Here are some books about Black people's health and healing traditions. To find out more about a book, just click on the title.
The Black Man's Guide to Good Health
In this detailed and informative volume, the authors write about health problems prevalent within the African American community, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, cancer, sickle cell anemia, AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and substance abuse.
For more about some of these issues, including prevention of heart disease as well as recovery from substance abuse, see More Black Success Volumes 3 and 4.
The Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves
By Evelyn C. White
This volume contains a collection of 41 writings by and for black women about health--physical, emotional and psychological. The contents include moving personal reflections on such issues as cancer and HIV, as well as the insightful poem "In Answer to the Question, Have You Ever Considered Suicide?". The book makes references to such foremothers and activists as Audre Lorde and Zora Neale Hurston, and questions whether African Americans are aware of issues around sexual violence. It explores how African American women can take responsibility for our health and wellness in a society that still marginalises and exploits us.
A gifted spiritual guide and a yoga master illustrates the common root of many of our spiritual traditions through the mythology and spirituality of Ancient Egypt, Early India and West Africa. 8 color plates. 40 line drawings. To read an interview with Shola, see More Black Success Volume 3.
Sacred Woman
By Queen Afua
Queen Afua is a nationally renowned herbalist, natural health expert, and dedicated healer of women’s bodies and women’s souls who practices a uniquely Afrocentric spirituality. Her classic bestseller, Heal Thyself, forever changed the way African Americans practice holistic health. Now, with Sacred Woman, she takes us on a transforming journey of physical and ancestral healing that will restore the magnificence of our spirits through sacred initiation.
Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman
The first half of this book tells of the author's idyllic childhood in his family's village Burkina Faso, West Africa, where he is raised unitl the age of six by his grandfather, a powerful shaman. He is then snatched by white Christian brothers who brutalise him as part of his 'training' to become a priest. Eventually escapaing from the seminary at age 20, he cannot speak the local language and has never seen a map of his own country. Malidoma describes his amazing journey back to his home village. The only way he can be truly accepted as one of his people - the Dagara - is to undergo a dangerous and possibly deadly initiation.
The second half of the book describes the poetic, mythical and very real ordeal Malidoma undergoes in order to truly return home. This powerful, moving book illustrates how African traditions are under threat and how we must learn to live harmoniously with people who are different from us - even the 'stranger and enemy'. To hear more about this book, visit Superior African Weapons.
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