Decolonising African Indigenous Medicine: A Complementarity of Past and Future in Aramide Segun’s Eniitan, Daughter of Destiny

Abstract

Decolonisation of any kind is as futuristic as it is concerned with erasing the effects of colonial legacies on a culture or nation, although it has largely been treated merely as the reversal of colonial legacies. The concept of decolonisation has not been satisfactorily examined for futuristic tendencies. Therefore, this paper examines how the decolonisation of African indigenous medicine projects into the complementarity of its past and future. The Postcolonial theory is adopted as the theoretical framework of this study while data is derived from Aramide Segun’s Eniitan, Daughter of Destiny.

This paper argues that the decolonisation of African indigenous knowledge, which is a slice of the decolonisation of African tradition as a whole, is not merely an effort to rid it of colonial legacies, it is rather an effort to create a future from a reawakened past. From its findings, this paper argues decolonising African medicine also entails treating it as part of the African future.