| 释义 |
‖ mganga|mˈgaŋgə|
Also m'ganga, nganga. Pl. mgangas, waganga.
[Swahili mganga, pl. waganga medicine man.]
In Tanzania and other parts of East Africa, the name given to a native doctor or witch-doctor. (In quots. 1864, ‘an object used in magic rites, a charm’.)
1864J. A. Grant Walk Across Afr. p. xvi, M'ganga or Onganga; a general term for a charm, or for a man who divines events. Ibid. iii. 39 The only superstitious observance we noticed was in a field at the foot of a tree; a grass model of a hut was erected for the rain-god..and called, as usual, a ‘M'ganga’. 1895H. H. Johnston River Congo (ed. 4) xvi. 273 Somebody is suspected of having caused the death by supernatural means, and the horrid old nganga or ‘medicine man’ who holds the inquest..is called upon to detect the guilty person. 1930Discovery Aug. 265/1 The mganga (as the native calls his medicine-man) is the surgeon, physician, neurological expert, herbalist, toxicologist, and veterinarian. 1947E. Afr. Ann. 1946–7 55/1 The ‘mgangas’, or general practitioners..prescribe or apply remedies, and in some cases even set fractures and do simple operations. 1965J. Listowel Making of Tanganyika iv. 35 For thousands of years, the relationship between chiefs and witch doctors, in Swahili called waganga, had been a close one. 1971N. Q. King Christian & Muslim in Afr. 67 The mganga, wrongly but regularly translated as ‘witch-doctor’, is a healer and ‘putter-together’, with knowledge of herbal and spirit powers. |