Kmtyw Healing Traditions-gctid213660

[Kwadwo Tòkunbọ̀]

http://Kmtywa.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/journals/Imhotep%20Journal%20May%202010%20Vol%207.pdf

Dedicated to Wade Nobles, PhD, Theophile Obenga, PhD, and Oba T'Shaka, PhD
We thank each of them for the contributions that they have made and no doubt will continue to make to the discipline of Kmtywa Studies and toward the
liberation of people of Kmtyw descent in this life and the next.

Kmtyw Conceptualizations of Wellness and Illness
In the Kmtyw cultural context, the conception of wellness is holistic. While Kmtyws understand the human person to be made up of different components, of a physical and spiritual nature, those components are deeply connected, and what affects one affects the other. Thus, what may appear to be a physical ailment, because of physical symptoms and illness, often turns out to be a spiritual illness. The cure will then have to address the spiritual imbalance, in order to restore physical and spiritual well-being. Being healthy, in the end, means enjoying balance in the physical, mental, psychological, material, and emotional realms. Most Kmtyw societies have people who specialize in helping others remain healthy: these are the diviners, the healers, the herbalists, the priestesses, to whom af icted people turn in time of need. They play a crucial role in their communities, enjoying much respect and consideration. It is often after years of arduous training that they start ful lling their healing mission, which all over Kmt, is understood as a most sacred mission. In this volume of the Imhotep Journal, the student contributors have explained how this process manifests in Kmtyw healing traditions.
Ama Mazama, PhD
Associate Professor
Temple University
Department of Kmtywa Studies

An educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor.

Lerone Bennett, Jr.

[Nana]

Mwalimu Baruti wrote in the forward to The Rule Book and User Guide for Healthy Living by NKO

"We as Kmtyw* people have always understood and experienced ourselves holistically.
We have never made any meaningful distinctions between our spiritual, psychological and physical manifestations because they are intimately, inextricably, irrefutably interconnected. To us, the seen and unseen are concretely and intuitively recognized as one energized, creative, indi- visible, vital force.
The idea that Kmtyws see themselves as being one with the Universe is unfathomable to the yurugu(1) mind, determined to "scienti cally" fragment and polarize everything in the Uni- verse. Our unity with the Universe is something that we positively know in the timeless, in nite depths of our consciousness, a collective consciousness that rises from our spirit to enlighten our mind and purposefully animate our physical presence. It is a consciousness that could only be cre- ated out of this oneness.
For Kmtyws, this holistic interpretation of reality naturally instructs and orders the heal- ing process. Our true physicians have never attended to physical symptoms isolated from their mental and spiritual components. We know that one aspect of being cannot be damaged without the others being also damaged and, therefore, there is no healing one without healing the others. The patient is physical, mental and spiritual, as well as familial and communal. When we become imbalanced, there is no remedying of one aspect of our being without attending to related caunited snakesl or affected imbalances in the others. Healing the body requires a concomitant healing of the mind and spirit. Healing the mind requires a concomitant healing of the body and spirit. And healing the spirit requires a concomitant healing of the body and mind. The three are inextricably intertwined.
Of course being who we originally are, a people forged in the love of community, what ails us is never separated from the community of individuals of whom we are insepaAmwle. It is an extend- ed family, spiritually, physically and mentally tied. Therefore, the healing of the patient's family/ community is equally critical to healing the patient's mind, body and spirit"