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Summaries · Grade 6 History › Indigenous healing and early medicine
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Indigenous healing and early medicine

Indigenous healing, medicinal plants like aloe, buchu and rooibos, and early medicine elsewhere. Read one part at a time and tap “I know this”. Then test yourself in the quiz.

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Healing around the world

WhoHow they healed
The SanPlants from their surroundings
Ancient EgyptiansHerbs and plant mixtures; mummification showed where the organs are
Ottoman hospitalsMusic and the sound of water to calm; wounds cleaned before operating
Western settlersNew medicines, hospitals and clinics
People from India and IndonesiaTheir own healing knowledge
Healing plants: aloe, buchu and rooibos.
Healing plants: aloe, buchu and rooibos.
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Together is better

  • A physical cause of illness: a germ, injury or poor nutrition. Scientists still test indigenous plants today.
  • When indigenous and Western medicine work together, patients get the best of both. Record old healing knowledge, or it is lost.
  • Technology (scans, X-rays) helps doctors diagnose. Prevention is better than cure: a vaccination protects the body.
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How does someone become a healer?

  • A sangoma often feels a calling from the ancestors, for example through dreams.
  • The trainee (ithwasa) lives and learns with an experienced sangoma for years, and at the end is recognised as a healer in a ceremony.
  • An inyanga (herbalist) learns from an experienced healer, often in the family, which plants help which illnesses.
  • Not all healers work with the spirits: many use only herbs and plants. Companies today research indigenous plants for new medicines.
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Remember this and test yourself

Remember this: your summary
  • Medicine is anything that helps the body heal; a hospital is not the only way.
  • Indigenous doctors: herbalists and sangomas; healing is often called spiritual, because it treats spirit and body.
  • Knowledge of plants was passed down over generations, by watching and listening; a sangoma trains for years (an ithwasa is a trainee).
  • Aloe gel for burns; buchu (Western Cape mountains, used by the Khoikhoi and San) for stomach and muscles; rooibos tea.
  • Traditional healers can register under a 2007 law.

Write these points in your book. Read them again the night before the test.

Memory trick

Three Cape healing plants: A-B-R — Aloe, Buchu, Rooibos.

Flash cards · Tap to turn over

Important words

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Test yourself · Part 2

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