One could say that health is one of the most important aspects of our lifes, you need it to survive. To have a good health is a privilege, and only several people have this privilege in the world. I spent the last couple of months investigating the health and medicine of the Igbo tribe in Southern Nigeria. This is an example of a lesser developed country in the world, my adventure was very interesting seeing as I got to experience how a tribe like the Igbo deal with their health and medicine. I was able to gather numerous amounts of information on how they treat people against sickness, and in this article you will find information on the healthing system in the Igbo tribe, and how they cure “aru mgbu” (body pain) or “oria” (sickness).
The Igbo people believe that spiritual and physical health had a very strong relation, meaning that if your faith was strong your physical health would be the same. Faith is very important to the Igbo people, they each serve multiple different gods, this is because they think that this is very important as it will protect they from danger and give them joy in return. The Igbo people are known as one of the most religious tribes in the world, they even have their personal god. This is called their chi, a chi is seen as a moral compass which helps one with their decisions, when someone turns against their chi it is seen as sin and people believe they might be harmed or be in danger. The Igbo view insanity as the worst type of illness, and people say that it will be punished the hardest. What I noticed was that the Igbo tribe is very much different to the western world, this is mainly because they believe that most of their sicknesses are caused by evil spirits. This is also due to the fact that Southern Nigeria is a not a very developed country. However, the people that deal with medicine in the Igbo have a lot of knowledge about their subject, this fascinated me, seeing as their information was mainly based off physical observations without any research.
The people that cure disease in the Igbo are called healers. They are named the Dibia, and are responsible for curing people, treating illnesses or injuries in order to restore one who is ill. Igbo healers are special people, they are recognized as very noble people by their community and when they pass away, their history will not be forgotten. Healers are very intelligent people, they know all their is to know about their subject. They are able to identify which symptoms are related with a certain disease, they are also trained to understand relationships between things that have occured in one’s past and might affect why they are ill. Consequently, you are not able to train to become a healer, you are in fact born to become a healer, the Igbo believe that you inherit the wide knowledge and ability to become a healer. Becoming a healer takes a high amount of discipline and determination, it is a very hard profession. Furthermore, there is not one type of Dibia, there are numerous different types of healers whom are all specialists in different areas of sickness. Some of these are: Dibia-afa (Diviners), Dibia Mgborogwu (Herbalists), Dibia Okpukpu (Orthopedists), Dibia-Era (Psychiatrists) and Traditional Midwifery/Birth Attendants. There are countless amounts of Dibia, these are only a few which have been listed.
The Dibia use physical observations to determine how a sickness should be treated, however they also look at the patient’s history and check the state of their spiritual health. The Dibia use both spiritual and herbal practices to cure their patients. When the Dibia perform a spiritual approach they begin by connecting with their gods and to provide healing and to identify where the sickness is coming from. They do this to before treatment to ensure that their gods will not anger them. After calling out to their gods, depending on the occasion, they might sacrifice an animal to their gods to attempt to cure the one who is ill. On the other hand, the Dibia also use a huge variety of different herbal treatments, varying from boiling herbs to letting them dry. The healers know exactly which treatment should be used against a specific disease, the Igbo tribe are very organised with their medication. There is a standard of 17 medications which the healers use, these are plants, some of these include: Pineapple, Three leaved yam, Orange and Alligator pepper. However, the Dibia also uses methods such as massaging to cure muscle pain or help recovery to a certain body part.
My trip to Southern Nigeria provided me with new information which was extremely captivating. I very much enjoyed my stay with the Igbo tribe and it will be a memory which will stay for me for the rest of my life.
Writer: Sem Zijl
Photographer: Akhenaten
Word count: 828
The photograph show three Dibia wearing masks which represent spirits.