MEDICAL PLURALISM AND ISLAM IN SWAHILI COMMUNITIES IN KENYA

This article analyzes relationships among religious ideology, Swahili identity, and illness treatment. It focuses on one Swahili man's efforts to find effective treatment for a severe bout of fever, including resort to poorly understood Western medicine, to home remedies, and to humoral-based treatment. The sick man attributes his eventual cure to a medicine called the ''equalizer.'' The case study is part of wider research that examines individual knowledge of Islamic humoral medicine as part of the Swahili heritage. Versions of humoral theory are articulated by lay people and underlie the local understanding of fever. The growth of a reformed Islamic movement, as well as local economic change, influences treatment choice by leading people to reject consultations with descendants of the Prophet Mohammed who offer mystical healing powers. This rejection connects to individuality and to the physical and social mobility of the Swahili. Advice givers among family and friends do not constitute a therapy management group, and the manner in which the sick man retains control over treatment choice is typical of the Swahili.