By Olayinka Oyegbile
The earliest form of healing substances had been herbal medicines, but with the advent of civilization … orthodox medicines have become the main and well recognized products for the management of diseases in modern health systems – Author Unknown
(A review of In the Twilight of Time: Chief Loogo Bamutula – A biography of an African Medicine Man by Jacob K. Olupona with Oluwole Akinyosoye, University Press, Ibadan, 2024)
Quite a lot has been written and said about African religion, myths, and the healing power of herbs. However, because our ancestors were mainly not literate in the Western sense and therefore were not able to codify or write down their findings, many of the wisdom were hidden or died with the possessors. It is therefore widely said in Africa that when an old person dies, a treasure or whole library is dead. This is because they go to their graves with many knowledge buried with them. It is this that makes the western medicine to dominate our world and make us regard ours as ‘primitive’.
It is however, gratifying that things are changing and the world is beginning to see that wisdom and medicine resided in Africa even long before the advent of the white folks. In the Twight of Time is a deep excursion and examination of Africa and its lores through the eye of a medicine man who lived the two experiences -pre and colonial times in Nigeria.
Through the story of the life of Chief Loogo Bamutula, the duo of Jacob K. Olupona, a professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and Oluwole Akinyosoye, a journalist and administrator, have documented this important aspect of African story that many have today lost touch with because of the new-fangled religion that sees everything traditional as occultic or bad.
The authors through their findings are able to ask the question many have been asking over time as to why Africa lost its way in its encounter with the West. According to them. “We raise the critical question of why other ethnic and racial groups, such as Indian, Japanese, Chinese and Koreans, were able to promote their traditional therapies as credible forms of medicine, and Africa has failed to replicate such feats.” (p xxviii). It is with this basic question that one travels through the pages of the book and see how the authors through their meeting with Chief Bamutula were able to unravel the reasons and how the society has been able to lose its way. The theme and focus of this book have been explored in various ways in literature by other writers and thinkers of African descent. From novels, plays, to poetry and even academic essays. It is a topic that would not easily go away and which no easy or direct answer could be found.
The birth of Chief Loogo Bamutula of Ile Oluji, Ondo State, was as prophetic as the birth of other Biblical or Quranic prophets because his special place as a child had been foretold before his birth. He had started to play a prominent role in the worship of the sigidi deity in his hometown. He was made to understand his importance and the role he had to play right from infancy. For a child who grew up among various kinds of gods and deities, it was not surprising therefore that he played a very prominent part in the worship and promotion of these deities in his lifetime.
For a man whose life was dictated by the African belief system, he also acknowledges that power comes from God and that man is only a vehicle through which these powers are manifested. He believes that God makes use of humans and spiritual agents to heal the sick and do other things. Resorting to Biblical allusions he says, “Look at Moses with only a rod. He did great wonders. There was nothing in that rod; it was just a symbol of God’s power.” He uses this allusion to justify that he (Bamutula) as an Onisegun (a healer) “is like Moses, (with) no personal power” all depends on God as the source of all powers.
He differentiates between Ogun and Oloogun. The first works with the deity while the former is the medicine man (like the Western medical doctor) who applies traditional therapy to heal the sick. Bamutula after his conversion to Christianity does not agree with those who see everything traditional as bad and evil. He deplores the wholesome adoption of foreign cultures and practices saying, “We must interrogate and document traditional knowledge, many of which are fast fading. If we don’t, they will soon be gone forever.” (p33). They are fast disappearing. However, with this effort by Olupona and Akinyosoye, one hopes for a resurgence.
The writers are able to establish through their conversations with Chief Bamutula that Africa or traditional practices are not all evil as there are many aspects of it that the Pentecostal beliefs have demonized and made to look evil and not worthy of preservation. Through their discussion with him they were able to extract from him deep knowledge about practices that are similar to what were recorded in the Bible and during the times of Moses and Jesus which have near equivalent in our local lores and mores. He is able to demonstrate that traditional medicine is different from witchcraft as he declares. “Witchcraft does not belong to God. It is an instrument of satanic… (it has) nothing good to offer God or any of His creation.” (p 110).
An interesting revelation from him was that part where he claimed that his services were employed during the Nigeria Civil War in which he helped the federal side to achieve victory. This is an area which is perhaps unknown and unrecognized by many citizens and it goes to further affirm how we have relegated the traditional aspect of our life to the background. No literature or book about this part of the civil war has ever shown this side.
In this book, Olupona, a professor of African Religion at Harvard Divinity School and Akinyosoye, a journalist, have been able to give readers a deeper insight to what has been a neglected or more precisely, an abused and derided view of traditional religion and healing that we need to know more about and be able to retrace our steps. It shows that our lives are not as abhorrent as colonialism and imported religions have made many to think or believe. The writers have through this book been able to document this hardly explored path of our development and contribution to healthcare delivery.
