with the verses she writes that she puts in the water,” Tissa answered.
“Who taught her that? What sense does it have? She doesn’t even know!” I turned to Marcos. “We asked her, didn’t we?” Marcos nodded. “She said she didn’t know what her figures mean. She’s illiterate. She just scribbles on paper. That’s not kulaula !”
“But it works!” Tissa answered. “Look at all the people who go to her. She must know something, because she heals them.” Suddenly, the touch of sarcasm was gone from his voice.
“Tissa,” I said, “she told us that she could heal infections. We asked her how long it took. She said that sometimes it takes only days, but sometimes it takes as long as six months. Six months! In six months, the body can heal itself of an infection. It has nothing to do with the healer. With all those sick people in her yard all the time, there are bound to be people who get better. I don’t see where she has anything to do with it.”
“That woman knows something,” Tissa responded, simply. With a mixture of defiance and shame, he admitted, finally, that he had been treated by Nkataje three years earlier. She had cured him of recurrent headaches, he told us.
The pile of orange peels at his feet was now substantial. I thought of how pleased my mother would have been that he had consumed nearly a dozen. She has infinite faith in vitamin C, my mother, and I was sure that she would see a place for it in the treatment of malaria.
We sat quietly for a few moments. I then asked them both, “Isn’t it possible that an nkulaula can be a fraud?” I reached for one of the orange peels. “I’m not an nkulaula,” I said. “But what’s to prevent me from squeezing the juice out of a dozen oranges into this basin and telling Tissa, ‘Okay, soak your feet in this orange juice. This is my mitela. It will cure your malaria.’ Tissa told me himself that he will survive this bout with malaria. He told me that Africans are more resistant than vajungu. We know he’s going to get better. But if I get him to soak his feet in my orange juice, I can claim that I cured him, can’t I?”
We all laughed together.
“I’m going to try that,” Marcos said. “I’ll be the most famous nkulaula in Cabo Delgado. And I’ll tell everyone that I learned my mitela from a powerful njungu !” He reached out to clasp my hand as we continued laughing.
Tissa then punctuated our laughter to set the record straight: “But your orange juice wouldn’t heal me.”
“I don’t see how Julia Nkataje’s water is any different,” I said.
Marcos now became serious as well. “Mano, the important thing is that people believe in it. You know that your orange juice is just orange juice, so no one will believe you. Julia Nkataje believes in her cure, so her patients do too. If a person believes they are cured, they will be cured.”
Marcos told a story to illustrate his argument. “I once healed a woman. She was trembling the way people do when they are possessed. I’m no nkulaula, and I don’t have any mitela. So I took ordinary water and ‘anointed’ her with it, the way Humu Mandia does with ing’opedi.” He reached forward and rubbed his thumb on my forehead in the sign of a cross. “I told her to go to sleep. When she woke up, I told her to go and bathe.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
Marcos smiled broadly. “She got better.”
“But did you heal her?” I asked.
Marcos continued to smile but remained silent, leaving open to interpretation whether he was himself persuaded of hishealing powers and whether he considered as “real” the healing “power of persuasion.”
In any case, I remembered my own experience as the beneficiary of Mandia’s and Kalamatatu’s healing treatments. These treatments had indeed worked for me, in more ways than one. Both Mandia and Kalamatatu had instructed Marcos and me to keep our treatment secret lest word of it make us targets for sorcerers attempting
“Who taught her that? What sense does it have? She doesn’t even know!” I turned to Marcos. “We asked her, didn’t we?” Marcos nodded. “She said she didn’t know what her figures mean. She’s illiterate. She just scribbles on paper. That’s not kulaula !”
“But it works!” Tissa answered. “Look at all the people who go to her. She must know something, because she heals them.” Suddenly, the touch of sarcasm was gone from his voice.
“Tissa,” I said, “she told us that she could heal infections. We asked her how long it took. She said that sometimes it takes only days, but sometimes it takes as long as six months. Six months! In six months, the body can heal itself of an infection. It has nothing to do with the healer. With all those sick people in her yard all the time, there are bound to be people who get better. I don’t see where she has anything to do with it.”
“That woman knows something,” Tissa responded, simply. With a mixture of defiance and shame, he admitted, finally, that he had been treated by Nkataje three years earlier. She had cured him of recurrent headaches, he told us.
The pile of orange peels at his feet was now substantial. I thought of how pleased my mother would have been that he had consumed nearly a dozen. She has infinite faith in vitamin C, my mother, and I was sure that she would see a place for it in the treatment of malaria.
We sat quietly for a few moments. I then asked them both, “Isn’t it possible that an nkulaula can be a fraud?” I reached for one of the orange peels. “I’m not an nkulaula,” I said. “But what’s to prevent me from squeezing the juice out of a dozen oranges into this basin and telling Tissa, ‘Okay, soak your feet in this orange juice. This is my mitela. It will cure your malaria.’ Tissa told me himself that he will survive this bout with malaria. He told me that Africans are more resistant than vajungu. We know he’s going to get better. But if I get him to soak his feet in my orange juice, I can claim that I cured him, can’t I?”
We all laughed together.
“I’m going to try that,” Marcos said. “I’ll be the most famous nkulaula in Cabo Delgado. And I’ll tell everyone that I learned my mitela from a powerful njungu !” He reached out to clasp my hand as we continued laughing.
Tissa then punctuated our laughter to set the record straight: “But your orange juice wouldn’t heal me.”
“I don’t see how Julia Nkataje’s water is any different,” I said.
Marcos now became serious as well. “Mano, the important thing is that people believe in it. You know that your orange juice is just orange juice, so no one will believe you. Julia Nkataje believes in her cure, so her patients do too. If a person believes they are cured, they will be cured.”
Marcos told a story to illustrate his argument. “I once healed a woman. She was trembling the way people do when they are possessed. I’m no nkulaula, and I don’t have any mitela. So I took ordinary water and ‘anointed’ her with it, the way Humu Mandia does with ing’opedi.” He reached forward and rubbed his thumb on my forehead in the sign of a cross. “I told her to go to sleep. When she woke up, I told her to go and bathe.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
Marcos smiled broadly. “She got better.”
“But did you heal her?” I asked.
Marcos continued to smile but remained silent, leaving open to interpretation whether he was himself persuaded of hishealing powers and whether he considered as “real” the healing “power of persuasion.”
In any case, I remembered my own experience as the beneficiary of Mandia’s and Kalamatatu’s healing treatments. These treatments had indeed worked for me, in more ways than one. Both Mandia and Kalamatatu had instructed Marcos and me to keep our treatment secret lest word of it make us targets for sorcerers attempting
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