THE GODS, DISEASES, ANDAILMENTS IN AFRICA AND THE DIASPOR
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Dr. Samuel Alifa
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DOI :10.5281/zenodo.16580081
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MathematicalSciences Education ProgrammeNational Mathematical Centre, Abuja
This research
paper looks into the multi-layered relationship that exists between the
traditional African belief system, particularly with regard to understanding
and perception of gods and spirits, and how disease and health-related concerns
are perceived, interpreted, and dealt with both on the vast African continent
and throughout the African diaspora dispersed around the world. What follows,
therefore, is an attempt to really look deeply into the complex ways in which
indigenous religious beliefs and spiritual frameworks throughout history have
influenced and shaped popular perceptions related to health and illness and the
methodologies employed in the same. This calls for an extensive study that
seeks to understand multiple perceptions of diseases, which are hardly ever
literally observed in isolation to be biological but complex conditions
invariably entwined with spiritual beliefs and moral and communal experiences.
Such multifaceted health conditions require combined interventions of both
medical practices and spiritual approaches if effective healing is to be
accomplished. For the diaspora, these beliefs have undergone a series of major
transitions or adaptations-changes with the demands of new environments while
managing to preserve key foundational elements of African spirituality that are
considered important to their understanding and practices. This postulates that
understanding these various insights and their integration into health systems
become one of the bases or springboards from which meaningful, inclusive, and
efficacious health systems need to emanate. This perspective marks a profound
respect for the rich diversity along the continuum of African and diasporic
experiences with reference to health and healing practices.