Order, analogy, and efficacy in ethiopian medical divination

The symbolic ordering worked by a method of divination that is practiced by the Amhara of Ethiopia is described, indicating how order is accomplished through linking disease with phenomenological domains that are remote from the biophysical locus of sickness.

Abstract

An important source of the efficacy of techniques for managing sickness is their capacity for symbolically ordering the disordered states associated with disease. (The ability to give empirical proofs is another source.) This article describes the symbolic ordering wirked by a method of divination that is practiced by the Amhara of Ethiopia. Emphasis is given to indicating how order is accomplished through linking disease with phenomenological domains that are remote from the biophysical locus of sickness. The point is made that ordering and linking depend on processes of analogy.