PWANI PART 5: Mganga na Hurusi (the Medicine Man and the Wedding)

While in Shirazi we also has a small research assignment to do. My friends Sarah, Alex, and I were assigned to research traditional medicine in Shirazi.

When we first thought about traditional medicine, we thought of herbal remedies and the like. But traditional medicine also encompasses enchantments and the use of "genies". So, do you remember the genie in the lamp? Well, it turns out that, since Arabs have been trading with East Africans for a long time, that the original genie in the lamp was actually a genie in the gourd. Genies are invisible creatures than can attach themselves to humans. Genies can be cast by individuals who have the capabilities. One of the women in the village said that sometimes the council of elders send genies to people who are disrespectful or doing something bad for the village. There are many different types of genies and they all have names and are associated with different colors. So when you are exercising a genie, you are suppose to wear the colors that the genie likes. And to ask a favor of a genie or to get rid of a genie, you often have to sacrifice and animal. What was really interesting is that while doing our research once we mentioned genies to whomever we were interviewing, it seemed that every illness or misfortune was attributed to a genie. I even met a doctor in Nairobi who believes in genies, and claimed to have had a genie himself before.

So, on our fourth day in the village, we went to visit the medicine man. We followed his for a good 20 minutes out to his hut on the far outskirts of the village. One we arrives at his house, he sat us down outside and showed us all of the different plants he uses to cure different illnesses. Most of the plants have multiple uses, depending on if you use the roots or the leaves, whether you wash yourselves in a tea made from the leaves or if you digest them. Also, since Shirazi is a Muslim village, they use verses from the Koran while applying the remedy. The medicine man told us that while he gets cases of general illness, he also gets people who need to improve their luck or barren women who want to get pregnant.

Some dried and ground herbs.

The Medicine Man making Maziwa za Kuku (milk of the chicken)

On Friday, one of the village women was being married off to a man in another village and we were invited to the wedding. The wedding was held under an awning of the bride's house. The women and men sat separately, the men were all wearing their white robes and kofias and the women were all dressed in brightly colored khangas. There was a long ceremony amongst the men, which included a lot of paper signing and praying from the Koran. After that was finished, a woman went over to a huge drum and started drumming and then the women all got up and lined up at the door of the house. Then they began singing a call and response song. My mama grabbed me and pulled me into the group and before I knew it we were all shuffling into the tiny house, still singing and laughing. We went all the way to the back bedroom, where I saw the bride sitting on the bed, dressed in green (the color of Islam). Then the poor husband (who looked completely petrified) pushed his way through the crowd of singing yelling women to the bedroom. After a little while the crowd dispersed and we went outside to eat. We asked several of the women what exactly was going on in the bedroom, and they said "oh, they are just drinking chai." But later, when talking to Mama Mary, she said that if the bride was known to be a virgin (or suppose to be a virgin) the women would have waited outside of the bedroom until the couple consumated their marriage and revealed the stained sheet. But, they were not doing that part of the ceremony because the bride already has three children, and therefore not a virgin. She is only 22 years old, but has a 9 year old daughter, who she had when she was only 13 years old.

My fellow students and I dressed up for the wedding

The women in the village preparing for the wedding

The start of the wedding ceremony

The men conducted a ceremonywhile the women observed, sitting on the opposite mat.

Drummer woman

The mother giving away her daughter to her new husband in the bedroom.

One of my friends was ushered into the bedroom after most of the women had left because he host mother wanted her to get a picture of the bride. She found the bride sitting on the bed crying. It turns out that the woman was upset because she was not allowed to bring her three children with her to her husbands village and was leaving them behind to be cared for by their grandmother. When I asked my brothers about this, they said that when I woman is married, it is the husbands decision if he wants to accept any of his wifes children, and often times they do not want the woman to bring any children to his home that are not his own.