Power, authority and disease: a structural analysis

Abstract

The first explorers and missionaries often looked askance at native conceptions of disease. They seemed illogical, irrational superstitions. Gradually, as the field of anthropology began to develop, attempts were made to better understand these native conceptions. For example, Frazer (1922) formulated cross-cultural laws of magical causation. Clements (1932) sought to explain the diffusion of certain postulated types of causation through conjectural history. To us today, such laws and conjectures seem too facile and simplistic to portray much about conceptions of disease. Instead anthropologists now see that these conceptions are often statements about specific social relations in a culture. Lewis (1971), for instance, notes a relationship between social standing and two types of disease causation, spirit possession and witchcraft. Whiting and Child (1953) find a statistical correlation between certain explanations of illness and certain types of harsh child rearing practices. Turner (1967, 1968, 1969) shows that particular symbols in Ndembu curing ceremonies possess a whole variety of social referents.