Botswana: Indigenous Medicine - Potential And Pitfalls
Walking through the door to the spa at Fordoun Hotel and Spa is a refreshing experience. The Five-Star hotel, located in the rolling landscape of Kwa-Zulu Natal's midlands, boasts a restaurant and detached quarters for accommodation and a Spa. The Spa is said to be well known across the nine provinces of South Africa, and across the international tourism sector.
Stepping into the spa, one encounters the feathery aroma of lotions and herbs. Soft lights give objects around a soft glow. To the right is a table and on top of it a plaque with the inscription "Spa of the Month Award, May 2007. Congratulations Fordoun Hotel and Spa". There is a book on Natural Healing.
The Fordoun Spa offers an interesting amalgamation of modern health, beauty and therapy methods fused with what has come to be called indigenous methods. It has been very successful at that, visitors say.
There is a Zulu traditional herbalist in residence, too. African herbs are used in their Spa programme and for healing. A bottle of herbal tea contains mosukujane. For the skin one can have what Batswana call letsoku (clay) used for treatment. According to the owner, the Spa has managed to attract international customers and with a line of indigenous products he is now ready to export to the rest of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
The resident ngaka Dr Elliot Ndlovu is a Zulu traditional doctor with the benefits of a modern set-up. He has a consultation complex and a garden where all the plant species he uses for his sessions are grown. Ndlovu is also a director of Fordoun. There is a line of herbal medicines under his trade name, which are set to be sold in the region and internationally.
Walking through the door into the shack in which Ngaka Thapelo Joseph Moroka consults one needs to bend a little. The top of the doorframe is just a bit too low. The shack is made of corrugated iron sheets for the roof and the walls. Between the pieces of the corrugated iron are slits of holes.
Inside the shack are herbs; in bottles stacked on top of each other, some lying on the dusty floor, in boxes, in plastic bag wrappings, in newspaper wrappings and some uncut roots lie on the floor. Once Moroka has settled on a diagnosis, he lets his gaze span around the room. He then picks up the right herb and gives it to the patient.
Sometimes it is only a powder, which requires a small container, sometimes it is a piece of a tree bark and sometimes it is thick mixture of various powders stirred to a thick liquid that requires a small bottle.
"Setswana medicine is an interesting field. We can cure a lot more diseases than people know but on the other hand there are many more diseases that we can not cure that people think we can," explains Moroka.
Traditional healing has been consigned to the periphery of modern medicine over the years. Traditional doctors almost by a general social agreement are seen as practitioners of black magic who do not offer much to the society. However, a new movement - which seeks to adapt indigenous knowledge to the modern world - is putting traditional medicine under the spotlight.
Traditional medicine has not had a good image. Ngaka says traditional medicine has much to offer. Although he acknowledges that traditional doctors may have played a major role in the creation of their negative social image, he points a finger at colonialists.
"When white people came here they wanted our people to discard all that was true to their history. This included social practices such as bogwera and bojale. But also psychologically they created a very negative image about traditional beliefs and practices. Once our people had a negative image of all that was theirs, they could then easily adopt the white man's concept of the world," explains Ngaka.
Recent events indicate that indigenous cultures are gaining currency and recognition for the wealth of knowledge they provide. While scientists struggle with how to prove the medicinal abilities of certain plants used in traditional medicine, other sectors such as the beauty and therapy industry has jumped on the bandwagon, offering 'natural' remedies.
The recent Hoodia fiasco, in which the plant used by the San people of southern Africa to fight hunger was believed to help in dieting programmes, is a case in point.
Central to Setswana medicine is the tree. Moroka says the tree is the source of life for every living thing on the planet. Specific trees possess different medicinal properties. "Setswana medicine is not just about curing diseases, it is also about enhancing the body. We have medicine to get rid of body odours and medicine to clear the skin," explains Ngaka.
And he says that is where the secret with traditional medicine lies - that some of its methods cannot be judged simply by scientific systems. He also admits that commercialising some aspects of Setswana knowledge may pose problems because of these 'unknowns' about it.
