Fijian Student Tells Of Witch-doctors

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 24

Fijian Student Tells Of Witch-doctors

A Fijian student studying in New Zealand who told of two antagonistic groups of witch-doctors in his country, and how slits were cut into his back to release the “bad blood and evil spirits,” is the subject of an unusual case history described in a recent issue o fthe New Zealand Medical Journal.

The 21-year-old man, who had come to study in New Zealand, sought treatment in Wellington because he suffered acute headaches. He attributed the onset of these to a kick on the head while playing football in Fiji five years earlier. During investigation, according to the report, the student said he had been adopted out by his parents as a male heir to childless parents. He was later returned to his own parents, and described himself as a castaway in a large family. He developed stomach pains and a local witch-doctor treated him with rituals and herbs.

Many slits were cut in his back to release the “bad blood and evil spirits” that were supposed to have caused his malady. Though his pains cleared up, he had to return to his village for further treatment whenever they recurred. As he grew older, he knew that the bush medicine bad some beneficial, if temporary, effect on him, but it conflicted with his increasing knowledge of organic factors in European medicine. The student said that disease and health in Fiji were largely governed by two antagonistic groups of witch doctors,'known as “killers” and “saviours” respectively. The killers got their powers from their ritualistic identification with tribal chiefs who had died, and the saviours derived theirs from their own reputation and their lines of descent.

Three different kinds of killers were described—herbal killers, kava feeders and moon dancers—according to the kind of methods they used to bring about the illness and death of any particular person whom they personally resented, or about whom an aggrieved person had approached them. Herbal killers used bark and plants, together with particles of hair and nail clippings, or articles of clothing that had been taken from the houses of the prospective victims, on which to cast their fatal spells. Kava feeders poured kava drink on sacred ground while pronouncing spells of destruction about their victims. Moondancers cast their spells while performing rituals in the seclusion of graveyards on moonlight nights.

Saviour witch-doctors were also divided into seers, massagers and medicine men, and used their powers to render the killers powerless, according to the student. Seers used powers of prophesy, massagers used various manipulative techniques to revitalise parts of the body affected by the Killers, and medicine men dealt with a wide range of illness and disorders.

A seer told the student’s mother that he was under the spell of a killer, and that to safeguard his life, he should apply ointment to his forehead twice a day, pray in a Christian church twice daily, and not brood over the knowledge that his uncle was intent on having him killed. The student did not readily accept the story and visited the seer himself. She described the house of his uncle whom, she alleged, was intent on killing him, although she had not been told about his distant village and had not been there herself. The student felt he could not reject the seer’s opinions. He then came to New Zea-

land. His fears of death intensified behind the symptoms.

The doctor describing the case says the man doubled the recommended dosage of ointment, prayers and suppression, but to no effect. “In the absence of organic factors, it seemed that the student’s psychosomatic symptoms of anxiety and tension were a reflection of his emotional and cultural conflict,” the doctor says. Efforts were made to make the young man feel less alien. He was encouraged to find common denominators in Western life occasional “cures” by merely humouring the patient, fringe therapies relying on belief, the authority and rituals of the Christian church in healing and overcoming ghosts and poltergeists, and the rich European folklore on witchcraft. “The student made a swift and satisfactory resolution of the various conflicting relationships, customs, and systems of belief that lay behind his psychosomatic reactions,” the doctor says. “His headaches stopped, he resumed his studies, he was was nb longer preoccupied with illusions and fears.” He also did not feel any longer threatened by his killer relative. He acquitted himself well in university examinations and now seemed set for a professional career. At his latest interview, he said he had been without headaches for 30 months and without sickness for the long■est period in his life. The final mark of his improvement came from the fact that he had just survived another kick in a Rugby match on the same area of his head as before without the return of his headaches, “though even the most toughminded of clinicians would hesitate before imposing such an experimental requirement of proof of the efficacy of psychotherapy.” “Finally, he presented his bottle of bush ointment to the author, as if to relinquish his dependence on witchcraft while in New Zealand. In reply, and as a precautionary measure, he was told that the ointment would be retained for him in case he felt the need to use it “A suggestion was also made that witchcraft practices

might still be of some occasional help to him as and when he returned to his own cultural group in Fiji, notwithstanding the progress he had made independently while in New Zealand.”

A pathologist who analysed the onitment—a paste of coconut oil and flesh, as well as scattered pieces of leaf—found no active ingredient that could be any use. The doctor says he believes that belief in witchcraft may still be prevalent in Fijian villages, in spite of laws against them. He does not think all Fijians would make the satisfactory response this man did to treatment here, but sees some benefit in the approach taken.