O Kimbanda Kambia

Two meetings with Kimbanda Kambia, a traditional healer in rural southern Angola. In the first meeting, in February 1978, Kimbanda introduces his family and gives the team a tour. Commenting on his vision of the trade, Kimbanda shows the place where he treats and prepares medicines, the women who help him with these preparations, and talks about his practice - how he treats cases of madness, epilepsy, spirit and witchcraft possession. The second meeting, six months later, features psychiatrist Africano Neto from Luanda, who attends treatments and with whom Kimbanda Kambia talks about the scope and limits of his practice. Interviewed by the director, Africano Neto considers the practice of Kimbanda to be holistic, and not just phytotherapeutic, and comments on the social and psychosomatic nature of the illnesses within Kimbanda's reach in the African context.