Healing the Exposed Being – The Ngoma healing tradition in South Africa Thornton

Healing the Exposed BeingThe Ngoma Healing Tradition in South Africa\nAuthor(s): Robert Thornton\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Wits University Press, South Africa\nImprint: Wits University Press\nISBN-13: 9781776140183, 978-1776140183\nSynopsis\nThis ethnography explores the Ngoma healing tradition as practiced in eastern Mpumalanga, South Africa. 'Bungoma' is an active philosophical system and healing practice consisting of multiple strands, based on the notion that humans are intrinsically exposed to each other and that this is the cause of illness, but also the condition for the possibility of healing. This healing seeks to protect the 'exposed being' from harm through augmenting the self. Unlike Western medicine, it does not seek to cure physical ailments but aims to prevent suffering by allowing patients to transform their personal narratives of Self. Like Western medicine, it is empirical and is presented as a 'local knowledge' that amounts to a practical anthropology of humans