The Continent of Africa is made up of diverse ethnic groups and culture that if we were to demarcate a boundary for each group they will be so compacted together making it hard to read. Each of the groups had its own unique set of believes and traditional culture dated far back before the European rule in Africa. The different Socio-cultural believes system within Africa today explained how a group of people were socially connected through their beliefs system in many years ago.

The significance of various African decent groups could trace from such during the foragers era about 10,000 years ago. When man was a food gatherer and hunter for his survival and a way of live hood.

During this period man was not only limited, to the activities of gathering and hunting. He as well socialized by performing his spiritual ritual with his kin group. Different multifunctional activities were performed by different kin group which became the basis of recognition by many decent groups in Africa. The traits of various activities during the forages period were carried on

With the Shona, the nganga discovers the cause of the illness through “divination” and he does this by using hakata which are specially labeled wooden bones that indicate to him the offended spirit depending on where they are lying. It should be noted that men only throw the hakata but the women can divine with the healing spirit whereby she is basically possessed. The healer then uses various remedies such as the administration of tortoise shells for strength and/or security, the use of “intermediary agents” or items to transfer power to the victim, giving the patient herbs or portions and/or animal excretions. The healer can also use exorcism to drive out the spirits causing the illness or they can transfer these spirits from the patient to an animal that is then driven away into the wilderness.

The psychoses labels include: Were which is chronic and sometimes acute, Asinwin which refers to episodes with sudden onset, Dindinrin whereby a patient is withdrawn and uncommunicative, Danidani refers to regressed patients or those with mental defects. Others are Were alaso which refers to patients that look normal in that they speak sensibly at times, dress properly but are actually mad; Were agba “associated with old age”; Were d’ile which refers to hereditary disorders (Kiev, 1969).

It should also be noted that there was a major difference between the African experience of Christian mission and the experience of the Graeco-Roman world. Christian missionaries/ apologists to Africa not only repudiated the rituals and practices of Africans, but they colluded with colonial military power and used government legislation to enforce the repudiation of rites for generally non-religious reasons. Conversions to Christianity were more for non-religious civilization reasons than for conviction and preference of Christianity over against traditional or ancestral religion. In the Great Lakes Region it became not only sinful for Christians to be initiated into the Kubãndwa in order to be servants of the redeeming hero Lyangombe and be part of the group of initiates, but it was also shameful because it was primitive and uncivilized. In southern Nigeria initiation of young ladies mature enough for marriage was not only banned, but also imposed heavy fines on any Christian who participated or sponsored such initiations (Lease, 1980).

One of the largest East African ethnic nationalities is the Kikuyu. From colonial times to the present the issue of male and female circumcision and the whole process of the reproduction of the Kikuyu society have been problematic. In recent times attention has been focused on female circumcision that has been condemned as mutilation and denial of the fundamental human rights of women. “Female circumcision was banned by the Arap Moi government in 1982 as the reacted by bowing to foreign pressure” (Haase, 1978, p. 137). But the issue is not a simple matter of rights. The British, from the beginning of colonial times, attacked the Kikuyu age-sets and generational succession through its military counter-insurrection policy. The protestant missionary propaganda inveighed against the same age-sets because of their 'devilish' and primitive rituals. Thus it became outlaw to perform such a ritual, shameful because it is primitive and sinful if one is a Christian. (Haase, 1978).This progressively created a situation where the links of fusion of the age-sets, the detaching of the youth from family and clan to do social and military service for the nation, the provision of communal labor to sustain the economy, the parallel initiation of young ladies to ensure family life and symbolize birth and rebirth through initiation, all supported by the imaginary devices or myths of the society, were put on hold. The community in principle was no longer able to deploy its strategy for developing its society. Rather they were caught in the web of foreign colonial project, supported by a foreign ritual to which t

Some topics in this essay:
East Africa, Yoruba Shona, Perspective Psychological, Sergio Torres, Christian Haase, Africa Socio-cultural, Lakes Region, Arap Moi, Christianity African, Consequently Christianity, graeco-roman world, lease 1980, appiah-kubi sergio torres, haase 1978, kofi appiah-kubi, appiah-kubi sergio, female circumcision, sergio torres, torres 1979, kofi appiah-kubi sergio, sergio torres 1979, social system, labels include, mental health perspective, male female circumcision,