Indigenous Healers of Ethiopia: Victims of a Healing Profession

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify the negative stereotypes against healers in Ethiopia, which hindered cooperation between practitioners of traditional medicine and those of cosmopolitan medicine. The article also analyses the reasons why these stereotypes led to the condemnation and persecution of healers in the past and in the present. The article suggests possible ways of clearing the misunderstandings between the practitioners of both medical systems (indigenous and cosmopolitan).
The primary data were collected by using anthropological techniques of data collection, observation and interview.
It was observed that these age-old stereotypes have economic, social, psychological and legal impacts on healers.


(The African Anthropologist: 2002 9 (2): 102-116)