African Healing Shrines and Cultural Psychologies

Matthew Michael

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781913363826
• eBook ISBN: 9781913363833
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

This book presents a pioneering work on the ethnopsychology of African healing spaces and its strategic influence in the contemporary constructs and negotiations of African sacred geography. Since African Christianity towers now—as the "new global face" of World Christianity—and the defining face of the "Next Christendom", there is the urgent need to engage the active conversations of African Christianity in direct relationship to the larger therapeutic background of African healing shrines.

African Healing Shrines, the Psychology of Wellness and its Modern Trajectories

Umar Habila Dadem Danfulani

Introduction

In modern discourses on religion, “shrine” is often an elusive term that generally fails to describe the range of concepts or ideas included in this description.¹ The reason perhaps being because “shrine” is derived ultimately from the Latin scrinium, meaning “box” or “receptacle”, as in “containers of sacred meaning and power”.² Within sub-Saharan Africa, this can encompass the domed Muslim qubba of Ethiopia or Sudan³ to the single pot yin (destiny) shrine of the Talensi.⁴ Van Binsbergen defines a shrine as an “observable object or part of the natural world, clearly localized and normally immobile”, and “a material focus of religious activities”.⁵ Dawson referred to shrines as symbolic “vessels”.⁶

Shrines are sacred places that serve as the abodes (habitats) of deities, spirits and ancestors (the habitus). Shrines are places of consultation with esteemed extra-human forces towards resolving unanswerable questions in order to allay fear and provide ways of resolving problems. Shrines are therefore significant divine habitats that promote social and religious activities in various communities.⁷ They serve many purposes, specifically religious worship. Thus:

A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated, and are synonymous with a place set aside for the worship and veneration of, and identification with of spirit beings…Shrines are not carnal places but are spiritual environments, places that usually have spiritual attraction because the people to whom they belong believe that it is a means to accomplish their desired wishes.⁸

Iroegbu referred to shrines as sacred places that inspires awe and elicit reverence because of what they stand for. A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, deified hero (now a deity), saint or similar a figure. Shrines often contain idolum (images), relics or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated. Shrines are found in all the indigenous religious traditions (IRTs) of Africans.⁹ Shrines are found in various settings and religious landscapes. Bruce identified different types of shrines located within buildings and in temples designed specifically for worship. A shrine is usually the centre of attraction in a building, house, room or place.¹⁰

Today, most people associate the term ‘shrine’ only with the traditional (pagan) religion, while reserving the term altar for common Christian usage. But an altar, essentially, is a sub-set of the shrine, particularly the part of the shrine where votive offerings are made. An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices and worship are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, a term which could be used interchangeably with temple, church and other places of worship. Actually, the raison d’être of the altar is to encourage and facilitate the offering of spiritual, material and emotional contribution of worshippers to a religious institution. It is thus erroneous that the term altar should be associated mostly with the Christian religion in describing contemporary religious landscape.¹¹

Shrines in IRTs are similar to those of the Graeco-Roman Empire, which possessed many gods and goddesses that were deified within sacred habitats. These gods had temples (or shrines) built for players and sacrifices. Sarfraz and Mirza conclude that shrines are considered as spiritually attracted places,¹² where spiritually attached people visit to present their wishes¹³ through spiritual incubation, oracles, prayer and sacrifice (opfer und gebet) and other ritual consultations with spirit beings and the spirit realm (see 1Kings 3: 4-15).

IRTs possess shrines with a rich typology: Open and closed shrines, house/hut and bush shrines, and human-made and natural shrines. An array of these sacred shrines forms an integral part of IRTs. They are regarded in indigenous African societies with a great deal of respect, veneration, and reverence. Among the Berom, and throughout the Jos Plateau in Nigeria, sacred pieces of land are hedged off by a number of taboos. For instance, nobody is allowed to rest under the shades of trees standing on sacred land, with the exception of pregnant women. Iron implements such as axes, hoes, cutlasses and machetes, handsaws and power saws are never used for cutting down any trees standing on sacred grounds. The trees are never tampered with, but when part of trees dry up or they are destroyed by a rainstorm or wildfires, priests of the shrines housing them are allowed to cut them off using stone implements.

Household shrines can be found in homes. Small household shrines are very common among the Igbo where they keep their Chi, personal gods. This shrine is usually a small structure housing figures/figurines of deities that form a part of the official religion. There are also compound shrines found in large compounds (ting-lu) that are usually made up of several households. Such ting-lu that existed in the pre-colonial epoch easily accommodated 50-150 people.¹⁴ Yet, the compound deity, kum-lu, represented by a long phallic pole, akin to the totem poles of North America Indian (NAI) Religions, stands opposite the ting-lu, compound, overseeing its safety.

A shrine implies a sacred place, frequently marked or embellished in architectural structures and art. The sacredness of a place is linked in some way to natural objects and features such as trees, stones, water, mountains, caves and forms in the landscape. These natural objects and forms lie at the root of the forms and shapes employed to mark or embellish a sacred site. These same sacred forms and shapes derived from natural objects and features become symbolic or emblematic of the sacred or divine – the habitus and its habitat. Sacred places are not only the abode of the divine but also serve to entice the divine to continue to reside at a given place or to take up residence at a new site. Sacred places are often rich in aesthetic experience.¹⁵

Places become sacred because of the remarkable events that occurred in them, their formation and functions as habitats of the gods. Sacred places where healing shrines are located are very often stunningly picturesque geographical locations. They very often are composed of monumental environmental features that include buildings, mountains, groves, rocks, terraces, cliff sites, solitary deserts, forests, trees, stones, rivers, fountains, streams, beaches, lakes and waterfalls, among others that are believed to be endowed with intense spiritual qualities. They are often marked by some specific anomalous or unique indicators, outside what makes them natural. This could be exemplified by the arranging of massive stones, terraces, runic stones or the movement of a stream of water in a peculiar style. The Zuma rock in Abuja and the hot and cold stream in Enugu State of Nigeria are typical examples. Sacred places are considered beneficial to healing and well-being.¹⁶ Sacred places rekindle reverence for land and cultural diversity and connect nature with culture.¹⁷

Sacred places are believed to possess variegated supernatural powers of healing, rejuvenation and longevity. They also are thought to positively affect devout human pilgrims who often visit them. They are sometimes held to be the focal points of creation, the navel or umbilical cord of the cosmos, places where deities first emerged and performed some sacred rituals and are thus typically steeped in mythology and theological dogmas.¹⁸ They still serve unique functions in traditional African societies, including protection, providence, guidance, revelations and historical powers of renewal, ritual enactment and pristine symbols of ethnic unity, and sources of personal magical potency and sorcerous power. Considering these different descriptions of shrines, the present discourse investigates the psychology of wellness in the particular presence and operations of healing shrines in modern Africa.

African Healing Shrines and Cultural Psychology of Wellness

To understand African understanding of wellness, there is need to foray into the cultural perspective on traditional medicine itself. WHO defines traditional medicine/healthcare as:

The total combination of knowledge and practice, whether explicable or not, used in diagnosing, preventing or eliminating physical, mental and social diseases. This practice exclusively relies on past experience and observation handed down from generation to generation verbally or in written form.¹⁹

In the view of Helms and Cook, indigenous healing refers to the helpful beliefs and practices that originate within a culture or society and are designed to treat the inhabitants of a given community.²⁰ Kofi-Tsekpo notes that the phrase “traditional medicine” has become a catchword among the peoples in all countries in Africa.²¹ However, “medicine” (yen) is a problematic term in its various cultural permutations. For example, Almquist describes how bebobe, “medicines”, was used by the pagibeti (Congo) as a “favourite one-word explanation” for “the unusual power of a chief, a witch, or a highly successful curer or hunter”.²² Similarly, Walls indicates the problem with the wo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• African Healing Shrines, the Psychology of Wellness and its Modern Trajectories
• African Healing Shrines, Christian Missions and the Mapping of African Spirituality
• African Healing Shrines and the Psychology of African Ethno-Medicine
• African Healing Shrines, the Trans-Border Dialogues and Modern Migrations
• African Healing Shrines, Sacred Geography and Modern Healing Adverts
• African Healing Shrines, Modern Miracles and Christian Missions
• African Healing Shrines and the African Metaphysics of Security
• African Healing Shrines, Contextualised Therapies and Specialisations
• African Healing Shrines in Creative Dialogue with African Independent Churches
• African Healing Shrines and the Psycho-Cultural Therapies of Modern Bori Cult Music in Northern Nigeria
• African Healing Shrines, the Anointed Diviners and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal among the Tiv People of Central Nigeria
• African Healing Shrines, Poverty and the Poor Clients of Ipore Shrine in Edo State, Nigeria
• African Healing Shrines and the Influence of Traditional Healers on Christian Prayer Houses in Delta State, Nigeria
• African Healing Shrines in Diaspora – the Quest for Healing and Wellness in Afro-Brazilian Candomblé
• Contributors
• Back Cover