Healing, the Jesus way

Three stories, three continents, 2000 years apart

Initially, we only see a dense circle of two hundred people. In the middle we seem to find a music party. Some dance, some sing and some play djembé. There is laughter and happiness. Only after a while do we notice an object in the center. “There is a cow inside!” whispers Aisha.

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Part 1, Europe. 50 years back

As a boy scout, I heard this from my troop scout leader. The story is set in late 1970s, when cars were few and horse-drawn carts were still common.

On that day, we camped in a forest. One boy, while looking for wild berries, was bitten by a viper in the hand. He cried and needed to go to hospital. We rushed to the nearest village for help - but it turned out this was an impoverished PGR with no functioning car [in communist Poland, the ‘PGR’ was the state-farm, where people worked the land collectively - places notorious for poverty, pathology and poor technical culture]. There was no chance to transport the wounded boy to a clinic in time. Then, a villager told us where a wise woman lived. So we ran to her.

The wise woman looked at the viper bite wound and told us to calm down. She told us to find a live frog, and she told her daughter to bring her pink hair ribbon. There was no time to ask questions. The boy was scared to death, and we all were. The entire scout squad rushed out to the ponds to look for frogs! Soon, one of us came back with a frog in his hands. The wise woman tied the pink ribbon around the boy’s arm. Then she placed the frog on the wound so that the poison would pass into the frog, which was still alive.

The boy lived.

Part 2, Middle East. 2000 years back

As a kid, I listened to this story in the church, a story so impossible that it could have only happened two thousand years ago.

And when He [Jesus] came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men confronted Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. And they cried out, saying, “What business do You have with us, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” Now there was a herd of many pigs feeding at a distance from them. And the demons begged Him, saying, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.” And He said to them, “Go!” And they came out and went into the pigs; and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.

In both stories, a disease or evil is drawn out of a person and transferred into an animal — the frog absorbs the venom, the pigs absorb the demons. But in my mind, I’ve never connected the two. I would also never think that one day I’d experience something similar.

Part 3, Africa. 2025

Joal, Senegal: with my friends Amadou and Aisha, we run to the beach to catch the sunset. We are on time: the Sun is still up. To our right, a casual football match. To our left, something unexpected: a dense circle of two hundred people. Music can be heard. “What is it?”, I ask. “I don’t know, let’s approach” says Amadou. We come closer. People let us in, but we still don’t understand what is happening.

In the center we seem to find a music party. Some dance, some sing and some play djembé. There is laughter and happiness. Only after a while do we notice an object in the center. “There is a cow inside!” whispers Aisha. “This is the Lebou tribe and this is Ndeup, a healing ceremony. We are very lucky. I heard about it, but never witnessed one. You will now see the proof that the marabouts exist.” says Aisha, keen to have me witness the powers of the marabouts (sorcerers).

It is only then that I indeed notice the cow.

The dance subsides, the music continues.

The marabout (sorcerer) puts his gri-gri (magic object) on the cow. I don’t know what that is - judging by its size, it could be a flat rock covered with rugs. He gently massages the cow with the gri-gri, which he holds in both hands. The cow obeys his unspoken intentions and obediently lies down on the ground in submission. I admit it looks spectacular. Then people approach and cover the cow, its entire body, its head and eyes with carpets and rugs so it soon looks like an Egyptian mummy. Instead of fighting, the cow just patiently lies down.

Then I notice a man in white who is being led into the circle by four women, who are also dressed in white. The man tries to fight. The four ‘angels’ force him to lie on the cow, and he obeys. Soon he is racked with convulsions. The dancing and drums continue, the ceremony master initiates a new song and the crowd follows. As soon as the cow has absorbed the disease, the sick man is then escorted out of the circle, away from the crowd, into the sea waves and submerged in water. His convulsions gradually subside. He is now weak. The four angels escort him out of sight. No one pays attention to him anymore. He has been healed, but it is forbidden to approach him this evening. People finish their song and leave the beach, walking away in the opposite direction. The cow, who absorbed the evil disease, will soon be killed.

Post Scriptum

I’ll say just one more thing.

When a Western audience imagines magical ceremonies from the Global South, they think of something serious. Perhaps the cliché images of a voodoo ceremony in James Bond: Live and Let Die (1973), or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), or the opening sequence of The Exorcist (1973). These things are serious, dangerous and ominous.

When I think of the wise woman with the frog, even though I have not seen her, I’d be quite certain she did not smile while applying her procedure. As much as I know my culture, to be respected you cannot smirk. For the same reason, we don’t talk loud in churches. That’s also how we interpret what happened in Palestine two thousand years ago. Was it really like that? Maybe.

But what I experienced that day in Senegal was the opposite. The ceremony was emotional, for the people involved and also for me. However, much of the surrounding emotion was happiness. It was a joyful party, full of music, dance and laughter. I also immediately felt part of it. As strangers, we were welcome. One girl, seeing I wasn’t sure if filming was okay, laughed, grabbed my phone and crawled to the center, to film for me. While the healer was doing his work, people were enjoying themselves and the special occasion.

Now, I read that passage of Jesus differently. I imagine what could happen right after the pigs rushed into the water.

The two men, still in disbelief but filled with joy, laughing as hard as they could at what had just occurred. The healer, tapping one of them on the shoulder and asking: man, when did you last take shower? Don’t you also want to run to the lake? A neighbor, rushing from a distance with a bottle of wine because he saw the commotion, and any occasion is good for a party…

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If you like, read some more African stories. You’ll notice the similarity of the frog story to this one.