist healer) to
treat it.
Finally, we want to mention the term ragha for someone mentally handicapped, and the term
nzagha kwa for someone who behaved oddly in a way that most people would not view as
normal. It seems that both types of such pathological personality traits were seen as being
different from kwiya but we do not have much data on them. We infer here that ragha perhaps
meant someone with a learning disability rather than a mental illness, but it was pointed out to
me that someone ragha could potentially also behave violently to others. The term nzagha
kwa is presumably not a learning disabilty but some kind of personality disorder, but we do
not really know and it might be a reference to someone very eccentric or with an atypical
autistic spectrum disorder.
We infer that the above two personality features were not the result of a supernatural attack,
but that both cases were what was earlier referred to as natural types of disorderly behaviour
which could even result in violence. This leaves kwiya as the only pathological personality
trait which might either have been a result of supernatural attack or a result of natural causes.
Kwiya from natural causes, namely seeing things other people did not see, was a delusional
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