Explaining Surgical Evangelism in Colonial Southern Africa: Teeth, Pain and Faith

Abstract

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.

Missions and Empire

“…61 ) Only in the West Indies did Anglicans hold undisputed sway, although Methodists, Moravians, and Baptists were starting to gain converts. 62 To varying degrees, each denomination in this expansion beneWted from the revival that WhiteWeld helped initiate, including the Church of England. American Protestants in 1776 were more likely to be church members than their ancestors one hundred years earlier; their aYliations bound them as never before into a transatlantic community of missionaries and evangelicals, synods and bishops, colleges and universities, associations and councils.…”

“…It countermanded the thrust of that prior report through much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by placing the political fate of colonized peoples largely in the hands of locally elected settler legislatures. 62 The eVect was to make humanitarian opinion in Britain largely irrelevant to the activities of colonial governance.…”

“…Though they did little to prevent further colonial aggressions, fear of their criticism could have a restraining inXuence. When, for instance, during 62 Julie Evans, Patricia Grimshaw, David Philips, and Shurlee Swain, Equal Subjects, Unequal Rights: Indigenous Peoples in British Settler Colonies, 1830s-1910(Manchester, 2003. 63 Mellor, British Imperial Trusteeship, p. 312.…”

“…It was Queen Victoria gaven [who gave] away to everyone so we losted [lost] our land.' 62 At the end of the diary for 1881 Clah returns to the theme of land theft, drawing a moral contrast between Britain's abolition of slavery and its toleration of dispossession: ' 63 Clah spent many years trying unsuccessfully to reclaim land that he believed had been taken from him and his wife's family. While it is tempting to cast him as an early anti-imperial nationalist, he also hankered after the approval and praise of missionaries and other Euro-Canadians in authority, insisting that he be treated as an equal, not a servant or employee.…”

Kiistellyt tiet terveyteen: Parantamisen monimuotoisuus globaalihistoriassa

“…Tätä parannuksen muotoa oli vaikeampi salata kuin lääkkeiden ottamista, sillä hoitoon kuuluivat tyypillisesti pitkät rituaalit, rummutusta ja tansseja, joihin osallistui useita ihmisiä. 37 34 Flint 2008, 111;Hastings 1994;Landau 1995;Peires 1981 Hybridin parantamiskulttuurin elinvoimaisuutta osoittivat osaltaan 1920-ja 30-luvuilla Malawissa, Sambiassa ja Mosambikissa nopeasti levinneet noituuspuhdistusliikkeet, joista tunnetuin oli mchape 1930-luvun alussa. Näille tyypillistä oli puhdistavan lääkkeen kollektiivinen juominen.…”