Page 39 - NAMAH-Oct-2022

Namah Think it Over

a microbe. To Westerners, being killed by a people are not prayed over appropriately, nor
microbe is an illness, whereas being eaten by a buried, ghosts do not turn into ancestors,
jaguar is an accident, pure bad luck. In the West to be venerated, or reborn. They remain
we have a disease-care system, and medicine wandering the earth’s plane, influencing
recognises thousands of ailments and myriad living humans’ mental and physical well-
remedies. One-Spirit Medicine, on the other being. This problem of the unsettled and
hand, is a healthcare system that identifies unquiet dead is particular to war killings.
only one ailment and one cure. The ailment is
alienation from our feelings, from our bodies, Solutions for addressing war, ‘othering’ and
from the earth, and from Spirit (11)”. human wellbeing are to be found at political,
national and international levels. ‘Othering’ is
A similar view was supported by anthropologist, the practice of deliberately or unconsciously
Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff who noted the identifying oneself, in opposition to other
concept of illness and disease in Colombia, was people, in terms of skin colour, religion, faith,
closely related to environmental sustainability. language, class, political views, territory
Sickness served as a mechanism to enforce rules and resources. It is one of the key factors
about ecology (12). in maintaining war and promoting discord
between peoples. In the past we humans only
Insights from Africa knew who we were in opposition to an ‘other’,
supported by politicians and government
British anthropologist, Victor Turner noted leaders. This practice of othering has to stop.
when people became ill, their first explanation
was ancestral spirits had been disturbed. Treatment strategies

Sickness was also caused if a taboo was
broken, or by quarrelling with kin. During Spirits of people, who die suddenly and
public ritual to release a man from troubling do not know that they are dead, may roam
ancestral beings, the Ndembu villager spoke around in the Earth’s plane and attach
all his troubles aloud. During the ceremony, it themselves to living people, causing mental
was socially acceptable for secret grudges and distress and fear of virus. This means war
hidden animosities within the community to collateral is wide: a deeper understanding
be voiced. A person could not get better until of spirits and hungry ghosts might enable
all the villagers’ tensions had been expressed humans to better acknowledge sources for
or confessed. Speaking private matters in their behaviour, illness, distress and death.
public allowed the angry spirit, which caused The proposition set out above is that war and
the sickness, a gateway to leave (13). trauma resulting from killing has multiple
side effects: not only are soldiers, their victims
Summary of Insights around ghosts and descendants directly damaged by war,
but also the wider population are indirectly
The case studies above from India, Japan, damaged as collateral. There are living people,
South America, and Africa, illustrate it is including sensitives, shamans, psychics or
normal for people of many cultures and mediums, who may spontaneously access
faiths to see ghosts or spirits. If deceased the trauma of earthbound entities and ghosts,

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