Witch doctor
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A witch doctor often refers to healers in primitive regions, who use traditional healing rather than science or developed medicine.
The term witch doctor is generally used with negative connotations. It often is used to imply that the person trying to heal has little or no expertise or ability in healthcare.
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[edit] Witch doctors in Europe
The Oxford English Dictionary states that the first record of the use of this term is in 1718, in a book by Francis Hutchinson.[1]
Charles Mackay's book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1841, attests to the practice of and belief in witch doctors in England at the time:
In the north of England, the superstition lingers to an almost inconceivable extent. Lancashire abounds with witch-doctors, a set of quacks, who pretend to cure diseases inflicted by the devil. The practices of these worthies may be judged of by the following case, reported in the "Hertford Reformer," of the 23rd of June, 1838. The witch-doctor alluded to is better known by the name of the cunning man, and has a large practice in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham. According to the writer in "The Reformer," the dupe, whose name is not mentioned, had been for about two years afflicted with a painful abscess, and had been prescribed for without relief by more than one medical gentleman. He was urged by some of his friends, not only in his own village, but in neighbouring ones, to consult the witch-doctor, as they were convinced he was under some evil influence. He agreed, and sent his wife to the cunning man, who lived in New Saint Swithin's, in Lincoln. She was informed by this ignorant impostor that her husband's disorder was an infliction of the devil, occasioned by his next-door neighbours, who had made use of certain charms for that purpose. From the description he gave of the process, it appears to be the same as that employed by Dr. Fian and Gellie Duncan, to work woe upon King James. He stated that the neighbours, instigated by a witch, whom he pointed out, took some wax, and moulded it before the fire into the form of her husband, as near as they could represent him; they then pierced the image with pins on all sides -- repeated the Lord's Prayer backwards, and offered prayers to the devil that he would fix his stings into the person whom that figure represented, in like manner as they pierced it with pins. To counteract the effects of this diabolical process, the witch-doctor prescribed a certain medicine, and a charm to be worn next the body, on that part where the disease principally lay. The patient was to repeat the 109th and 119th Psalms every day, or the cure would not be effectual. The fee which he claimed for this advice was a guinea.
[edit] Witch doctors in Africa
The witch doctors in Africa are known as sangomas in southern Africa. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the first use of the term "witch doctor" to refer to African shamans (i.e. medicine men) was in 1836 in a book by Robert Montgomery Martin (1803?-1868).[2]
[edit] References
- ^ An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft. With Observations upon Matters of Fact: tending to clear the texts of the Sacred Scriptures, and confute the vulgar Errors about that Point, Francis Hutchinson, Printed for R. Knaplock and D. Midwinter, London, 1718.
- ^ History of Southern Africa comprising the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Seychelles, &c., R. Montgomery Martin, J. Mortimer, London, 1836.
