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23 September 2020 | Story Nombulelo Shange | Photo Supplied
Nombulelo Shange is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology.

Heritage Day is almost here; it’s time to celebrate all the ‘fluffy’, less threatening to whiteness parts of African culture, braai, and sample weird and wonderful traditional food we’ve never tried before. For one day, we go to work in beautiful colourful traditional attires, put on cultural dance and singing performances, and share it on social media. We will have dialogues on ubuntu and how we should use it to ‘turn the other cheek’ and ignore structural oppression in an attempt to save the failed rainbow nation. What will be missing, and what is always missing, is serious discourse on how side-lined indigenous knowledge can and should be used to address poverty, developmental and ecological challenges, our struggling health-care system, and many other modern and historical challenges that South Africa is faced with. 

Decolonising knowledge systems

#FeesMustFall protests in 2015 and 2016 briefly brought the issue of decolonising knowledge systems and, well … everything to the fore. But since the end of the FMF protests, these discussions have been confined to the university space and are not being heard in other important spaces such as workplaces, churches, healthcare structures, schools, etc. Even within universities, students have the sense that their decolonial agenda has been hijacked and turned into a PR activity that pushes reform and minimal systematic change instead of revolution and a total dismantling. And so, indigenous knowledge ends up being manipulated and moulded to fit the Western context rather than being the foundation of the curriculum. 

The COVID-19 global pandemic has forced us into a precarious space, where we have to rethink almost everything about life, our work environment, how we use technology, how we socialise and interact with each other, how we run schools, how we show caring, and so much more. We have an opportunity here to rethink how we can use this disruption and those that will come in future to advance our cultural and traditional medical practices. So much of Western/modern medicine is already based on the cultural appropriation of African knowledge systems, which we as Africans at times look down upon. The appropriation of African ideas is a manipulation that involves stealing African ideas, presenting them as Western, while convincing Africans that the same practices are inferior. One example of this is the story of Onesimus, the African slave who cured smallpox.

Onesimus’ role in curing smallpox

Onesimus lived during the smallpox pandemic of the early 1700s, which claimed 30% of the lives of those infected. Onesimus was sold to Cotton Mather, a New England minister and author. During the pandemic, Onesimus advised Mather that smallpox was preventable. Onesimus shared the details of a common surgical procedure, which helped to prevent smallpox and many other contagious illnesses in Africa. The procedure involved making an incision on a patient’s arm and exposing them to a small amount of the disease to allow the body to build immunity to the disease in a controlled environment while still under the care of the healthcare provider. In the case of smallpox, it was a small amount of pus from an infected person that was rubbed on the incision of the patient being immunised. Mather then ran human trials on slaves and found this vaccine to be successful. The slaves who formed part of his trials were less likely to contract smallpox, and those who did were more likely to recover.

Just like most important black contributions in history, Onesimus’ role was written from the history books, and the credit was given to Mather. Eventually, scientists researched and explored this method, and their discoveries led to modern-day vaccination medicine and technology that saves millions of lives every year. This and other violent historical erasures has contributed to the systemic racist ways in which we undermine African indigenous knowledge and always opt for Western solutions to health challenges, even in instances where the African solution might be cheaper, more accessible, and more effective. 

Traditional healers possess a wealth of knowledge

Fast forward more than 300 years to 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak and global lockdown. Countries such as China, Russia, the UK, and many others involved in trying to develop a vaccine for the Coronavirus are still exploring similar methodologies to what Onesimus shared with Mather to fight the spread of smallpox. Locally, traditional healers are frustrated because they are being left out of interventions to tackle the spread of the Coronavirus. In an interview with Sunday Independent, traditional healer Zama Ndebele expressed his disappointment over government’s lack of engagement with traditional healers. Ndebele added that their collaboration in creating a cure or vaccine would be useful and that they possess a wealth of knowledge about different herbs and their uses. Traditional healers are still interested in collaboration despite running the risk of experiencing erasure and exclusion from historical and scientific records, in a similar way to how Onesimus’s contribution was undermined.

Often when the discussion around mainstreaming African knowledge systems comes up, some worry that the quality of knowledge will be weakened. But French philosopher Michael Foucault, whose contributions have been instrumental in feminist and revolutionary discourse, reminds us that knowledge is about power. Foucault says even scientific knowledge is socially constructed. Those who dominate use their power to present their cultural ideas as the only objective scientific truth. 

Prioritise and value own knowledge systems

One positive reflection we should gain from the current global pandemic is that we should prioritise and value our own knowledge systems. We need to do better in investing in our cultural identity and indigenous knowledge. We need to ensure that it can be used as more than just gimmicks to attract Western tourists who expect us to ‘perform Africanness’ for their entertainment. African knowledge systems should be built into the way knowledge is produced, the way we run our healthcare systems, how we build new technologies. We can learn a lot from Asian countries such as South Korea who have done this successfully in many social structures, but more noticeably, in their healthcare systems that surpass even some of the best Western healthcare systems. Doing this can also potentially restore black identity and create a sense of pride as we start to see our practices represented in the mainstream and being labelled as important scientific contributions instead of an alternative. This reclaiming can drive us to juxtapose our knowledge systems with other cultures in ways that uplift and advance humanity. With ecological degradation looming and unknown public health crises lurking in our future, African knowledge systems that often encourage sustainability have the potential to save our lives in various ways.

Opinion article by Nombulelo Shange, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of the Free State

 

Watch short video below:

 


News Archive

Mushrooms, from gourmet food for humans to fodder for animals
2016-12-19

Description: Mushroom research photo 2 Tags: Mushroom research photo 2 

From the UFS Department of Microbial Biochemical and
Food Biotechnology are, from left: Prof Bennie Viljoen,
researcher,
MSc student Christie van der Berg,
and PhD student Christopher Rothman
Photo: Anja Aucamp

Mushrooms have so many medicinal applications that humans have a substance in hand to promote long healthy lives. And it is not only humans who benefit from these macrofungi growing mostly in dark spaces.

“The substrate applied for growing the mushrooms can be used as animal fodder. Keeping all the medicinal values intact, these are transferred to feed goats as a supplement to their daily diet,” said Prof Bennie Viljoen, researcher in the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the UFS.

Curiosity and a humble start
“The entire mushroom project started two years ago as a sideline of curiosity to grow edible gourmet mushrooms for my own consumption. I was also intrigued by a friend who ate these mushrooms in their dried form to support his immune system, claiming he never gets sick. The sideline quickly changed when we discovered the interesting world of mushrooms and postgraduate students became involved.

“Since these humble beginnings we have rapidly expanded with the financial help of the Technology Transfer Office to a small enterprise with zero waste,” said Prof Viljoen. The research group also has many collaborators in the industry with full support from a nutraceutical company, an animal feed company and a mushroom growers’ association.

Prof Viljoen and his team’s mushroom research has various aspects.

Growing the tastiest edible mushrooms possible
“We are growing gourmet mushrooms on agricultural waste under controlled environmental conditions to achieve the tastiest edible mushrooms possible. This group of mushrooms is comprised of the King, Pink, Golden, Grey, Blue and Brown Oysters. Other than the research results we have obtained, this part is mainly governed by the postgraduate students running it as a business with the intention to share in the profit from excess mushrooms because they lack research bursaries. The mushrooms are sold to restaurants and food markets at weekends,” said Prof Viljoen.

Description: Mushroom research photo 1 Tags: Mushroom research photo 1 

Photo: Anja Aucamp

Natural alternative for the treatment of various ailments
“The second entity of research encompasses the growth and application of medicinal mushrooms. Throughout history, mushrooms have been used as a natural alternative for the treatment of various ailments. Nowadays, macrofungi are known to be a source of bioactive compounds of medicinal value. These include prevention or alleviation of heart disease, inhibition of platelet aggregation, reduction of blood glucose levels, reduction of blood cholesterol and the prevention or alleviation of infections caused by bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic pathogens. All of these properties can be enjoyed by capsulation of liquid concentrates or dried powdered mushrooms, as we recently confirmed by trial efforts which are defined as mushroom nutriceuticals,” he said.

Their research focuses on six different medicinal genera, each with specific medicinal attributes:
1.    Maitake: the most dominant property exhibited by this specific mushroom is the reduction of blood pressure as well as cholesterol. Other medicinal properties include anticancer, antidiabetic and immunomodulating while it may also improve the health of HIV patients.
2.    The Turkey Tail mushroom is known for its activity against various tumours and viruses as well as its antioxidant properties.
3.    Shiitake mushrooms have antioxidant properties and are capable of lowering blood serum cholesterol (BSC). The mushroom produces a water-soluble polysaccharide, lentinan, considered to be responsible for anticancer, antimicrobial and antitumour properties.
4.    The Grey Oyster mushroom has medicinal properties such as anticholesterol, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antitumour and immunomodulatory properties.
5.    Recently there has been an increased interest in the Lion’s Mane mushroom which contains nerve growth factors (NGF) and may be applied as a possible treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as this compound seems to have the ability to re-grow and rebuild myelin by stimulating neurons.
6.    Reishi mushrooms are considered to be the mushrooms with the most medicinal properties due to their enhancing health effects such as treatment of cancer, as well as increasing longevity, resistance and recovery from diseases.


Description: Mushroom research photo 3 Tags: Mushroom research photo 3


Valuable entity for the agricultural sector
Another research focus is the bio-mushroom application phenome, to break down trees growing as encroaching plants. This research is potentially very valuable for the agricultural sector in the areas where Acacia is an encroaching problem. With this process, waste products are upgraded to a usable state. “It is therefore, possible to convert woody biomass with a low digestibility and limited availability of nutrients into high-quality animal fodder. By carefully selecting the right combination of fungus species to ferment agro-wastes, a whole host of advantages could become inherently part of the substrate. Mushrooms could become a biotechnological tool used to ‘inject’ the substrate that will be fed to animals with nutrition and/or medicine as the need and situation dictates,” said Prof Viljoen.

 

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