Healing Insanity: A Study of Igbo Medicine in Contemporary Nigeria is an original and in-depth study on endogenous medical system in an African society. It is craftily written and provides solid insight, through case studies and theory, into how insanity affects patients and the society. Particularly, it explores various collective representations and strategies regarding insanity and healing as it examines the healing institutions, healers, and ritual cults. The central question is, given the patterns of healing, how do the Igbo shape the incidence and symptoms of insanity, define its aetiology, and provide healers with culture-specific resources and skills to address this illness? The focus became increasingly centred on bodily semantics and endogenous knowledge systems and practices. Dr. Patrick Iroegbus work is a very valuable and rare study and has appeared at a desirable time. It is, for an African society, a comprehensive study of the many ways Igbo people, in their practical, routinelike attitudes and body-centred experiences, as well as in their more reflective aetiologic knowledge and healing institutions, relate to the phenomenon of insanity, or ara, in the cultural parlance. As the first of its kind, reminiscent of, and assured by, the various remarks of Igbo scholars and leaders at various meetings and discourses, the task this work has set out to accomplish is a very brave one. The authors account of his fieldwork experiences and adopted techniques illustrates his initiation, revealing him as a genuine ethnographer who is a friend of people and at ease with his field. With both the far-seeing and inspiring analysis of Igbo medicine, life, and culture accounted for in the work, the book stands out for ethnographers, teachers, students, leaders, policymakers, and the general public. This is a book that deserves to be read as it shapes the critical path toward understanding ways of healing insanity in a culture-specific context, crosscutting perspectives for a relationship between indigenous healing and the biomedical sphere. Prof. Ren Devisch (Africa Research Centre, University of Leuven) This book is written with a clear purpose for everyone to readto understand and heal insanityand indeed provides a thick piece of cultural philosophy and vernacular of Igbo medicine in hopes of putting cultural wisdom in pursuit of integral health care development. Prof. Pantaleon Iroegbu (Professor of Philosophy, Major-Seminary, Ekpoma, January 2006) To read this book, as I did, is to get the benefit of Dr. Patrick Iroegbus ethnographic insight for an archetypical African healing system in Igboland. It offers a fascinating theory of symbolic release that speaks of African symbolic action and knowledge system. Dr. Paul Komba, Esq. (University of Cambridge)

Frequently overlooked in the search of knowing and acting wisely are some important philosophical and cultural ideas and questions. The kpim of Social Order boldly captures such ideas and questions for awareness through critical thinking. The current volume in the Kpim Book Series makes the point that for a systematic analysis and significance of Social Order to be attained, we need to ask, What is the kpim or central core of Social Order of things? Where does the deepest layer, notion, symbolism, reality and application of social order, programs, human rights, institutions, communities, diplomacy, uprising, social asset, social power, policy action, inter-culturalism, global forces and all else lie? How can we reach and understand the innermost part of Social Order in the modern world? By gathering articles from seasoned, experienced, and emerged scholars from various backgrounds, the book explores deep-rooted questions touching on African context and related societies. The refreshing perspectives, analyses, deep reflections, vigorous arguments, and representations shown by the essays are distinctive and have been referred to as a comprehensive reader in the season of inquiry, meaning and significance of social order in the contemporary time. This is a book no one should ignore. Students, scholars, researchers, universities, colleges, educationists, institutions, policy makers, governments, legislatures, agencies, labour unions, civil society organizations, occupy movements, religious groups, entrepreneurs and the general public will find this book as an asset and a must read. The kpim of Social Order is therefore written out of the critical need to fill the gap for a decisive knowledge society in the modern world.

Collectively, the essays brought together in this book represent a discursive confluence on Nollywood as a local film culture with a global character, aspiration and reach. The governing concern of the book is that texts, including film texts, are animated by a particular sociology and anthropology which gives them concrete existence and meaning. The book argues that Nollywood, the Nigerian video film text, is deeply rooted in the sub-soil of its social and cultural milieux. Nollywood is therefore, engaged in the relentless negotiation and re-negotiation of the everyday lives of the people against the backdrop of their cultural traditions, social contradictions and the politics of their ethnic/national identity, longing and belonging. The essays weave an intricate and delicate argument about the critical role of Nollywood to the idea of nationhood and the logic of its narration with implications for language, politics and culture in Africa. The book is a valuable addition to the critical discourse on the important place of film and cinema studies in national engineering processes.

With the prevailing violent conflict situation of our world, perpetuated sometimes even in the name of religion, humanity today faces extinction. To reverse this ugly trend, humanity has no choice than to build a society where every tribe and tongue can coexist in peace. This work analyzed the violent conflicts from anthropological, behavioral, politico-philosophical, and theological perspectives, and makes a demand on humanity to save herself through proper education and dialogue with all men and religions.

Bendi is how the Igbo people of Nigeria live and practice African religion and culture which are beliefs, practices and institutions as invented by African ancestors.The trust of the work is that creation and revelation started in the Eastern region of Africa. At creation, the Almighty Creator made all species and put in them inclusive genes which have the potential for varieties.At the place of creation, the Almighty Creator revealed Himself to the people of the earth. The Great Crack occurred and the earth disintegrated and drifted apart. Human beings identified themselves along with their kinds and migrated along that line carrying with them the revelation experience which all shared and practised.Other issues discussed are general information about the religion and culture; etymologies; customs and traditions; one thousand proverbs; explanation of words, terms, and their religious significance; songs and illustrations in appendixes.The author is inviting Africans within the Continent and outside it, including the aborigines (natives), and others to embrace and practice the religion and culture of the Ancestors using Bendi as a guide.Read up more on www.ikenwako.com

This book is a collection of essays devoted to Igbo medicine issues in contemporary Nigeria. Over the years, the author has through teaching, research, and publications made useful contributions to the field of endogenous knowledge and healing system. It provides constructive introductory infomation, analysis and method to understand how the Igbo and by extension Africa explore, give and apply cosmological, philosophical, and anthropological sense and meaning to ecology, life, fortune, misfortune, illness and health in the struggles of everyday lives. Readers will find the book not only fascinating but also ground breaking. Certainly, this is a book for everyone who appreciates diverse ways of healing to read and deliver the high impact message healers and patients embody and tend to give out in their world of illness and recovery dynamics.