ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to highlight, by using a rather drastic sort of instance, the conceptual problems of relating indigenous and Western medicine, primarily in the southern African context. It shows that, in a definable part of southern African indigenous medical practice, the resultant ethics permit a practitioner to recommend in certain special cases a ritual killing, it will be realised that this is not a question of merely intellectual interest. The inyanga who prescribes a muti homicide may well be seen as a sinister figure in the sense that his activities appear to be an alarming threat, but he does not follow a sinister path in the etymological sense. In addition there is 'folk medicine' to be briefly considered, i.e. the home remedies. The most accessible information about the details of what in the press and elsewhere is usually called 'ritual murder' is of course that provided by the press itself, most often in context of court prosecutions and hearings.
