that she “did not know what.” Although Julia herself had once been healed by a Muslim man who tore pages from the Koran, rolled them up, and placed them in a bottle for patients to carry with them, she professed to be a Christian; indeed, she proudly told us, the Virgin Mary had appeared to her four times.
In the evening after our first meeting with Julia, Marcos and I found Tissa where we had left him earlier in the day, in the compound of Marcos’s Matambalale relatives. He was seated in the open air, warming himself as best he could in occasional bursts of sun beneath a cloudy sky. He had been suffering for days from intermittent fevers and chills. He had diagnosed himself with malaria and had persuaded someone at the hospital in Mueda to validate his assessment with a prescription for chloroquine.
“It will pass,” he assured me. Referring back to my own bout with malaria, he added, grinning broadly, “We Africans are more resistant to malaria than you vajungu [foreigners].”
A basin full of oranges sat on the ground by his side. He asked for my Swiss Army knife, casting away the dull wooden-handled knife that he had previously been using. He asked us what we had learned in Namande.
Marcos laughed. “We learned how to boil words!” he said.
“Ahhhhh. You were with that woman there who heals with her own kind of holy water,” Tissa quickly surmised.
“That’s the one.”
“Nkataje?”
“Yes,” I answered. “How did you know?”
Tissa hesitated slightly. “She’s well known. Didn’t you see how many people were there? There were lots of people there, weren’t there?”
“It’s a healing factory!” Marcos replied.
We sat for a few minutes before Tissa broke the silence. “So what did you think of it, Andiliki?” I interpreted his laughter to mean that he found humor in his memories of Julia’s compound.
I gathered my thoughts for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond with anthropological sensitivity in the face of the skepticism that I thought I detected in Marcos’s and Tissa’s remarks.
“I don’t know what to think of her,” I said. “It doesn’t seem to me that she’s really an nkulaula [healer].”
Tissa worked my knife around and around the orange in his hand, creating a spiraling rind that coiled in a pile on the ground beneath him. “Why?” he asked.
“It seems to me that she has just made the whole thing up,” I said. “I mean, she scribbles on paper, boils it in water, and has people drink it. Malaria, tuberculosis, broken bones, sore throats, sorcery, AIDS . . . it’s all the same to her . . . just drink the water.”
“You saw all the people in her compound, didn’t you?” Tissa responded.
“Look,” I said, “every other nkulaula that we have talked with uses mitela made from leaves, roots, tree bark, or animal parts. Some have special kinds of mitela that they discovered themselves. But there are many kinds of mitela that all vakulaula [healers] know. Masters pass this knowledge on to their apprentices, or ancestors pass it on to the descendants they possess.”
I suddenly realized that I was arguing, against the grain of my anthropological predilections, in favor of recognizing the “legitimacy” only of kulaula (healing) orthopraxis (whatever that was). I carried on, nonetheless, trying to convince myself along the way that I was merely playing devil’s advocate. 1
“In any case, there is a certain ‘tradition’ to healing, isn’t there? You can’t just ignore all of this and still be an nkulaula, can you? I mean, would other vakulaula recognize Julia Nkataje as an nkulaula ? She doesn’t know even the most common forms of mitela. She has no mitela !”
“What about the water she uses?” Marcos asked. “That’s her mitela.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Water. Just water. Water for everyone, no matter what ails them.” I shook my head. “Where’s the knowledge in that? Anyone can do that.”
“It has to do
In the evening after our first meeting with Julia, Marcos and I found Tissa where we had left him earlier in the day, in the compound of Marcos’s Matambalale relatives. He was seated in the open air, warming himself as best he could in occasional bursts of sun beneath a cloudy sky. He had been suffering for days from intermittent fevers and chills. He had diagnosed himself with malaria and had persuaded someone at the hospital in Mueda to validate his assessment with a prescription for chloroquine.
“It will pass,” he assured me. Referring back to my own bout with malaria, he added, grinning broadly, “We Africans are more resistant to malaria than you vajungu [foreigners].”
A basin full of oranges sat on the ground by his side. He asked for my Swiss Army knife, casting away the dull wooden-handled knife that he had previously been using. He asked us what we had learned in Namande.
Marcos laughed. “We learned how to boil words!” he said.
“Ahhhhh. You were with that woman there who heals with her own kind of holy water,” Tissa quickly surmised.
“That’s the one.”
“Nkataje?”
“Yes,” I answered. “How did you know?”
Tissa hesitated slightly. “She’s well known. Didn’t you see how many people were there? There were lots of people there, weren’t there?”
“It’s a healing factory!” Marcos replied.
We sat for a few minutes before Tissa broke the silence. “So what did you think of it, Andiliki?” I interpreted his laughter to mean that he found humor in his memories of Julia’s compound.
I gathered my thoughts for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond with anthropological sensitivity in the face of the skepticism that I thought I detected in Marcos’s and Tissa’s remarks.
“I don’t know what to think of her,” I said. “It doesn’t seem to me that she’s really an nkulaula [healer].”
Tissa worked my knife around and around the orange in his hand, creating a spiraling rind that coiled in a pile on the ground beneath him. “Why?” he asked.
“It seems to me that she has just made the whole thing up,” I said. “I mean, she scribbles on paper, boils it in water, and has people drink it. Malaria, tuberculosis, broken bones, sore throats, sorcery, AIDS . . . it’s all the same to her . . . just drink the water.”
“You saw all the people in her compound, didn’t you?” Tissa responded.
“Look,” I said, “every other nkulaula that we have talked with uses mitela made from leaves, roots, tree bark, or animal parts. Some have special kinds of mitela that they discovered themselves. But there are many kinds of mitela that all vakulaula [healers] know. Masters pass this knowledge on to their apprentices, or ancestors pass it on to the descendants they possess.”
I suddenly realized that I was arguing, against the grain of my anthropological predilections, in favor of recognizing the “legitimacy” only of kulaula (healing) orthopraxis (whatever that was). I carried on, nonetheless, trying to convince myself along the way that I was merely playing devil’s advocate. 1
“In any case, there is a certain ‘tradition’ to healing, isn’t there? You can’t just ignore all of this and still be an nkulaula, can you? I mean, would other vakulaula recognize Julia Nkataje as an nkulaula ? She doesn’t know even the most common forms of mitela. She has no mitela !”
“What about the water she uses?” Marcos asked. “That’s her mitela.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Water. Just water. Water for everyone, no matter what ails them.” I shook my head. “Where’s the knowledge in that? Anyone can do that.”
“It has to do
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