Original Articles

Medicine from the Father: Bossiesmedisyne, people, and landscape in Kannaland

Published in: Anthropology Southern Africa
Volume 32 , issue 1-2 : Knowledge Contents, South Africa, 2009 , 2009 , pages: 18–26

DOI: 10.1080/23323256.2009.11499975

Author(s): Joshua B. Cohen University of Cape Town, South Africa

Keywords: Bossiesmedisyne , context , power , landscape , phenomenology , antidote

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Abstract

In the rural Western Cape local municipality of Kannaland, the word ‘bossiesmedisyne’ (lit. bushes medicine), refers to plant and sometimes animal material used to treat and alleviate a wide range of health problems, ranging from colds to cancer. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork, the paper advances the argument that the different kinds of healing these medicines provide are inseparable from the sociocultural and environmental contexts in which they are enveloped. It goes on to argue for a balanced interpretation of the meanings ascribed to bossies, based on a dialectical relation between claims to power, and phenomenological experiences of medicines and the landscapes in which they grow.

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