International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 5, No. 10; October 2015 189 Indigenous Beliefs and Healing In Historical Perspective: Experiences from Buha and Unyamwezi, Western Tanzania Salvatory Stephen Nyanto Ph.D. (History) Candidate, University of Iowa Assistant Lecturer, University of Dar es Salaam P. O. Box 35031, Dar es Salaam-Tanzania Abstract This paper explores the relations between indigenous beliefs and healing practices in Buha and Unyamwezi in Western Tanzania. I argue that beliefs and healing practices are an integral part of the lives of the people in the region. Diseases, misfortunes and religion have coexisted for many centuries and affect people’s lives and their relationship with the deities. Medicine--whether physical, spiritual, or psychological--is used to cure, heal, protect, and to ensure people’s health and wellbeing of the society. Ideas on healing and religiosity are neither homogenous nor static. They vary from one place to another and change in response to changing social contexts. This paper relies on oral interviews and secondary sources to provide an account of healing and religiosity in Buha and Unyamwezi and the changes that have shaped the two from the late pre-colonial period to the present. It employs a comparative approach to examine healing and religiosity on societies that have different social and cultural backgrounds. Keywords: Indigenous Beliefs, Healing, Buha, Unyamwezi 1. Introduction In traditional cosmologies, healing and religiosity are an integral part of people’s lives. The centrality of healing and religiosity has existed since time immemorial to solve issues arising from the intersections of members of families, clans and societies. For instance, between the first, second and third millennium BCE, ritual healing was used by kings of Babylon to reconcile with the divine sphere in order to maintain political stability. 1 Likewise, medicine among the Polynesians of Hawaii was inseparable from religion, as treatment of the sick depended on the worship of gods. 2 Again, among the Native Americans, Indians and Chinese, health and healing could not be separated from their traditional religions. 3 In all these societies, health, healing and religion have coexisted for many centuries and have in due course affected people’s lives and their relationship with the deities. In African societies, diseases and misfortunes are considered to be religious experiences. Hence, religious rituals and medicine are used to cure, heal, protect, and to ensure people’s health. 4 Among the Shambaa of north-eastern Tanzania, Kilindi chiefs and local practitioners held rain medicine rituals to maintain political stability and the wellbeing of the people. 5 In all societies, medicine men played an important role in healing. 1 Claus Ambos, “Ritual Healing and the Investiture of the Babylonian King” Edited by William S. Sax, Johannes Quack and Jan Weinhold, The Problem of Ritual Efficacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp.22-28. 2 Katherine Luomala, “Polynesian Religious Foundations of Hawaiian Concepts Regarding Wellness and Illness” Edited by Lawrence E. Sullivan, Healing and Restoring: Health and Medicine in the World’s Religious Traditions (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company and London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1989), p.288. 3 Ake Hultkrantz, “Health, Religion and Medicine in Native North American Traditions” Edited by Lawrence E. Sullivan, Healing and Restoring, pp.327-329, Vicanne Adams, “The Production of Self and Body in Sherpa-Tibetan Society” Edited by Mark Nichter, Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Ethnomedicine (Tucson: University of Arizona, 1992), Joseph M. Kitagawa, “Buddhist Medical History” Edited by Lawrence E. Sullivan, Healing and Restoring, and Kenneth Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991). 4 John S.Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion (London: Heinemann International, 1991) pp.152, 169. 5 Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), pp.69-119.