Explaining surgical evangelism in colonial Southern Africa: Teeth, pain and faith

Journal of African History

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 261-281

  Landau, Paul S ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0038426621     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0021853700035222     Document Type: Article

References (145)

1. Quote from R. H. Lewis, 'Medicine at Molepolole', Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, xv (1906), 41. The evoked picture of the house and the morning scene is of necessity partly conjectural.
2. Some of the onlookers were undoubtedly kin of the patients. The quote, in the past tense in the original, is from the London Missionary Society, South[ern] Africa correspondence [LMS SA, meaning 'In-Letters' unless designated 'Reports' or 'Journals'], Reports, Box 3, File 3 ('3/3'), Molepolole for 1904 (R. H. Lewis, 1905). LMS material, under the Council for World Missions, is housed in the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. See also LMS SA 6/4 Serowe for 1926, R. H. Lewis.
3. This happened twice to Livingstone; see his entry for Serowe, 3 July 1842, in Isaac Schapera (ed.), Missionary Correspondence, 1841-1856 (London, 1961); and the entry for Ujiji, 24 Feb. 1868, in H. Walker (ed.), The Last Journals of David Livingstone (London, 1874), i.
4. This happened twice to Livingstone; see his entry for Serowe, 3 July 1842, in Isaac Schapera (ed.), Missionary Correspondence, 1841-1856 (London, 1961); and the entry for Ujiji, 24 Feb. 1868, in H. Walker (ed.), The Last Journals of David Livingstone (London, 1874), i.
5. See Livingstone's famous, apocryphal dialogue with a ' Kwena rainmaker', the best version of which is in Isaac Schapera (ed.), Livingstone's Private Journals, 1851-1853 (Cape Town, 1960), 239-43.
6. See C. F. Seeley, 'The reaction of the BaTswana to the practice of western medicine' (M.Phil, thesis, London School of Economics, 1973), 78, 88ff.; Thomas Tlou's nice phrase, in 'Khama III - great reformer and innovator', Botswana Notes and Records, II (1970), 99, is that, to the rank and file, 'dingaka and missionaries were species of the same genus'.
7. See C. F. Seeley, 'The reaction of the BaTswana to the practice of western medicine' (M.Phil, thesis, London School of Economics, 1973), 78, 88ff.; Thomas Tlou's nice phrase, in 'Khama III - great reformer and innovator', Botswana Notes and Records, II (1970), 99, is that, to the rank and file, 'dingaka and missionaries were species of the same genus'.
8. The concept of 'equivalence' in translation studies has largely gone by the wayside. For the topic as a whole, I found useful Mary Snell-Hornby, Translation Studies : An Integrated Approach (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1988), despite the emphasis on literature and its (untranslated) German examples.
9. thus disagree with Schoffeleer's assertions that 'traditional' healing, like any other kind, located illness exclusively in the individual. 'Ritual healing and political acquiescence: the case of the Zionist churches in southern Africa', Africa, LXI (1991), 1-25 .
10. Yet my view does not jeopardize his overall argument that Zion churches, like healers, are predisposed to ignore the larger causes for ill health. The social units in which sicknesses were referenced were in all cases small. Philip Setel, in a related discussion, puts the issue thus : 'Africans...upheld a contiguity of phenomenological experience that linked the social and personal body';
11. P. Setel, '"A good moral tone": Victorian ideals of health and the judgement of persons in nineteenth-century travel and mission accounts from East Africa', Boston University Working Papers in African Studies, CL (1991), 10.
12. For rain, see Henry Callaway, The Religious System of the Amazulu (Wynberg, South Africa, 1970 [reprint]); Isaac Schapera, Rainmaking Rites of Tswana Tribes (Cambridge, 1971); and Paul Landau, 'When rain falls: rainmaking and community in a Tswana village, ca. 1870 to recent times', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVI (1993), 1-29. For a fascinating recent discussion of mimesis and healing, see Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (New York, 1993), esp. chs. esp. 1 and 4.
13. For rain, see Henry Callaway, The Religious System of the Amazulu (Wynberg, South Africa, 1970 [reprint]); Isaac Schapera, Rainmaking Rites of Tswana Tribes (Cambridge, 1971); and Paul Landau, 'When rain falls: rainmaking and community in a Tswana village, ca. 1870 to recent times', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVI (1993), 1-29. For a fascinating recent discussion of mimesis and healing, see Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (New York, 1993), esp. chs. esp. 1 and 4.
14. For rain, see Henry Callaway, The Religious System of the Amazulu (Wynberg, South Africa, 1970 [reprint]); Isaac Schapera, Rainmaking Rites of Tswana Tribes (Cambridge, 1971); and Paul Landau, 'When rain falls: rainmaking and community in a Tswana village, ca. 1870 to recent times', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVI (1993), 1-29. For a fascinating recent discussion of mimesis and healing, see Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (New York, 1993), esp. chs. esp. 1 and 4.
15. For rain, see Henry Callaway, The Religious System of the Amazulu (Wynberg, South Africa, 1970 [reprint]); Isaac Schapera, Rainmaking Rites of Tswana Tribes (Cambridge, 1971); and Paul Landau, 'When rain falls: rainmaking and community in a Tswana village, ca. 1870 to recent times', Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVI (1993), 1-29. For a fascinating recent discussion of mimesis and healing, see Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity (New York, 1993), esp. chs. esp. 1 and 4.
16. Gabriel Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho-Tswana (Rotterdam, 1976), 201 ; Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance : The Culture and History of a South African People (Chicago, 1985), 81-2. In general, see Steven Feierman, 'Struggles for control: the social roots of health and healing in modern Africa', African Studies Review, XXXVIII (1985), 73-147.
17. Gabriel Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho-Tswana (Rotterdam, 1976), 201 ; Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance : The Culture and History of a South African People (Chicago, 1985), 81-2. In general, see Steven Feierman, 'Struggles for control: the social roots of health and healing in modern Africa', African Studies Review, XXXVIII (1985), 73-147.
18. Gabriel Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho-Tswana (Rotterdam, 1976), 201 ; Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance : The Culture and History of a South African People (Chicago, 1985), 81-2. In general, see Steven Feierman, 'Struggles for control: the social roots of health and healing in modern Africa', African Studies Review, XXXVIII (1985), 73-147.
19. Richard Werbner, 'Making the hidden seen: Tswapong divination', ch. I in Ritual Practices, Sacred Journeys (Washington, 1989); Steven Feierman, 'African therapeutic systems', Social Science and Medicine, XIII B (1979), 277-84; Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London, 1977), esp. 58; and J. M. Janzen, Ngoma : Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (New York, 1992). For a neglected but intriguing perspective on the theater of healing, see James W. Fernandez, 'Divinations, confessions, testimonies: Zulu confrontation with the local superstructure' (Institute for Social Research, Occasional Paper no. 9, 1967).
20. Richard Werbner, 'Making the hidden seen: Tswapong divination', ch. I in Ritual Practices, Sacred Journeys (Washington, 1989); Steven Feierman, 'African therapeutic systems', Social Science and Medicine, XIII B (1979), 277-84; Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London, 1977), esp. 58; and J. M. Janzen, Ngoma : Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (New York, 1992). For a neglected but intriguing perspective on the theater of healing, see James W. Fernandez, 'Divinations, confessions, testimonies: Zulu confrontation with the local superstructure' (Institute for Social Research, Occasional Paper no. 9, 1967).
21. Richard Werbner, 'Making the hidden seen: Tswapong divination', ch. I in Ritual Practices, Sacred Journeys (Washington, 1989); Steven Feierman, 'African therapeutic systems', Social Science and Medicine, XIII B (1979), 277-84; Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London, 1977), esp. 58; and J. M. Janzen, Ngoma : Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (New York, 1992). For a neglected but intriguing perspective on the theater of healing, see James W. Fernandez, 'Divinations, confessions, testimonies: Zulu confrontation with the local superstructure' (Institute for Social Research, Occasional Paper no. 9, 1967).
22. Richard Werbner, 'Making the hidden seen: Tswapong divination', ch. I in Ritual Practices, Sacred Journeys (Washington, 1989); Steven Feierman, 'African therapeutic systems', Social Science and Medicine, XIII B (1979), 277-84; Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London, 1977), esp. 58; and J. M. Janzen, Ngoma : Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (New York, 1992). For a neglected but intriguing perspective on the theater of healing, see James W. Fernandez, 'Divinations, confessions, testimonies: Zulu confrontation with the local superstructure' (Institute for Social Research, Occasional Paper no. 9, 1967).
23. Richard Werbner, 'Making the hidden seen: Tswapong divination', ch. I in Ritual Practices, Sacred Journeys (Washington, 1989); Steven Feierman, 'African therapeutic systems', Social Science and Medicine, XIII B (1979), 277-84; Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London, 1977), esp. 58; and J. M. Janzen, Ngoma : Discourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa (New York, 1992). For a neglected but intriguing perspective on the theater of healing, see James W. Fernandez, 'Divinations, confessions, testimonies: Zulu confrontation with the local superstructure' (Institute for Social Research, Occasional Paper no. 9, 1967).
24. Botswana National Archives, Gaborone [BNA] DCS 2/5 Serowe, Annual Report 1921-2 (1922); also, LMS SA 91/Lewis, Lewis to Barradale, Serowe, 21 May 1928; and Thabo Fako, 'Historical processes and African health systems: the case of Botswana' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984), 276, 390; and Norman Etherington, 'Missionary doctors and African healers in mid-Victorian South Africa', South African Historical Journal, XIX (1987), 77-92.
25. Botswana National Archives, Gaborone [BNA] DCS 2/5 Serowe, Annual Report 1921-2 (1922); also, LMS SA 91/Lewis, Lewis to Barradale, Serowe, 21 May 1928; and Thabo Fako, 'Historical processes and African health systems: the case of Botswana' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984), 276, 390; and Norman Etherington, 'Missionary doctors and African healers in mid-Victorian South Africa', South African Historical Journal, XIX (1987), 77-92.
26. Botswana National Archives, Gaborone [BNA] DCS 2/5 Serowe, Annual Report 1921-2 (1922); also, LMS SA 91/Lewis, Lewis to Barradale, Serowe, 21 May 1928; and Thabo Fako, 'Historical processes and African health systems: the case of Botswana' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1984), 276, 390; and Norman Etherington, 'Missionary doctors and African healers in mid-Victorian South Africa', South African Historical Journal, XIX (1987), 77-92.
27. Smallpox vaccinations were the major exception, and there were others; e.g. see Robert Harms, Games Against Nature : An Eco-Cultural History of the Nunu or Equatorial Africa (New York, 1987), 204-5. Still, colonial western medicine had an uneven effect on mortality everywhere in southern Africa through the 1910s and 1920s.
28. Franz Staugard assumes a natural-supernatural divide, in Traditional Healers : Traditional Medicine in Botswana (Gaborone, 1985).
29. See also J. M. Janzen (with Louis Arkinstall), The Quest for Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Berkeley, 1978). Pages 93-9 and 107-13 are among Janzen's case studies showing how Kongolese healers do not limit their focus to the individual. See also Seeley, 'The reaction of Batswana', 39; and Gloria Waite, 'Public health in precolonial east-central Africa', Social Science and Medicine, XXIV (1987), 197-208.
30. See also J. M. Janzen (with Louis Arkinstall), The Quest for Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Berkeley, 1978). Pages 93-9 and 107-13 are among Janzen's case studies showing how Kongolese healers do not limit their focus to the individual. See also Seeley, 'The reaction of Batswana', 39; and Gloria Waite, 'Public health in precolonial east-central Africa', Social Science and Medicine, XXIV (1987), 197-208.
31. See also J. M. Janzen (with Louis Arkinstall), The Quest for Therapy: Medical Pluralism in Lower Zaire (Berkeley, 1978). Pages 93-9 and 107-13 are among Janzen's case studies showing how Kongolese healers do not limit their focus to the individual. See also Seeley, 'The reaction of Batswana', 39; and Gloria Waite, 'Public health in precolonial east-central Africa', Social Science and Medicine, XXIV (1987), 197-208.
32. For instance, the Rev Edwin Lloyd wrote of a MoKgalagadi man, Modirwe, who was the 'subject of religious impressions for some time, before he understood what was the matter with him'. Lloyd later approvingly quoted a Tswana Christian who attended to Modirwe: 'Modirwe was sick within but the Word of God will heal him'; LMS SA Journals, 4/117, S.A. 1891-2, E. Lloyd, Visit to Lake Ngami.
33. Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Part I (3rd ed., London, 1911), e.g. 68. See also Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1978), e.g. 295, and ch. 8; and James Murray, Life in Scotland a Hundred Years Ago as Reflected in the Old Statistical Act of Scotland, 1791-1799 (Paisley, UK, 1900), 148, 151-2.
34. Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Part I (3rd ed., London, 1911), e.g. 68. See also Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1978), e.g. 295, and ch. 8; and James Murray, Life in Scotland a Hundred Years Ago as Reflected in the Old Statistical Act of Scotland, 1791-1799 (Paisley, UK, 1900), 148, 151-2.
35. Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Part I (3rd ed., London, 1911), e.g. 68. See also Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1978), e.g. 295, and ch. 8; and James Murray, Life in Scotland a Hundred Years Ago as Reflected in the Old Statistical Act of Scotland, 1791-1799 (Paisley, UK, 1900), 148, 151-2.
36. John Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River : A Story of Everyday Life and Work among the South African Tribes (London, 1871), 137, 151, and 387; see also Jean and John L. Comaroff, 'Christianity and colonialism in South Africa', American Ethnologist, XIII (1986), 1-20; and A.J. Dachs, 'Missionary imperialism: the case of Bechuanaland', J. Afr. Hist., XIII (1972), 647-58. Mackenzie was unusual as a non-racialist.
37. John Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River : A Story of Everyday Life and Work among the South African Tribes (London, 1871), 137, 151, and 387; see also Jean and John L. Comaroff, 'Christianity and colonialism in South Africa', American Ethnologist, XIII (1986), 1-20; and A.J. Dachs, 'Missionary imperialism: the case of Bechuanaland', J. Afr. Hist., XIII (1972), 647-58. Mackenzie was unusual as a non-racialist.
38. John Mackenzie, Ten Years North of the Orange River : A Story of Everyday Life and Work among the South African Tribes (London, 1871), 137, 151, and 387; see also Jean and John L. Comaroff, 'Christianity and colonialism in South Africa', American Ethnologist, XIII (1986), 1-20; and A.J. Dachs, 'Missionary imperialism: the case of Bechuanaland', J. Afr. Hist., XIII (1972), 647-58. Mackenzie was unusual as a non-racialist.
39. Although I imagine there was more internal contradiction, I am still quite indebted to the discussion in Jean and John L. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, Vol. I (Chicago, 1991), esp. 80, in which they show how pastoral imagery infused evangelism. Joe Miller, in an enlightening comment on this article, suggested that in psychological terms, missionaries projected onto others what they 'most urgently denied' within themselves.
40. I am not assuming that missionaries' individualizing strategies were always perceived as such by southern Africans. But I think they often were. I discuss how Christianity was accommodated in people's changing renderings of community, in Landau, 'When rain falls'.
41. William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford, 1994), appendix I, table 3, 263.
42. will leave it as an open question as to whether colonial 'public health' measures like delousing, typhus campaigns, and cattle-dipping were perceived by Africans as related to 'healing', i.e. the basic congruence of Europeans' and priest-healers' therapeutic work. For TB, the mines and the village, see Randall Packard, White Plague, Black Labor (New York, 1990).
43. J. Ludorf, 'Bechuana district - tour through the desert', Westleyan Missionary Notices [WMN], XVIII (1863), 202-7; and 'Extract', WMN, XIII (1864), 159-66. Thanks to Barry Morton for this source. Willoughby quote: LMS SA 50/2, W. C. Willoughby to W. Thompson, Serowe, 3 July 1893; and LMS SA 51/1/B, W. C. Willoughby to R. W. Thompson, Phalapye, 21 July 1894: 'I like the work, but it is a great tax on my time. I know little about it.'
44. J. Ludorf, 'Bechuana district - tour through the desert', Westleyan Missionary Notices [WMN], XVIII (1863), 202-7; and 'Extract', WMN, XIII (1864), 159-66. Thanks to Barry Morton for this source. Willoughby quote: LMS SA 50/2, W. C. Willoughby to W. Thompson, Serowe, 3 July 1893; and LMS SA 51/1/B, W. C. Willoughby to R. W. Thompson, Phalapye, 21 July 1894: 'I like the work, but it is a great tax on my time. I know little about it.'
45. LMS SA Reports 6/4, Serowe for 1926, R. H. Lewis; Interview, Mrs Barophi Ratshosa, b. 1918, Serowe, 9 Nov. 1988.
46. LMS SA Reports 2/4, W. C. Willoughby, Phalapye 1894 (20 Mar. 1895); LMS SA 51/1/B, W. C. Willoughby to R. W. Thompson, Phalapye, 21 July 1894. For Willoughby see John Rutherford, 'W. C. Willoughby of Bechuanaland, missionary practitioner and scholar' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1987).
47. Lewis, 'Medicine at Molepolole', 41; and LMS SA Reports 3/3, Molepolole for 1904 (R. H. Lewis, 1905).
48. Interview, Mr Dennis Blackbeard, b. 1918, Serowe, 7 Nov. 1988. The magistrate was John Smith Moffat, Robert Moffat's son.
49. Ibid. See also Khama III Memorial Museum, Serowe, Botswana, Tshekedi Khama Papers, subsection A, box I, C. C. Vialls to Tshekedi, Serowe, 2 Feb. 1936.
50. Seeley, 'Reaction of Batswana', 80. Livingstone was actually something of a medical progressive. Megan Vaughan discusses Ugandan missionaries' removal of tumors, and their symbolic load, in her book, Curing Their Ills : Colonial Power and African Illness (Stanford, 1991), 58-9. Her analysis of missionary medicine (ch. 3) has influenced my own.
51. Seeley, 'Reaction of Batswana', 80. Livingstone was actually something of a medical progressive. Megan Vaughan discusses Ugandan missionaries' removal of tumors, and their symbolic load, in her book, Curing Their Ills : Colonial Power and African Illness (Stanford, 1991), 58-9. Her analysis of missionary medicine (ch. 3) has influenced my own.
52. David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (New York, 1868), 144-5.
53. E. Casalis, The Basutos, or, Twenty-three Years in South Africa ( London, 1861), 298; Nathaniel Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (Cape Town, 1970 [reprint]).
54. E. Casalis, The Basutos, or, Twenty-three Years in South Africa ( London, 1861), 298; Nathaniel Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (Cape Town, 1970 [reprint]).
55. Colin de B. Webb and John B. Wright (eds.), The James Stuart Archive (4 vols.) (Pietermaritzburg, 1987), iv, 342; there the first phrase appears in italics to show that Stuart wrote it in Zulu.
56. For instance, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People (New York, 1958), ch. 8; Webb and Wright, Stuart Archive, iv, 159, and Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine. Luise White has read other African medical literature and has independently come to a similar conclusion in this matter for central Africa, in ' "They could make their victims dull": genders and genres, fantasies and cures in colonial southern Uganda,' Am. Hist. Rev. c (1995), 1379-402. Although healers from Buganda and Bunyoro performed Caesarian sections, according to White, there appears to have been no other surgery and White writes of a dichotomy between African treatments 'above the skin' and missionary therapies below it, the same kind of distinction I have drawn.
57. For instance, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People (New York, 1958), ch. 8; Webb and Wright, Stuart Archive, iv, 159, and Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine. Luise White has read other African medical literature and has independently come to a similar conclusion in this matter for central Africa, in ' "They could make their victims dull": genders and genres, fantasies and cures in colonial southern Uganda,' Am. Hist. Rev. c (1995), 1379-402. Although healers from Buganda and Bunyoro performed Caesarian sections, according to White, there appears to have been no other surgery and White writes of a dichotomy between African treatments 'above the skin' and missionary therapies below it, the same kind of distinction I have drawn.
58. For instance, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People (New York, 1958), ch. 8; Webb and Wright, Stuart Archive, iv, 159, and Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine. Luise White has read other African medical literature and has independently come to a similar conclusion in this matter for central Africa, in ' "They could make their victims dull": genders and genres, fantasies and cures in colonial southern Uganda,' Am. Hist. Rev. c (1995), 1379-402. Although healers from Buganda and Bunyoro performed Caesarian sections, according to White, there appears to have been no other surgery and White writes of a dichotomy between African treatments 'above the skin' and missionary therapies below it, the same kind of distinction I have drawn.
59. For instance, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People (New York, 1958), ch. 8; Webb and Wright, Stuart Archive, iv, 159, and Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine. Luise White has read other African medical literature and has independently come to a similar conclusion in this matter for central Africa, in ' "They could make their victims dull": genders and genres, fantasies and cures in colonial southern Uganda,' Am. Hist. Rev. c (1995), 1379-402. Although healers from Buganda and Bunyoro performed Caesarian sections, according to White, there appears to have been no other surgery and White writes of a dichotomy between African treatments 'above the skin' and missionary therapies below it, the same kind of distinction I have drawn.
60. In a seminal article, Terence Ranger discusses a prolonged episode of mass attraction when a Tanzanian medical mission began vaccinating for yaws. This alerts us to the possibility that there were other, unknown local meanings for tooth-pulling and that unheard directives or rumors from Motswana to Motswana directed people to have their teeth out. The article is repeated most recently as 'Godly medicine: the ambiguities of medical mission in southeastern Tanzania', in John Janzen and Steven Feierman (eds.), The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Berkeley, 1992), 256-82.
61. See Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power : The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York, 1985), esp. 15. Mintz comments that sucrose, commonly mixed with a liquid stimulant, was a significant part of the 'early acculturational experiences ' of many non-Western peoples. Today, of course, the subcontinent is well stocked with white half-kilo bags of sucrose and Coke-cans of liquid sugar. For milk and the Rinderpest I thank Luise White for her acuity in suggesting the dynamic to me.
62. The epidemiology of children's teeth is complex. When weakened by malnutrition, if children contract illnesses, they are likely to have dental problems. In order for reduced calcium intake alone to affect the formation of teeth, the formation of a child's other bones would suffer as well. A worsening of diet, lowered amounts of calcium and increased sugar would however lead to dental caries. Thanks to my dentist, Donald Welsh, DDS, for discussing the problem with me.
63. LMS SA 68/4, B. Rees to R. W. Thompson, Inyati, 26 Sept. 1907.
64. LMS SA 69/1, R. Helm to R. W. Thompson, Inyati, 28 May 1908.
65. BNA, BNB 384, Report of the Tati Training Institute for 1936/7.
66. See for instance Colin Bundy, The Rise and Decline of the South African Peasantry (Berkeley, 1979); William Beinart, Peter Delius and Stanley Trapido (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986); Tim Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa (Johannesburg, 1986); and William Duggan, An Economic Analysis of Southern African Agriculture (New York, 1986). Clifton Crais is also working on an important reappraisal of the connections between poverty and cash-crop 'prosperity' among Transkeian peasants.
67. See for instance Colin Bundy, The Rise and Decline of the South African Peasantry (Berkeley, 1979); William Beinart, Peter Delius and Stanley Trapido (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986); Tim Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa (Johannesburg, 1986); and William Duggan, An Economic Analysis of Southern African Agriculture (New York, 1986). Clifton Crais is also working on an important reappraisal of the connections between poverty and cash-crop 'prosperity' among Transkeian peasants.
68. See for instance Colin Bundy, The Rise and Decline of the South African Peasantry (Berkeley, 1979); William Beinart, Peter Delius and Stanley Trapido (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986); Tim Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa (Johannesburg, 1986); and William Duggan, An Economic Analysis of Southern African Agriculture (New York, 1986). Clifton Crais is also working on an important reappraisal of the connections between poverty and cash-crop 'prosperity' among Transkeian peasants.
69. See for instance Colin Bundy, The Rise and Decline of the South African Peasantry (Berkeley, 1979); William Beinart, Peter Delius and Stanley Trapido (eds.), Putting a Plough to the Ground (Johannesburg, 1986); Tim Keegan, Rural Transformations in Industrializing South Africa (Johannesburg, 1986); and William Duggan, An Economic Analysis of Southern African Agriculture (New York, 1986). Clifton Crais is also working on an important reappraisal of the connections between poverty and cash-crop 'prosperity' among Transkeian peasants.
70. See Feierman, 'Struggles for control', and Michael Taussig, 'Reification and the consciousness of the patient', Social Science and Medicine, XIV (1980) 3-13 ; and especially, Packard's study of how the South African mining industry shaped the diagnoses and pathology of tuberculosis, White Plague, Black Labor. On dentistry per se, here is a passage from a 1978 World Health Organization report, by the dentist E. M. Brown: 'The increase of dental caries is like a cancerous worm eating its way steadily unchallenged into the fabric of the sound dentition of the African continent': 'Dental health and the development of health services in Africa', in AFRO Technical Paper no. 12 (Brazzaville: World Health Organization, 1978). Brown's fervor can only resolve itself into the confused simile 'cancerous worm', because he sees sugar as an autonomous causal agent. On the other hand, the South African Medical Journal did not bother at all with an entry for dentistry in its compendium Medicine and Health in Developing Africa [i.e., deciphered from the code language of the time: Among South African Blacks] (Cape Town, 1982).
71. See Feierman, 'Struggles for control', and Michael Taussig, 'Reification and the consciousness of the patient', Social Science and Medicine, XIV (1980) 3-13 ; and especially, Packard's study of how the South African mining industry shaped the diagnoses and pathology of tuberculosis, White Plague, Black Labor. On dentistry per se, here is a passage from a 1978 World Health Organization report, by the dentist E. M. Brown: 'The increase of dental caries is like a cancerous worm eating its way steadily unchallenged into the fabric of the sound dentition of the African continent': 'Dental health and the development of health services in Africa', in AFRO Technical Paper no. 12 (Brazzaville: World Health Organization, 1978). Brown's fervor can only resolve itself into the confused simile 'cancerous worm', because he sees sugar as an autonomous causal agent. On the other hand, the South African Medical Journal did not bother at all with an entry for dentistry in its compendium Medicine and Health in Developing Africa [i.e., deciphered from the code language of the time: Among South African Blacks] (Cape Town, 1982).
72. See Feierman, 'Struggles for control', and Michael Taussig, 'Reification and the consciousness of the patient', Social Science and Medicine, XIV (1980) 3-13 ; and especially, Packard's study of how the South African mining industry shaped the diagnoses and pathology of tuberculosis, White Plague, Black Labor. On dentistry per se, here is a passage from a 1978 World Health Organization report, by the dentist E. M. Brown: 'The increase of dental caries is like a cancerous worm eating its way steadily unchallenged into the fabric of the sound dentition of the African continent': 'Dental health and the development of health services in Africa', in AFRO Technical Paper no. 12 (Brazzaville: World Health Organization, 1978). Brown's fervor can only resolve itself into the confused simile 'cancerous worm', because he sees sugar as an autonomous causal agent. On the other hand, the South African Medical Journal did not bother at all with an entry for dentistry in its compendium Medicine and Health in Developing Africa [i.e., deciphered from the code language of the time: Among South African Blacks] (Cape Town, 1982).
73. See Feierman, 'Struggles for control', and Michael Taussig, 'Reification and the consciousness of the patient', Social Science and Medicine, XIV (1980) 3-13 ; and especially, Packard's study of how the South African mining industry shaped the diagnoses and pathology of tuberculosis, White Plague, Black Labor. On dentistry per se, here is a passage from a 1978 World Health Organization report, by the dentist E. M. Brown: 'The increase of dental caries is like a cancerous worm eating its way steadily unchallenged into the fabric of the sound dentition of the African continent': 'Dental health and the development of health services in Africa', in AFRO Technical Paper no. 12 (Brazzaville: World Health Organization, 1978). Brown's fervor can only resolve itself into the confused simile 'cancerous worm', because he sees sugar as an autonomous causal agent. On the other hand, the South African Medical Journal did not bother at all with an entry for dentistry in its compendium Medicine and Health in Developing Africa [i.e., deciphered from the code language of the time: Among South African Blacks] (Cape Town, 1982).
74. See Feierman, 'Struggles for control', and Michael Taussig, 'Reification and the consciousness of the patient', Social Science and Medicine, XIV (1980) 3-13 ; and especially, Packard's study of how the South African mining industry shaped the diagnoses and pathology of tuberculosis, White Plague, Black Labor. On dentistry per se, here is a passage from a 1978 World Health Organization report, by the dentist E. M. Brown: 'The increase of dental caries is like a cancerous worm eating its way steadily unchallenged into the fabric of the sound dentition of the African continent': 'Dental health and the development of health services in Africa', in AFRO Technical Paper no. 12 (Brazzaville: World Health Organization, 1978). Brown's fervor can only resolve itself into the confused simile 'cancerous worm', because he sees sugar as an autonomous causal agent. On the other hand, the South African Medical Journal did not bother at all with an entry for dentistry in its compendium Medicine and Health in Developing Africa [i.e., deciphered from the code language of the time: Among South African Blacks] (Cape Town, 1982).
75. See Feierman, 'Struggles for control', and Michael Taussig, 'Reification and the consciousness of the patient', Social Science and Medicine, XIV (1980) 3-13 ; and especially, Packard's study of how the South African mining industry shaped the diagnoses and pathology of tuberculosis, White Plague, Black Labor. On dentistry per se, here is a passage from a 1978 World Health Organization report, by the dentist E. M. Brown: 'The increase of dental caries is like a cancerous worm eating its way steadily unchallenged into the fabric of the sound dentition of the African continent': 'Dental health and the development of health services in Africa', in AFRO Technical Paper no. 12 (Brazzaville: World Health Organization, 1978). Brown's fervor can only resolve itself into the confused simile 'cancerous worm', because he sees sugar as an autonomous causal agent. On the other hand, the South African Medical Journal did not bother at all with an entry for dentistry in its compendium Medicine and Health in Developing Africa [i.e., deciphered from the code language of the time: Among South African Blacks] (Cape Town, 1982).
76. (From) Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London, 1929), quoted in W. Millman, 'Health instruction in African schools: suggestions for a curriculum', Africa, in (1930), 489-90. Tim Burke illuminates the moral message behind this missionary material in his paper, named from a quote in the booklet, '"Dirty things are always your enemies": institutional transformations of race and hygiene in Zimbabwe, 1890-1945' (American Historical Association annual meeting, Chicago, 1995).
77. (From) Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London, 1929), quoted in W. Millman, 'Health instruction in African schools: suggestions for a curriculum', Africa, in (1930), 489-90. Tim Burke illuminates the moral message behind this missionary material in his paper, named from a quote in the booklet, '"Dirty things are always your enemies": institutional transformations of race and hygiene in Zimbabwe, 1890-1945' (American Historical Association annual meeting, Chicago, 1995).
78. (From) Victor Murray, The School in the Bush (London, 1929), quoted in W. Millman, 'Health instruction in African schools: suggestions for a curriculum', Africa, in (1930), 489-90. Tim Burke illuminates the moral message behind this missionary material in his paper, named from a quote in the booklet, '"Dirty things are always your enemies": institutional transformations of race and hygiene in Zimbabwe, 1890-1945' (American Historical Association annual meeting, Chicago, 1995).
79. Millman, 'Health instruction', 489, quoting his own work, Tropical Hygiene for African Schools (London, 1922).
80. D. G. Brackett and M. Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books used in Africa', Africa, III (1930), 506-15. This issue of Africa contains a wealth of examples from hygiene and health books of the era.
81. Murray, The School in the Bush, cited in Millman, 'Health instruction', 486-7.
82. Frank M. Rossiter MD, The Practical Guide to Health (Nashville TX, 1913 [1908]), found amongst the papers of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (the heir to the old missionary Church), Serowe, Botswana.
83. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
84. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
85. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
86. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
87. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
88. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
89. See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans A. Sheridan (New York, 1979), 138. Foucault is thinking of the eighteenth century and in part of La Mettrie's L'Homme-Machine (1747), from which I borrow the next subsection's title. See also A. Vartanian, 'Man-machine from the Greeks to the computer', in P. Weiner (ed.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas (5 vols.) (New York, 1973),iii, 131-46. The Practical Guide was not an isolated case. Cf. Elsie M. Chubb, Our Bodies and How They Work, for Bantu Schools (London, 1928); cited in Brackett and Wrong, 'Notes on hygiene books'. In general, see Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford, 1948), and Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men (Ithaca, 1989).
90. Rossiter, Practical Guide, 33.
91. This reads like a peculiar reversal of the tropes discussed by Catherine Gallagher in 'The body and the social body from Malthus to Mayhew', in C. Gallagher and T. Laqueur (eds.), The Making of the Modern Body : Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, 1987). For an example of commodity culture affecting understandings of bodily composition, see Brad Weiss, 'Plastic teeth extraction : the iconography of Haya gastro-sexual affliction', American Ethnologist, XIX (1992), 538-51.
92. This reads like a peculiar reversal of the tropes discussed by Catherine Gallagher in 'The body and the social body from Malthus to Mayhew', in C. Gallagher and T. Laqueur (eds.), The Making of the Modern Body : Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, 1987). For an example of commodity culture affecting understandings of bodily composition, see Brad Weiss, 'Plastic teeth extraction : the iconography of Haya gastro-sexual affliction', American Ethnologist, XIX (1992), 538-51.
93. The most recent scholar of the tooth sees a more sudden ' invention' of the mouth, in a Foucauldian sense. Sarah Nettleton, Power, Pain and Dentistry (Philadelphia, 1992), 9, and ch. 3 esp., and 'Protecting a vulnerable margin: towards an analysis of how the mouth came to be separated from the body', Sociology of Health and Illness, X (1988), 156-69. Nettleton argues that the core of the discursive development of dentistry was the British Dental Association's stress on preventative dentistry, in which individuals would clean their teeth with a naturalized regularity.
94. The most recent scholar of the tooth sees a more sudden ' invention' of the mouth, in a Foucauldian sense. Sarah Nettleton, Power, Pain and Dentistry (Philadelphia, 1992), 9, and ch. 3 esp., and 'Protecting a vulnerable margin: towards an analysis of how the mouth came to be separated from the body', Sociology of Health and Illness, X (1988), 156-69. Nettleton argues that the core of the discursive development of dentistry was the British Dental Association's stress on preventative dentistry, in which individuals would clean their teeth with a naturalized regularity.
95. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain : The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford, 1985), -Introduction, and 9; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York, 1958), 103-4 esp., and Zettel (Berkeley, 1970 [first published London, 1967]), 94-101.
96. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain : The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford, 1985), -Introduction, and 9; Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York, 1958), 103-4 esp., and Zettel (Berkeley, 1970 [first published London, 1967]), 94-101.
97. As discussed by Renaat Devisch, 'Symbol and psychosomatic symptom in bodily space-time: the case of the Yaka of Zaire', International Journal of Psychology, XX (1985), 589-616; and Michael Herzfeld, 'Closure as cure: tropes in the exploration of bodily and social disorder', Current Anthropology, XXVII (1986), 107-20.
98. As discussed by Renaat Devisch, 'Symbol and psychosomatic symptom in bodily space-time: the case of the Yaka of Zaire', International Journal of Psychology, XX (1985), 589-616; and Michael Herzfeld, 'Closure as cure: tropes in the exploration of bodily and social disorder', Current Anthropology, XXVII (1986), 107-20.
99. Murray, The School in the Bush, cited in Millman, 'Health instruction', 489.
100. David Kunzle, 'The art of pulling teeth in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries : from public martyrdom to private nightmare and political struggle ?' in Michael Feher (ed.), Zone 5 : Fragments for a History of the Human Body, Part Three (New York, 1989), 29-89.
101. In a recent essay Warwick Anderson argues that Americans, in policing the hygiene of Filipinos, alternately recognized, avoided and manipulated the power of feces; and he rereads the colonial politics of sanitation as a set of rituals about closing the orifices of the colonized. W. Anderson, 'Excremental colonialism: public health and the poetics of pollution', Critical Inquiry, XXI (1995), 640-69.
102. Ornella Moscucci, The Science of Woman : Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800-1929 (Cambridge, 1990), 109, in part citing Stanley J. Reiser, Medicine and the Reign of Technology (Cambridge, 1978). Surgery was not only a procedure, but also an invasive way of seeing Africans. As such it was at one with the incursion of the camera lens and spotlight, as Walter Benjamin notes by comparing surgery with the camera in his famous 1936 essay, 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction', in Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations, trans. H. Zohn (New York, 1969 [1955]), 233.
103. Ornella Moscucci, The Science of Woman : Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800-1929 (Cambridge, 1990), 109, in part citing Stanley J. Reiser, Medicine and the Reign of Technology (Cambridge, 1978). Surgery was not only a procedure, but also an invasive way of seeing Africans. As such it was at one with the incursion of the camera lens and spotlight, as Walter Benjamin notes by comparing surgery with the camera in his famous 1936 essay, 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction', in Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations, trans. H. Zohn (New York, 1969 [1955]), 233.
104. Ornella Moscucci, The Science of Woman : Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800-1929 (Cambridge, 1990), 109, in part citing Stanley J. Reiser, Medicine and the Reign of Technology (Cambridge, 1978). Surgery was not only a procedure, but also an invasive way of seeing Africans. As such it was at one with the incursion of the camera lens and spotlight, as Walter Benjamin notes by comparing surgery with the camera in his famous 1936 essay, 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction', in Hannah Arendt (ed.), Illuminations, trans. H. Zohn (New York, 1969 [1955]), 233.
105. Seeley, 'Reaction of Botswana', 49, and C. [F. Seeley] Dennis, 'The role of dingaka tsa se Tswana from the nineteenth century to the present', Botswana Notes and Records, X (1980), 56. Writing about the upper Congo, Nancy Hunt tells us that a doctor was known as he 'who cuts up some and divides others'. Hunt shows that the deliberately theatrical use of tableware interposed itself as a model for missionaries' equally theatrical surgical uses of the knife. People in the village of Yakusu likened the local hospital to a food cannery. See Nancy Rose Hunt, 'Negotiated colonialism: domesticity, hygiene, and birth work in the Belgian Congo' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992), 269ff., forthcoming with Duke University Press.
106. Seeley, 'Reaction of Botswana', 49, and C. [F. Seeley] Dennis, 'The role of dingaka tsa se Tswana from the nineteenth century to the present', Botswana Notes and Records, X (1980), 56. Writing about the upper Congo, Nancy Hunt tells us that a doctor was known as he 'who cuts up some and divides others'. Hunt shows that the deliberately theatrical use of tableware interposed itself as a model for missionaries' equally theatrical surgical uses of the knife. People in the village of Yakusu likened the local hospital to a food cannery. See Nancy Rose Hunt, 'Negotiated colonialism: domesticity, hygiene, and birth work in the Belgian Congo' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992), 269ff., forthcoming with Duke University Press.
107. Seeley, 'Reaction of Botswana', 49, and C. [F. Seeley] Dennis, 'The role of dingaka tsa se Tswana from the nineteenth century to the present', Botswana Notes and Records, X (1980), 56. Writing about the upper Congo, Nancy Hunt tells us that a doctor was known as he 'who cuts up some and divides others'. Hunt shows that the deliberately theatrical use of tableware interposed itself as a model for missionaries' equally theatrical surgical uses of the knife. People in the village of Yakusu likened the local hospital to a food cannery. See Nancy Rose Hunt, 'Negotiated colonialism: domesticity, hygiene, and birth work in the Belgian Congo' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992), 269ff., forthcoming with Duke University Press.
108. The Whitechapel 'Ripper' murders in London invoked the gendered, dark side of Victorian surgery for many people, and seemed to announce the disordered state of London's 'social body'. Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy : Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (New York, 1990); quote, Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian England (Chicago, 1992).
109. The Whitechapel 'Ripper' murders in London invoked the gendered, dark side of Victorian surgery for many people, and seemed to announce the disordered state of London's 'social body'. Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy : Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (New York, 1990); quote, Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian England (Chicago, 1992).
110. Cf. Hunt, 'Negotiated colonialism', 223-60.
111. Although at least some sorcery may actually have involved surgery, in 'mutikillings', and may still. Hugh Ashton's account of the 1940S BaSotho 'medicine murders' reports that victims were kept alive while initial dissections were made. One wonders how or if European surgery influenced such a crime. Hugh Ashton, The Basuto (Oxford, 1952). 307-14, 321-2. At any rate the power of discussion and rumor was such that contemporaneous Sotho miners strenuously objected to 'surgical interference'; Michael Vane, Black Magic and White Medicine (Glasgow, 1957), 66.
112. Although at least some sorcery may actually have involved surgery, in 'mutikillings', and may still. Hugh Ashton's account of the 1940S BaSotho 'medicine murders' reports that victims were kept alive while initial dissections were made. One wonders how or if European surgery influenced such a crime. Hugh Ashton, The Basuto (Oxford, 1952). 307-14, 321-2. At any rate the power of discussion and rumor was such that contemporaneous Sotho miners strenuously objected to 'surgical interference'; Michael Vane, Black Magic and White Medicine (Glasgow, 1957), 66.
113. For instance, the BaToka remove incisors ' in order to be like oxen', the social beings par excellence. Otherwise, they are like 'zebras', wild things. Schapera (ed.), Livingstone's Private Journals, 49; and Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 571. See also Carlos Estermann, Ethnography of South Western Angola, trans. G. D. Gibson (3 vols.) (New York, 1976-9), esp. ii, 43; and iii, 24.
114. For instance, the BaToka remove incisors ' in order to be like oxen', the social beings par excellence. Otherwise, they are like 'zebras', wild things. Schapera (ed.), Livingstone's Private Journals, 49; and Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 571. See also Carlos Estermann, Ethnography of South Western Angola, trans. G. D. Gibson (3 vols.) (New York, 1976-9), esp. ii, 43; and iii, 24.
115. For instance, the BaToka remove incisors ' in order to be like oxen', the social beings par excellence. Otherwise, they are like 'zebras', wild things. Schapera (ed.), Livingstone's Private Journals, 49; and Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 571. See also Carlos Estermann, Ethnography of South Western Angola, trans. G. D. Gibson (3 vols.) (New York, 1976-9), esp. ii, 43; and iii, 24.
116. Isaac Schapera, Bogwera : Kgatla Initiation (pamphlet, Gaborone, 1978); Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance, 85-114; see esp. 98. There was a practice of teaching girls to manipulate the labial lips to make them longer, as for instance discussed by Diana Jeater, Marriage, Perversion and Power : The Construction of Moral Discourse in Southern Rhodesia, 1894-1930 (Oxford, 1993), 24.
117. Isaac Schapera, Bogwera : Kgatla Initiation (pamphlet, Gaborone, 1978); Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance, 85-114; see esp. 98. There was a practice of teaching girls to manipulate the labial lips to make them longer, as for instance discussed by Diana Jeater, Marriage, Perversion and Power : The Construction of Moral Discourse in Southern Rhodesia, 1894-1930 (Oxford, 1993), 24.
118. Isaac Schapera, Bogwera : Kgatla Initiation (pamphlet, Gaborone, 1978); Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance, 85-114; see esp. 98. There was a practice of teaching girls to manipulate the labial lips to make them longer, as for instance discussed by Diana Jeater, Marriage, Perversion and Power : The Construction of Moral Discourse in Southern Rhodesia, 1894-1930 (Oxford, 1993), 24.
119. Nor was the foreskin simply discarded as 'refuse', as missionaries would
120. Gabriel Setiloane has argued something similar for confirmation ceremonies in missionary churches, in The Image of God Among the Sotho-Tswana.
121. 64 My italics; LMS SA Reports 6/4 Serowe for 1926, R. H. Lewis. The original work on rites of passage is A. van Gennep, The Rite of Passage, trans. M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee (Chicago, 1960).
122. LMS SA Reports, 1/2, J. Hepburn, Shoshong 1886 (II Feb. 1887).
123. Selly Oaks College, Birmingham UK, William C. Willoughby Papers, file 169, W. C. Willoughby, 'The application of Christianity to Bantu Africa' (n.d., c. 1925-30), 6, 11 ; emphasis in original.
124. See Georges Canguilhem's discussions of the medical 'normal' as a status inscribed with society's partisan values, The Normal and the Pathological, trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett (New York, 1989).
125. I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion (Middlesex, 1971), 197.
126. An intriguing parallel is provided by H. Fisher, 'Liminality, hijra, and the city', in N. Levtzion and H. Fisher (eds.), Rural and Urban Islam in West Africa (Boulder CO, 1987).
127. The phenomenal attraction described by Terence Ranger in 'Godly medicine' was perhaps linked to the form of the therapy employed by the mission: vaccinations, in which the surface of each person's body was broken. Luise White reports that the word for vaccination in Luganda was 'to cut', in '"They could make their victims dull".'
128. Asst. Dist. Officer, 'Water Conservation', Arusha Dist. Bk., 2 July 1935; quoted in H. Kuklick, The Savage Within (Cambridge, 1991), 233.
129. Jock McCulloch, Colonial Psychiatry and ' The African Mind' (Cambridge, 1995). 53-64. The seminal, if obscurely written, articles on this discomfort are both by Homi K. Bhabha: Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse', October, XXVIII (1984), 125-33; and 'Signs taken for wonders: questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817', Critical Inquiry, XII (1985), 144-65.
130. Jock McCulloch, Colonial Psychiatry and ' The African Mind' (Cambridge, 1995). 53-64. The seminal, if obscurely written, articles on this discomfort are both by Homi K. Bhabha: Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse', October, XXVIII (1984), 125-33; and 'Signs taken for wonders: questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817', Critical Inquiry, XII (1985), 144-65.
131. Jock McCulloch, Colonial Psychiatry and ' The African Mind' (Cambridge, 1995). 53-64. The seminal, if obscurely written, articles on this discomfort are both by Homi K. Bhabha: Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse', October, XXVIII (1984), 125-33; and 'Signs taken for wonders: questions of ambivalence and authority under a tree outside Delhi, May 1817', Critical Inquiry, XII (1985), 144-65.
132. For a most interesting debate on conversion, see Robin Horton, On the rationality of conversion, Part I', Africa, XLV (1975), 220; Richard Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', African Affairs, LXXVII (1978), 98-9.
133. For a most interesting debate on conversion, see Robin Horton, On the rationality of conversion, Part I', Africa, XLV (1975), 220; Richard Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', African Affairs, LXXVII (1978), 98-9.
134. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
135. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
136. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
137. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
138. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
139. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
140. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
141. Bengt Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1961 [ist ed. 1948]); J. R. Coan, 'The expansion of missions of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa, 1896-1908' (Ph.D. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961); David Barratt, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi, 1968); Gray, 'Christianity and social change in Africa', 98-9; Setiloane, The Image of God Among the Sotho- Tswana; Wim Van Binsbergen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London, 1981); Terence Ranger, 'Religious movements and politics in sub-Saharan Africa', African Studies Review, XXIX (1986), 1-71; G. C. Oosthuizen et al. (eds.), Afro-Christianity : Religion and Healing in Southern Africa (Lewiston NY, 1989).
142. Martin West, Bishops and Prophets in a Black City (Cape Town, 1975); James P. Kiernan, The Production and Management of Therapeutic Power within a Zulu City (Lewiston NY, 1990); Jean Comaroff, 'Healing and cultural transition: the Tswana of Southern Africa', Social Science and Medicine, XV B (1981), 367-78, and more generally, her important book Body of Power.
143. Martin West, Bishops and Prophets in a Black City (Cape Town, 1975); James P. Kiernan, The Production and Management of Therapeutic Power within a Zulu City (Lewiston NY, 1990); Jean Comaroff, 'Healing and cultural transition: the Tswana of Southern Africa', Social Science and Medicine, XV B (1981), 367-78, and more generally, her important book Body of Power.
144. Martin West, Bishops and Prophets in a Black City (Cape Town, 1975); James P. Kiernan, The Production and Management of Therapeutic Power within a Zulu City (Lewiston NY, 1990); Jean Comaroff, 'Healing and cultural transition: the Tswana of Southern Africa', Social Science and Medicine, XV B (1981), 367-78, and more generally, her important book Body of Power.
145. 76 R. H. Lewis, 'Medicine at Molepolole', 411, and LMS SA Reports 3/3, Molepolole for 1904 (R. H. Lewis, 1905). Southern Africans configured missionaries as medical, bodily practitioners because of the meaning of ritual specialization in southern Africa. At the same time, 'practicing medicine' often meant minor surgery to missionaries, who lagged behind Europe's medical advances at the turn of the century. Whereas southern Africans located their well-being in the nexus of person and community, missionaries' surgery attacked this nexus. Surgery implied, and missionaries asserted, that healing derived from a resolution of interior somatic conflicts, in which troublesome body parts might be removed. A new way of speaking about certain kinds of physical pain was developed, whereby the body briefly became a total site for illness and healing. At the same time, Nonconformist evangelism demanded that individuals rid their interior selves of unsavory forces and extract themselves from those aspects of their communal lives which generated such influences. Because both Africans and missionaries moralized illness, and because some forms of surgery, like tooth-pulling, 'worked' for Africans, surgery marked a rite of passage to a new group of peers: Christians, who could recontextualize the catharsis of getting well.