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Herbalist slams overzealous Christians and Church leaders The Man of God also uses indigenous herbs to help followers Church leaders accused of using herbs under cover of darkness Reveals how herbs were used to deal with infertility and impotence
Archbishop Mbakiso Mpapho, of Phodiso The First Church in Zion is not your everyday clergyman. Not only does he dispense indigenous herbs in an open space in Francistown’s city centre, but he does so to people of different ages.
Unlike the typical Christian who will not have anything to do with Mwali, the Kalanga God, the Archbishop regularly visits the Mwali shrines both here in Botswana and Zimbabwe for consultation much to the chagrin of those who consider the use of herbs as paganism. “My belief is that if something does not kill you, it can only give you life,” the Archbishop said in an interview. Mpapho laments the fact that Africans generally but especially in Botswana, have abandoned their own traditional medicine and other health interventions in favour of substances from pharmaceutical companies abroad. He
blames what he considers overzealous Christians and church leaders whom he accuses of having made it their business to malign and demonise indigenous medical practices at every turn. As far as the Archbishop is concerned, foreign education and foreign religions have been used to brainwash Africans to wean them from everything African and make them develop a negative attitude towards their cultural practices in general and medicine in particular. Because of the pressure on them, the traditionalists find themselves viewing African medicine as something barbaric or downright demonic.
According to the Archbishop, instead of visiting African traditional doctors in broad daylight like a clinic or pharmacy, they do so under the cover of darkness.
“A lot of Christians, including church leaders visit me in the middle of the night and I am always happy to dispense traditional medicine to them and sure enough they get healed,” said the traditionalist. He has come across instances where instead of the husband or boyfriend bringing his own erection or fertility challenges in person to him, the wife or girlfriend comes because the man is too shy. According to him, the abandonment of traditional health practices has a lot of negative implications on the stability of marriages. His position is that traditional herbs have served Africans well especially with respect to problems of infertility and impotence which conditions are among the most humiliating ailments.
“In the years gone by, impotence was prevented at a very early stage. For example, at puberty, boys and girls underwent certain rigorous rituals, as well as treatment with herbs which treatments are related to sexuality and fertility issues in anticipation of adulthood when the individual is now a husband or wife”. According to Mpapho, there can be no stability in a marriage where the man is either not able to sleep with his wife because he cannot have an erection or where even if they are able to sleep together, she cannot conceive due to impotence or infertility. “Such a state of affairs leads to baseless suspicions, constant fights, cheating and divorce as the unhappy partner will be tempted to look elsewhere for what he cannot get in his or her own home,” the clergyman said. When challenged to say how sustainable herbs are considering the fact that there is no preservation effort in place for them from either the herbalists themselves or government, Mpapho blamed everything on those who have no experience in handling the herbs as they harvest their leaves, roots, bark or whatever parts. “Herbs are sensitive and must be handled with care otherwise they become extinct. We need to learn from our ancestors. There are certain protocols to be observed when you harvest parts from a particular plant. “For instance, with certain plants, you dig out the roots you want on the western part of the tree while with others, you dig the eastern side of the plant.
“That is the way to preserve them and it is those who do not respect this and other protocols who are to blame for the extinction of some of the herbs,” he said.