Health is one of the primary concerns of the Karanga religion. Their traditional religious belief system identifies numerous and varied causes of illness and disease. Many times certain illnesses and diseases have a distinct reason for appearing. It is then the task of the n’anga (diviner-healer) to diagnose who or what causes the illness and to give the patient a pertinent cure. Therefore the n’anga plays an important role in determining the cause of illness and disease and prescribing an effective cure.

Traditional causes

The Karanga make a distinction between four different categories of causes of illness and diseases. They are spirits, witchcraft and sorcery, socio-moral and natural causes.

Spirits

The Karanga believe in the existence of spirits that affect every part of their lives. One can make a distinction between ancestral spirits (vadzimu), avenging spirits (ngozi), alien spirits (mashavi) and shadow of a dead person (bvuri).

Ancestor spirits are the basic spirits, which cause illness and disease of a complex and serious nature. Such an illness is believed to defy all treatment. However, this is not meant to kill the victim but to alert the descendants to search for the spiritual cause from the diviners. Besides their role in guarding and protecting living members of the family, ancestors can be malevolent if neglected or forgotten. This usually happens when some rituals for the spirits are neglected, for example, kurova guva, a traditional ritual that calls back the spirit of the dead and doro reChikaranga, the annual traditional beer brewing in commemoration of the dead. Ancestors can cause illness and disease as means of communication, usually calling for ritual attention by the descendants. They can also cause illness and disease when they want recognition by a name given to one of the family members, especially the sick one. Curing will naturally take the form of exorcism or appeasement of the spirit through sacrifice or material concessions such as beer, cloth, blankets, beasts, etc.

But from another perspective, the Karanga also maintain strong convictions that ancestors do not actually cause illness and disease. As one informant put it, ‘Ancestors do not shed blood but inflict pain only. When they exterminate the descendants, they are now avenging spirits.’