ABSTRACT
The discussion of illness in general came in between an observer’s account of the social organization and a statement of their ideas about the causes of illness. The causes to which they paid special attention seem to be mostly spirits or magic. The diagnostic emphasis is then on the kind of cause and not the clinical manner or mechanism of illness, the disordering of particular parts which may exercise more or less far-reaching effects on other organs or functions. Withdrawal and isolation from normal social life mark the behaviour of someone who has taken this decision about sickness. Now the question arises as to the general view of the Gnau about the nature of what is happening in sickness. The view of a victim struck down by illness provokes some search to make sense of this kind of event, a search to find why or how he was struck down.
