Insanity among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThis article is concerned with tribal ideas on insanity among the Bemba of the Northern Province of Northern Rhodesia.Dr. Alan Gregg, the Director of Medical Services Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, states that ‘Psychiatry as the study of disordered conduct is intimate to an almost suspicious degree with ethics, with cultural anthropology, with sociology, with metaphysics, with religion, with artistic activities . . . ’, and adds that many mental disorders are ‘often discernible only in terms of the patient's relationships with other human beings in some given intellectual or cultural or social or moral system’. He thus definitely emphasizes the necessity of studying the sociological background of the insane patient when cures are attempted.