The role of dreams for Zulu indigenous practitioners
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Date
1984
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Abstract
The present study has investigated the role of dreams for Zulu indigenous practitioners. This role is two-fold (i) significance of dreams in the personal lives of the Zulu indigeoous practitioners; for example, how dreams function to set the foundation for an individual's fate, how dreams establish a direct relationship between the dreamer and certain supernatural forces and beings that are considered to have an independent existence, and how the individual, in turn, acquires a creative, sacred power, (ii) significance of patients' dreams, in so far as the indigenous practitioners can make analyses of such dreams in order to effect a client's diagnosis; and also the indigenous practitioners' methods of such dreams' analyses.
Subjects that were selected for the present study were Zulu indigenous practitioners from Ngoye/Dlangezwa districts who used dreams in their diagnotic and treatment methods. There were three categories of such practitioners, namely, the izangoma izinyanga, and abathandazi. The content of their dreams was analyzed by the technique of content analysis which involved classifying dream elements into three basic categories of natural, supernatural indigenous Zulu, and supernatural Christian religious.
The procedure of data collection involved initial visits to each indigenous practitioner in order to establish rapport; and subsequent visits involved the actual collection of data. To achieve the latter, a list of questions that were structured in the form of a questionnaire was used.
In addition, a structured dream by a confederate patient was taken to each indigenous practitioner for analysis. Analysis of this dream was judged by three independent judges (Clinical psychologists) in order to ascertain if there was any inter-practitioner consistency regarding the theme of analyses.
Major results were that dreams have an important role to play in the personal lives of these indigenous practitioners, and that such dreams are supernaturally orientated, in the sense that they always involved a dreamer's encounter with a supernatural being usually the grandmother or grandfather, or a religious deity. Further, the indigenous practitioners were found to be consistent in their analyses of confederate patient's dream, as judged by three independent raters- The study also indicated that there is an urgent need of research to investigate the role of dreams for indigenous practitioners in depth. For example, it could be hypothesised that patients1 dreams might conceivably be analyzed in terms of individual symbols personally significant to the individual practitioner.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of Zululand in partial fulfilment
for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Psychology, South Africa, 1984.
Keywords
Zulu indigenous practitioners, Traditional healers -- role of dreams, Dreams -- role of