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Water Symbolism in Shambaa Arts of Healing 1 by Barbara Thompson, Ph.D.
ECOLOGY AS A DEFINING FACTOR IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS The Shambaa peoples live in the Usambara Mountains of northeastern Tanzania, locally called shambaai or Land of the Shambaa, which is a dramatic region hosting one of east Africa's most bio-diverse environments . For hundreds of years the temperate climate, rich soil, and sloping interior of Shambaai have provided the agricultural Shambaa peoples with year-round farmland . Due to its rich and, in some cases, rare flora, the natural environment of the Usambara Mountains also hosts vast resources of medicinal plants and symbolic materials that are used in ritual processes of spirit healing and spirit possession. Considering that Shambaai is one of the wettest and most fertile regions of Tanzania, it is not surprising that water plays a pivotal role in the ontology of the Shambaa peoples. Indeed, shambaai is famous in Tanzania for the expertise of its healers and herbalists who derive medicinal knowledge from the bio-diversity of these highlands. The Shambaa associate water with notions of health, fertility and purity. Water is regarded as the original abode of purifying spirits that, depending on the diverse circumstances of life, can cause or cure physical, social and psychological afflictions and misfortunes. Among the Shambaa and culturally related peoples of northeastern Tanzania, water and the environmental fertility of shambaai are starkly contrasted to the aridity of the east African savannas (nyika) that surround the mountains. In shambaai, cool, fresh water flows abundantly and clearly from the mountain's lush rain forests (fig. 1) toward the heat-scorched savannas at the base of these majestic mountains. In shambaai, water is a source of life and a source of healing. Nyika, on the other hand, represents heat, barrenness and disease. Shambaai and nyika present themselves as opposing images defined by the environmental/geographic differences as well as by the lifestyles, behaviour, mannerisms, and beliefs molded by the environment. From the Shambaa perspective, shambaai is the preferred environment; it hosts a healthier and less dangerous environment . Shambaai, as a cultural and an ecological environment symbolizes the desired state of health and wellbeing. Nyika, on the other hand, symbolizes the potential threat of sickness and misfortune.
HEALING WITH THE SPIRIT(S) OF WATER Of all the natural and symbolic elements used by Shambaa healers, waghanga (mghanga, sing.) water is among the most important. Water is the source of life. It is a purifier for mind, body and soul. Although, the spirits can be found everywhere in the environment, water sources such as wells, rivers, streams and waterfalls are the original home to the ancient spirits of shambaai. Whether waghanga use actual water or symbolic expressions of water to convey notions of health, water and its associated materials are fundamental components in psychosocial healing. Materials that originate from water sources are used for medicinal mixtures or as apotropaic and affecting symbols that are endowed with the therapeutic capabilities of water spirits. "In ughanga, every thing is related to everything else" emphasizes the healer, Tate Habibu (personal communication October 18, 1997). The medicines inside a container are related to the medicines decorating the outside. The container as a whole is related to the illness. The illness is related to the spirit embodied by the container and the spirit is related to place(s) in the environment from which the individual elements are derived. Because the oldest and most powerful spirits originate from the water, neophyte waghanga often are called (in)to the lakes (or other water sources) by their tutelary spirits to learn about ughanga, about medicinal plants and their processing, about symbolic ingredients and materials, and about the composition of medicinal objects, images and performances for spirit healing.
In ughanga, therapeutic symbolism associated with water and purification can be used to transform a person from a state of sickness to a state of health. Water often is used to bathe the spirit afflicted (fig. 2). For example, when an angered or malevolent water spirit causes illness or misfortune, water is used to purify the patient from the ailment. One must keep in mind that in east Africa impure water (from a biomedical point of view) is a major cause of fever and disease. Conversely, sterilized water can be used to clean or treat the sick. The use of water in ughanga, however, extends beyond the biomedical paradigm by incorporating the symbolism of water use for the appeasement of angered or disturbed water spirits. Idealistically, waghanga take patients afflicted by water spirits directly to a natural source of water--waterfall, ocean, stream, river or beach-where the spirits are called upon to cleanse and treat the patients. When this cannot be done because the patient is too ill or a natural water source is too far, then drinking or bathing water can be endowed with purifying traits through incantation, and ritualistically enhancements associated with water. Once activated with therapeutic powers, the water is poured over a patient while the mghanga, his/her assistants, and the patient's family pray and sing medicinal songs that arouse the spirits of water to heal. Another common method of treatment of water spirit afflictions is purifying patients by symbolically "washing" away the illness and/or evil that has compromised their health. For example, some waghanga take their patients to the riverside (mtoi) to purify (kung'aza) the patients in river water that, as an abode for spirits, is endowed with the therapeutic powers of local water spirits. At the riverside, a multi-colored chicken-symbolizing all the colors of the spirit world-is killed. The patient then receives incisions on his/her temples. The beheaded chicken is placed on top of the patient's head so that the blood of the chicken and patient mixes and flows away into the river. The blood that is washed away by the river releases malicious spirit powers from the patient's body and sends it back where it belongs, to the place of its origin in the water where the spirit will do no more harm. During this whole process, powerful incantations are chanted (kutabana vikai). These verses scold and repudiate malicious spirits, disempower them, and reverse their malignant intentions. In addition, the mghanga coaxes and negotiates with the spirit to forge a positive and mutually constructive relationship between the spirit and its host. Most possessing spirits ideally are kept in benevolent relationships with the patient or transferred into the mghanga for further therapeutic use. Innately malicious spirits are exorcised if their powers cannot be contained in a safe manner. In some cases, a healing object, such as a medicine gourd, horn or shell, may be embellished with symbolic materials that relate to the qualities of water and the powers of water spirits. Because of the purifying nature of water, white is the most common color associated with water. Consequently, many materials used to represent or invoke water spirits are white: white rice, white sugar, white plant sap, white cloth, white shells (usually cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean), white maize meal, white ashes, and of course a profusion of white beaded decorations (Fig. 3). For example, medicine gourds (nkhoba) that embody the power (nguvu) of water spirits, such as Jeni Baha'i (Ocean Spirit), are embellished with a profusion of water symbols (fig. 4). These may include riverine or oceanic shells, strands of white beads, white goat skin, pebbles and pods from riverine or coastal areas, and miniature whisks/brooms that "sweep away" impurities of the mind, body and soul. Together with empowering incantations and prayer, these symbols activate, embody and bespeak the potency of local and foreign water spirits. In addition to the external decorations on a medicine container, the essential power of a water spirit is also incorporated inside the object through medicinal mixtures that are extracted from plants that grow in or around the water. These extracts further endow the inanimate object with the power to cleanse and purify. While some of the plants have actual (natural) healing qualities, others are made "medicinal" through incantation.
The reverence and importance of water in Shambaa ughanga extends beyond the acquisition of medicinal and symbolic ingredients for medicine objects. Shambaa ughanga also centers on the importance of water or water symbolism in the construction or maintenance of sacred sites (hantu hang'azi). In constructed sites¾ which represent culture/society)¾ water spirits can be represented and invoked by pebbles and stones that have been washed upon the shores of rivers and lakes, rocks that are eroded to a smooth surface by generations of rain, or by ceramic vessels filled with water (Fig. 5). These are placed at strategic locations, such as in a spirit compound, on a mountain top or at a crossroad, as a device for containing the water spirit's essence for continued protection, accessibility and interaction. Once in place, incantation and prayer further animate the objects with the power of water spirits. The shrines serve as symbolic loci of waterpower as well as a physical threshold to the world of these spirits.
Since water spirits are as fickle and fleeting as water itself, they can take up residence in these constructed sites, but also in trees, caves, crossroads or mountain peaks (Fig. 6). If a spirit has been identified as residing in a naturally occurring site other¾ representing of course, nature/wilderness¾ water symbols are placed at these sites to honor and appease the spirits. These symbols also serve as markers that warn passersby of the ritual danger of the location. It is often in such places of transient spirit residence that a person can inadvertently be "hit" by a water spirit who causes affliction for the unsuspecting passer-by as a form of requesting ritual attention and human-spirit fellowship. Regardless of whether the site was constructed or naturally occurring, it is regarded as a sacred site by mere virtue as an abode for water spirits. Waghanga can then bring their patients to these water shrines for therapeutic purposes. The site can serve also as a place where waghanga give thanks to water spirits who have helped them heal or they can draw their own healing powers and advice from the spirits residing at these locations.
WORKING WITH THE "OTHER": FOREIGN WATER SPIRITS IN UGHANGA While Shambaa waghanga are experts in working with local water spirits, they have also learned to work with water spirits of foreign origin. A malicious spirit that originates from the coastal or other foreign regions might travel to shambaai and subsequently afflict the Shambaa with "foreign" spirit diseases. Some of these foreign spirit afflictions must be treated with foreign medicines but local water spirits familiar with the ways of the world can treat others. The relationship between foreign spirit afflictions and the water is based in the symbolic associations of shambaai (home) and nyika (a foreign place) mentioned earlier, but it extends also beyond these geographic boundaries to include images of and interactions with the rest of the global world. Shambaa waghanga explain that when Arabs and Europeans arrived in Tanzania, they usually came by boat (via the ocean or rivers). They also brought with them Arab and European spirits¾ many of which were water spirits¾ and are therefore represented by the typical symbols of local water spirits: the color white, materials derived from watery locations, purifying objects and prayers, etc. By working with these Arab and European spirits (as well as a multitude of African foreign spirits), waghanga learned to embody and conquer the essence of the foreigner's intentions, whether these were/are benevolent or malevolent. By becoming the foreign "other", waghanga could better understand the strengths, weaknesses, needs and desires of these human and spirit "visitors" (wagheni). The notion of understanding is an all-important metaphor in ughanga, commonly expressed in prayer and incantation through the multi-leveled phrase tiivana: let us hear each other out, let us come to an agreement, let us understand one another. It is this fluidity to take on the new and the different that establishes ughanga as one of the most important institutions of change in Shambaa culture. Its foundation rests in the notion that the circumstances of life, death, relationships and experiences are negotiable. By working with foreign spirits rather than against them, waghanga are able to negotiate new cultural relationships that result from globalization, to redefine the norms and codes of life according to these changes, and to pool together resources for all over the globe for greater stability and power.
This pooling of resources is often conveyed through the composition of medicine containers that convey messages of cooperation. For example, Kimp'aa cha Mazi (not pictured) is a medicinally-charged shell. It is a healing object that embodies the notion of negotiation between local and distant lands. Kimp'aa cha Mazi belongs to a larger medicine gourd and therefore represents only part of the whole. It is specifically a medicine of the oceans and rivers. Like most symbols of the water, the shell was once white. However, over time it has darkened with age and use. Kimp'aa cha Mazi contains a medicinal mixture that is used to treat water spirit afflictions. The mixture is made from both plant and symbolic substances taken from the mountains, savannas and coasts. Kimp'aa cha Mazi is regarded as a visual metaphor of the many streams of water that flow from the highland rainforests of shambaai into the plains of nyika. Waghanga explain that the disparate water sources of shambaai (the rivers, waterfalls and streams) unite in the nyika to form the Pangani River, which flows out to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Like the mighty Indian Ocean, which is fed by waters from all directions of the globe, Kimp'aa cha Mazi signifies the immense power that can be derived from the unity of various water and spirit sources. This concept can, of course, be applied to almost any aspect of life in which disparate powers or peoples come together to work hand in hand for mutual wellbeing and benefit. Kim'paa cha Mazi therefore collectively embodies the essence and the power inherent in the global environment. As such it can been seen as a metaphor also for the fellowship established between humans and spirits in ughanga as they join forces for the mutual benefit of all. FIGURES Fig. 1. A view of the majestic mountains of shambaai reveals the beauty and fertility of these lush lands. Lushoto District, 1996. © Barbara Thompson. Fig. 2. An mghanga dresses in white Arabic clothes and bathes a patient, draped with a white cloth, with medicinal waters to eliminate an affliction caused by an Arab water spirit. © Barbara Thompson, 1999. Fig. 3. A treatment room is decorated with white symbolism and medicinal objects for a water spirit. © Barbara Thompson, 1999. Fig. 4. A medicine gourd (nkhoba) is decorated with water symbols for the ocean spirit, Jeni Bahai'i. © Barbara Thompson, 1999. Fig. 5. A shrine for water spirits is constructed with rain-washed stones and water-filled ceramic vessels in the midst of a spirit compound. © Barbara Thompson, 1999. Fig. 6. A mountain top shrine is marked by two water-filled ceramic vessels and spirit foods for the water spirits residing at this location. © Barbara Thompson, 1999. WORKS CITED Feierman, Steven. 1974. The Shambaa Kingdom. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. -----1981. "Therapy as a System-in-Action in Northeastern Tanzania." Social Science and Medicine 15B:353-360. -----1986. "Popular Control Over the Institutions of Health: A Historical Study." In The Professionalisation of African Medicine, edited by M. Last and G. L. Hamilton, A.C. 1989. "The Place and the Problem," In Forest Conservation in the East Usambara Mountains Tanzania, edited by A. C. Hamilton and R. Bensted-Smith. Cambridge: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Mersmann, Christian. 1993. Umweltwissen und Landnutzung im Afrikanischen Dorf. Vol. 14, Hamburger Beiträge zur Afrika Kunde. Hamburg: Institute für Afrika-Kunde. Thompson, Barbara. 1999. Kiuza Mpheho (Return of the Winds): The Arts of Healing among the Shambaa Peoples of Tanzania. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa.
Biographie de Barbara Thompson
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