Author: Davis, Christopher O.
Title: DEATH IN ABEYANCE. Illness and thrapy among the Tabwa of Central Africa.
Description: London, Edinburgh University Press, 2000. 1st edition 342 pp. Pb. This is a comprehensive survey, in both its theory and its practice, of the Tabwa who live on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in Congo (fomerly Zaire). The following topics are covered: concepts of the body and of illness, illness categories and approaches to diagnosis, divination and the meaning of illness in the life-histories of individuals and lineage groups. In contrast to most ethnographies of medicine, which take social structures as primary and treat medical knowledge as an extension or reflection of it, this study focuses on the medical system itself. When medicine is thus considered first as an indigenous or vernacular science, it is soon seen that much of what passes for an inderstanding of ritual, magic and religion in Africa is thin and misconceived. near fine condition

Keywords: , , ,