Diagnosis and cure: The resort to traditional and modern medical practitioners in the North Solomons, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Analysis is made of medical beliefs and practices in two Melanesian societies, both on Bougainville island. Sorcery and supernatural sanctions remain important as causes of illness and hence forms of social control in the absence of superordinate political authority. Distinctions between symptoms and illness are often ambiguous and throughout Melanesia this provides some flexibility in classification, diagnosis and cure. Among both groups described in this paper, most illnesses are described as either ‘illness without cause’, which is rarely serious and never attributed to sorcery or the actions of spirits, or ‘illness of the settlement’ which is more serious. Some serious illnesses which respond to modern medicine may now be classified as ‘illness without cause’. ‘Illness of the settlement’ may be caused by sorcery or spirits, which may follow breaches of social norms. Attributions to sorcery are of growing significance, especially in Siwai which is more firmly incorporated into a wider society and economy. There are a variety of traditional medical practitioners with both physical and spiritual skills and ‘traditional’ cures are constantly changing. Since the war. European medicine and practitioners have supplemented traditional practitioners to produce, especially in Siwai, a dual hierarchy of alternatives. This modern system has only slightly affected local beliefs about illness. Because modern medical practices are viewed by both groups as means for treating symptoms, the two systems enable a flexibility and diverisity of response, encouraging complementarity rather than competitiveness.