Death as a Determinant of Psychosomatic Syndromes in Africa*

A variety of psychopathological syndromes which have been observed in traditional or changing African societies can be linked together by a common denominator, death. Death, the unacknowledged and unacknowledgable desire of the group, shapes a syndrome which plays itself out in a group victim. The principal characteristic of the syndrome is difficulty in relating to others. These problems in relating are less an initial symptom than the result of a process. The process is, in turn, generated by attitudes adopted toward the victim as a result of minor peculiarities in his behavior, or as a consequence of the projection upon him of group anxieties. The picture is reminiscent of the search for, and designation of, an emissary victim. Herein lies the justification for the title of this article: the implication is that the group's desire for a death is the force which shapes and organizes a psychosomatic syndrome, which, in many cases and in certain of its forms, culminates in death.

We present three sketches, which at first appear to differ both as clinical forms and from the point of view of their social significance. The sketches derive from observations among ethnic groups in Senegal-Wolof, Lébou, and Sérer. They are: