Illness is rarely seen as purely physical. Hausa speakers may consult a malam for Qur’anic remedies, a boka (a traditional healer or diviner) for herbal treatments and rituals, a spirit specialist for a possession diagnosis, and a hospital for modern medicine, sometimes all in the same illness.
Salamone describes a “complementary opposition” between mallams and Bori leaders: the mallams see spirit practitioners as competitors, but they believe in the same spirits, and many Muslims turn to the other healers when their own remedies fail. In practice the boundary is far less clear than official statements suggest.
Sources for this article
- Salamone 2010, ch. 2, pp. 11–13; ch. 9, pp. 91–94