PROGRAMME : BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

COURSE : HERITAGE BASED MEDICINE

GROUP MEMBERS : TINASHE MOGA R211995H

GLADMAN MBIRI R213977Q
RUVIMBO P MATHABIRE R212167B
KHULEKANI MHLOPE R214587Y
PRIDE MHLANGA R211963C
FRANCISCA MATONGWA R212132N
TENDAI MATSWANGITSWANGI R212068E
TINAISHE MHLANGA R212024C
ARTHUR MAZANHI R212155X
PRINCE MATEKETA R212182F
TAKUDZWA MAWURUSE R211948Q
TINASHE MAZVIRO R212147E
TANAKA MUBAYIWA R212173H

DATE : 23 SEPTEMBER 2022

TOPIC

HOW ARE TRADITIONAL MEDICINES INCORPORATED IN THE 2003

CONVENTION CONCERNING THE SAFEGUARDING OF INTANGIBLE
CULTURAL HERITAGE (ICH)?
Traditional medicine is the sum total of knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories,
beliefs and experiences indigenous to different to different cultures, whether explicable or not,
used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or
treatment of physical and mental illness (WHO, 2010) .Safeguarding in this context means all the
possible measures and steps taken aimed at ensuring the viability of intangible cultural heritage.
Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) means the practices, representations, skills, expressions,
knowledge that communities, groups and individuals recognize as part of their heritage,
transmitted from generation to generation within communities, created and transformed
continuously by them, depending on the environment and their interaction with nature and
history examples including language, performing arts, cultural practices, beliefs and most
importantly healing beliefs. Efforts are to be made to keep these intangible practices alive and be
able to be passed to future generations.According to the definitions of traditional medicine and
intangible cultural heritage, it is safe to say both are intrinsic and traditional medicine falls under
the vast umbrella of intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, the measures put in place in
safeguarding intangible cultural heritage also applies to traditional medicine (UNESCO, 2003).

These measures include identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection,

promotion and transmission particularly through formal and non-formal education. In 2003, the
United Nations through the UNESCO realised the need to protect and promote intangible
cultural heritage with a legal framework and to find a set of universally acceptable principles for
comprehending situations and evolving information. UNESCO being aware of the importance of
intangible cultural heritage and the urgency of its protection decided to regulate it through an
international convention and that is when the Convention for safeguarding of intangible cultural
heritage was formed. The convention governs 175 states members and was signed in Paris on the
17th of October 2003.

The 5 domains of the 2003 convention are oral traditions and expression, including language as a
vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive
events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe, traditional craftsmanship.
All the examples of intangible cultural heritage fall under these five domains.Purposes of the
convention include to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage, to ensure respect for the
intangible cultural heritage of the communities, groups and individuals concerned, to raise
awareness at the local, national and international levels of the importance of the intangible
cultural heritage, and of ensuring mutual appreciation, to provide for international cooperation
and assistance (Black ,2001).

The oral traditions and expressions domain encompasses an enormous variety of spoken forms
including proverbs, riddles, tales, nursery rhymes, legends, myths, epic songs and poems,
charms, prayers, chants, songs, dramatic performances and more. Oral traditions and expressions
are used to pass on knowledge, cultural and social values and collective memory. They play a
crucial part in keeping cultures alive. From the definition, the main aim of traditional medicine is
to prevent and cure illness. Thus, this domain main focuses on prevention of diseases by
entrenching good hygienic practices for example, there is a Shona proverb that says “Ukagara
papfihwa, unouraya mukadzi” (If you seat on a hearthstone, you will kill your wife). This
proverb is directed to someone who has the habit of sitting on hearthstones that form pillars of a
fireplace. The actual reason for such a moral sanction is that it is unhealthy to seat on a place
where food is prepared. By their very nature, hearthstones are sooty and whoever comes into
contact with them risks being corrupted by the sooth. Another reason is that one can get burnt if
the heath stones are hot ,hence there the use of such proverbs keeps an individual healthy and
prevents illness or injury from hearthstones and this can be seen as application of traditional
preventative medicine (Tangwa, 2006).

The performing arts range from vocal and instrumental music, dance and theatre to pantomime,
sung verse and beyond. They include numerous cultural expressions that reflect human creativity
and that are also found, to some extent, in many other intangible cultural heritage domains.
Music is perhaps the most universal of the performing arts and is found in every society, most
often as an integral part of other performing art forms and other domains of intangible cultural
heritage including rituals, festive events or oral traditions. The occasions on which music is
performed are just as varied marriages, funerals, rituals and initiations, festivities, all kinds of
entertainment as well as well as many other social functions and it has been proven medically
that music and other form of recreational activities like performing arts relieve stress and provide
a state of mental health and is useful in occasions like funerals it gives the bereaved a sense of
belonging hence performing arts can be recognized as applications of traditional medicine in this
case patterning to mental and psychological health. There are some traditional cleansing events
and rituals done to cure some diseases where some specific type of music is sang during the
ceremony.

Social practices refer to everyday practices and the way they are typically and habitually
performed in a society and these vary from place to place. On a more traditional medicine side,
these are regular practices that are undertaken in societies that carry with them a health benefit,
this may be in the form of healing or just maintaining the state of wellness. It also has to be noted
that health is the state of physical, psychological, emotional, social and economic well-being and
the not the mere absence of infirmity. Therefore these social medical practices have the capacity
to deal with any of the aforementioned categories of health. It is also paramount to understand
that the process of healing someone by traditional means is itself a social practice. Some of the
social practices that are listed with medicinal value include songs, dances and processions. In
some societies like in the Igbo community of Nigeria, these practices contribute towards the
social health of an individual as well as their spiritual well-being. Also of key importance is the
food, through food communities can get what modern medicine has called nutracuetical benefit,
where individuals eat certain foods because of their health benefits. This further strengthens that
as the social practices are being conserved, these songs, dances, processions and food are also
being conserved and consequently lead to the conservation of indigenous medicine (Tomasin,
2014).

The convention also includes in its definition of intangible heritage, objects, artifacts,
instruments, knowledge and spaces recognized by communities as their heritage. The
aforementioned items also make the basis of traditional medicine, for example a practicing
traditional healer would definitely use some space of cultural significance in their healing
processes, more so they would applied the knowledge they would have acquired on how to
handle certain artifacts and objects so as to deliver the healing required by the sick individual.
Therefore in an attempt to conserve intangible cultural heritage, these are also conserved and in
so doing traditional medicine is saved from extinction. The knowledge is conserved by being
shared with certain individuals who have the capacity to continue the practice of traditional
medical practice. For artifacts and objects, these can be safeguarded by ensuring that they are not
at the disposal of everyone, as a result the sacredness of the objects is retained as well as their
safety. The convention has one of its aims as to ensure respect for intangible cultural heritage of
the communities involved, for example ensuring that the sacred place were healing ceremonies
are performed are respected that involves avoiding settlement in such areas, on any unsolicited
activities do not take place in those sacred places. This ensures that traditional medicine is
preserved for future generations. Under the convention, traditional medicine falls under the third
and fourth domain which involves social practices, rituals and festive events, and knowledge and
practices concerning nature and the universe. This is because these two domains contain the
main means by which traditional healing processes are undertaken

Now that is has been brought to light how traditional medicine falls under the category of
intangible cultural heritage, it is also important to highlight how the convention will successfully
safeguard these practices. Section 3 of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible
Cultural allows member states to safeguard Intangible Cultural Heritage at a national level. It
states that each member state to identify and define the various elements of the intangible
cultural heritage present in their territory, with the participation of communities, groups and
relevant Non-Governmental Organizations [NGO]. This includes identification of the essentials
of traditional medicine that is traditional knowledge and spiritual therapies. It also instructs
members to keep inventories of the intangible cultural heritage and submit copies to the
committee for safe keeping and accountability. The states are also instructed to ‘foster scientific,
technical and artistic studies, as well as methodologies, with a view to effective safeguarding of
the ICH’ (Keitumetse, 2006).

REFERENCES

Janet Blake (2001). Development of a new standardized instrument for the Safeguarding of
Intangible Cultural Heritage- Elements for Reflection, Paris, UNESCO.
Keitumetse, S., (2006). UNESCO 2003 Convention on Intangible Heritage: Practical
Implications for Heritage Management Approaches in Africa. The South African Archaeological
Bulletin, 61(184), p.166.

Tangwa G.B. (2006). Some African Reflections on Biomedical and Environmental Ethics. In K.
Wiredu (Ed), A Companion to African Philosophy. Page 387-395

Tomasin, E., (2014). Journal of Cultural Heritage - Journal - Elsevier. [online]

Journals.elsevier.com. Available at: <https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-cultural-
heritage> [Accessed 20 September 2022].
UNESCO (2003). Convention for safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Accessed
September 18, 2022. http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev

World Health Organisation (2010). Traditional Medicine, Factsheet No, 134. Accessed
September 18, 2022. hhtp://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/2003/fsl134/en/