Faith and Participation in Traditional versus Cosmopolitan Medical Systems in Northwest Zambia

Abstract

People in Northwest Zambia maintain their faith in the traditional medical system by utilizing herbals, rituals, midwifery, and taboos. They also employ cosmopoh'tan medicine its counterparts of pharmaceuticals, surgery, maternal-child health care, and preventive medicine. The patterns of separating or combining aspects of health care offered by these two systems are detailed in terms of belief systems and practical considerations. Utilization patterns of Christians and non-Christians differ. Christians subscribe to cosmopolitan medicine by religious edict, but commonly employ herbals and turn to mtnor'rituals in desperation. Non-Christians may employ only the traditional system, but frequently combine both systems, and especially seek maternal-child health care services. Charles Leslie, in the Introduction to John Janzen's book The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire, writes, with the possible exception of a few small and very isolated societies, all medical systems in the world today are pluralistic (1978: xii). This paper describes and analyzes a plural system in rural Zambia in which people combine both traditional and cosmopolitan (biomedical) medicine. Use of these two medical systems sometimes overlaps, coin