Abstract
This article presents data collected over 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2006–2007 on the interactions between users of Karimojong indigenous medicine and biomedicine. The Karimojong agropastoralists live in northeast Uganda and rely on local healers to treat illness, bless pending cattle raids, and maintain the spiritual health of communities. Indigenous practice has incorporated various biomedical insights, but the Western-based health sector has not as readily welcomed Karimojong local healing as a viable therapeutic strategy forcing some healers to covertly work in hospitals and clinics. Their work underscores their importance to community well-being and as advocates of holistic healthcare; without them, biomedical health centers will not fully answer to the patients' needs.
Notes
1. McMillen, “The Adapting Healer,” 900.
2. HRW, “Get the Gun!”; Stites and Akabwai, “‘We Are Now Reduced to Women’”; Stites and Akabwai, Changing Roles, Shifting Risks; Stites, Mazurana, and Akabwai, Out-migration, Return, and Resettlement; Mkutu, “Impact of Small Arms Insecurity”; Mizeler and Young, “Pastoral Politics in the Northeast Periphery.”
3. Gray, “A Memory Of Loss”; Gray et al., “Cattle Raiding, Cultural Survival, and Adaptability”; Sundal, “Difficult Decisions”; Sundal, “Nowhere to Go.”
4. Wabwire, Pastoral Crisis and Transformation, 58.
5. Bernard, Research Methods in Anthropology.
6. Devlin, “Patterns of Morbidity in Karamoja, Uganda.”
7. Personal communication March 7, 2007.
8. Gray et al., “Cattle Raiding, Cultural Survival, and Adaptability.”
9. Personal communication, April 2, 2007.
10. Mkutu, “Impact of Small Arms Insecurity,” 39.
11. St Kizito Hospital, Annual Analytical Report 2006/07, 4.
12. St Kizito Hospital, Annual Analytical Report 2006/07, 11.
13. Shell-Duncan, Shelley, and Leslie, “Health and Morbidity,” 213.
14. Gray, “‘Someone Dies in Your Lap’,” 56–7.
15. Zanthoxylum chalybeum, Gradé, Tabuti, and Van Damme, “Ethnoveterinary Knowledge,” 292.
16. Ozoroa insignis, ibid., 289.
17. Carissa spinarum, ibid., 283.
18. Euphorbia uhligiana, Shelley, “Medicines for Misfortune,” 185.
19. Edongodongomurae comes from two NgaKarimojong words: edongodong “pinching” and emurae “the creeping grass,” Verona Fathers, Ngakarimojong–English and English–Ngakarimojong Dictionary.
20. Mkutu, “Impact of Small Arms Insecurity,” 40–1.
21. Sundal, “Bribed, Beaten, and Berated.”
22. Narman, “Karamoja: Is Peace Possible?,” 130.
23. Gray, “‘Someone Dies in Your Lap’,” 57.
24. Gray, “‘Someone Dies in Your Lap’,” 52–3.
25. Langwick, “Articulate(d) Bodies,” 431.
26. Langwick, “Articulate(d) Bodies,” 431.
27. Langwick, “Articulate(d) Bodies,” 431.
28. Knighton, The Vitality of Karamojong Religion; Novelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion.
29. Novelli, Karimojong Traditional Religion, 108.
30. Knighton, “Globalizing Trends or Identities through Time? ”; Knighton, The Vitality of Karamojong Religion.
31. Knighton, The Vitality of Karamojong Religion, 75.
32. Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas.
33. Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas., 309.
34. WHO, WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002–2005.
35. WHO, WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002–2005.
36. Yahaya, Aryeija, and Bitwari, Traditional Medicine in Uganda, 3.
39. Weisheit, Traditional Medicine Practice, 3.
40. Gradé, Tabuti, and Van Damme, “Ethnoveterinary Knowledge.”
41. Listed in Gradé, Tabuti, and Van Damme, “Ethnoveterinary Knowledge.”
43. WHO, WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002–2005.
44. McMillen, “The Adapting Healer.”
45. McMillen, “The Adapting Healer.” 892.
46. Langwick, “Articulate(d) Bodies.”
47. Langwick, “Articulate(d) Bodies.” 434.