%A Steven Feierman
%J African Studies
%T Healing as social criticism in the time of colonial conquest
%X Histories of resistance to colonial conquest often describe a moment when African political leaders were defeated, but resistance did not end because ?religious? leaders took over the fight. This article suggests that the ?religious? leaders might, in many cases, be seen instead as healers. The article demonstrates this with reference to a single place ? the frontier area to the north of Rwanda where mediums of the Nyabingi spirit led resistance to conquest. Nyabingi mediums helped organise responses to public misfortune (to famines or epidemics), and also to individual illness or infertility. These healers of collective misfortune led resistance to acts of conquest which threatened survival and reproduction. The mediums served as partially autonomous social critics, but found themselves constrained in this role by European measures to control indigenous healing.
%N 1
%P 73-88
%V 54
%D 1995
%L justhis7309