IDENTITY SHIFTS IN YORUBA TRADITIONAL HEALING: A PRAGMATIC STUDY OF SPECIALIST-CLIENT PRESCRIPTIONS IN IDANRE, ONDO STATE

Résumé

Compelling evidences have shown that the African medical discourse is predominantly different from the modern in that, while the former uses declaration to activate its medical condiments, the latter uses hypothetical tests. This work examines how the Yoruba people, especially the Idanre people of Ondo state identify the popular naming conventions of herbal leaves in the treatments of certain ailments; contextualise and account for identity shift in the prescriptive encounters; and account for the functions of acts and allopracts in the sequencing of the conventional shift. The study examines real-life traditionalist-patient interactions in treatments of infertility, malaria, poison, menopausal aid in three thousand patients in purposively selected traditional homes in Idanre. The researcher used majorly direct interviews and was presented as a learner and practitioner of traditional medicine.  The work reveals that African indigenous treatment and substances, unlike those of modern medicine, have dynamic context-specifics, that are dependent on who uses what, who says what and what is said. The semiotic evidence of the ingenuity of African medicine is revealed through JL. Austin’s 1962 Speech Act Theory and Dopamu’s concept of Alá’bálólàse (i.e., the religio-magical belief that they that make the wish possess the command). African traditional healers among other things use words in the form of command, invocation and panegyrics, as solely polylogical means to change the health conditions of their patients. Using data culled from traditional laboratories in the south-western Nigeria, this paper demonstrates how words are sequenced in form of proclamative declaration to correct severe medical conditions.