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A Case Study of Ideas Concerning Disease among the Tiv1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

D. R. Price-Williams
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Extract

Ideas and behaviour relating to health and disease among the Tiv of Benue Province, Central Nigeria, have been reported in the literature at different times. Most of these studies have focused on the general principles involved as universal features of the Tiv people. The present study is concerned only with the ideas and social background of disease in one particular locality, namely an area within a certain ‘clan’ called Mbara.

Résumé

OBSERVATIONS SUR LES IDÉES CONCERNANT LES MALADIES CHEZ LES TIV

Les rapports entre les réactions envers la maladie et d'autres particularités du système social sont examinés dans une région déterminée, chez les Tiv de la Nigéria centrale. Cet exposé de recherches se présente comme un recueil concentré d'observations plutôt quʼune étude ethnographique approfondie. Les Tiv considèrent la maladie seulement comme un cas d'infortune générale. Le mot-clé akombo est employé dans des domaines autres que la maladie, mais a trait aux forces non-humaines qui occasionnent la maladie, tout en désignant le complexe particulier des symptômes de la maladie. Il existe des classifications d'akombo par rapport à la maladie et l'auteur en donne des exemples fondamentaux. La responsabilité de la réparation des dégâts causés par akombo incombe aux parents du malade aussi bien quʼà lui-même. Des renseignements sont fournis sur les divers parents qui sont impliqués suivant les circonstances. Il est également démontré que la responsabilité de l'akombo est étendue à d'autres générations que la génération actuelle. L'établissement de l'origine d'une maladie peut être une question de continuité à travers les générations. Ceci est associé à l'endroit où se tient le rituel de la guérison dont certains aspects sont exposés en détail. Les practiciens qui relèvent du système de l'akombo sont énumérés: il est démontré quʼil s'agit en grande partie des agnats. Les aspects financiers de l'akombo et les opérations commerciales s'y rattachant sont également étudiés. A la fin de l'exposé, le fond de sorcellerie et les idées sur la causalité sont examinés en rapport avec les conceptions de la maladie et du malheur.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1962 , pp. 123 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1962

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Footnotes

1

My thanks are due to the authorities at the S.U.M. Hospital at Mkar, particularly to Dr. Grey, for permission to gather material on the incidence of disease in the area. The writing was greatly aided by the comments of Dr. Paul Bohannan on an earlier draft, and by my colleagues of the Anthropological Department of the London School of Economics.

References

page 123 note 2 The terms ‘clan ’, ‘kindred ’, ‘clan-head ’ are not used in the anthropological sense, but designate the administrative units.

page 123 note 3 Rupert East (trans, and ed.), Akiga's Story: The Tiv Tribe as seen by one of its Members. O.U.P., 1939.

page 124 note 1 R. C. Abraham, The Tiv People, 2nd ed. Crown Agents, 1940.

page 125 note 1 Laura and Paul Bohannan, The Tiv of Central Nigeria. International African Institute, 1953.

page 125 note 2 The classification was put forward only as an analogy. It must not be considered that Tiv really thought akombo to be a person.

page 126 note 1 There are literally scores of akombo. The list given above represents merely the main ones in the area about whose symptoms there was agreement. A study of the literature and of neighbouring areas at the time of this research shows that akombo with similar names might have different symptoms, and vice versa. As with much else in Tiv there is little orthodoxy about this matter.

page 127 note 1 See Laura and Paul Bohannan, op. cit., pp. 23–25, and Laura Bohannan, ‘Political aspects of Tiv social organisation ’ (p. 38), in Middleton, John and Tait, David (eds.), Tribes without Rulers. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958Google Scholar.

page 128 note 1 But see Laura and Paul Bohannan, op. cit., pp. 88–90, and East, op. cit., pp. 196–205.

page 129 note 1 Laura and Paul Bohannan, op. cit., pp. 84–85.

page 130 note 1 For case histories of this see especially Nos. 3, 4, and 6 of Bohannan, Paul, ‘Homicide among the Tiv of Central Nigeria’, in Bohannan, Paul (ed.), African Homicide and Suicide. Princeton University Press, 1960Google Scholar.

page 130 note 2 W. A. Malherbe, in an unpublished manuscript kept at Mkar Hospital and lent to me by kind permission of the S.U.M. authorities, recognizes four classes of death, of which only one is death by witchcraft or akombo, while the remainder could be categorized as death due to accident or natural causes, for example starvation. While this may be correct as far as it goes, this kind of classification does not indicate that Tiv acknowledge two causes, of death or illness, which Bohannan (in a personal communication) has called a volitional and an instrumental cause. Sometimes a man dies as a direct result of witchcraft, for example, by poison. Sometimes a man dies through the medium of a ‘natural ’ illness, but brought on through witchcraft.

page 130 note 3 East, op. cit., p. 246.

page 130 note 4 Downes, R. M., The Tiv Tribe. Government Printer, Kaduna, 1933Google Scholar.