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In the vivid and engrossing study of John Chavafambira, Dr. Wulf Sachs has written a gripping story and reports much that may be of value to those interested in psychological, anthropological or interracial problems. 'Black Anger' is the story of John, a witch doctor or medicine man, who was born in a kraal in Manyikaland,
Southern Rhodesia and who left the kraal at twenty to emigrate to the Union of South Africa. It is record of the conflicts and gradual adjustment of a man brought up in the primitive atmosphere of the kraal with all its tradition and superstition, transplanted to city life with its complexities and, for him, the reality of racial oppression.
Dr. Sachs had studied African Negroes in a mental hospital and wished to psychoanalyze an essentially normal native. John Chavafambira was willing to coöperate because secretly he hoped to learn some of the European doctor's medicine. For two and a half years he went for hourly interviews. Beside this the author accompanied him to many of the places he described and talked to many of the people he mentioned. They went to John's native kraal and Dr. Sachs was present at John's initiation as a nganga or medicine man. Many native beliefs, superstitions, taboos and customs are described in detail. John taught his doctor all he knew of magic, throwing the dice and the bones. Life in the Swartyard, a segregated area in Johannesburg inhabited only by native Africans, is described with all its deprivations, poverty and injustices.
Originally the author planned to make a scientific report of the psychoanalytic study of this man. His infantile conflicts are recorded, also his dreams upon which John lays great stress and which he interprets according to his own beliefs. His interesting theory of communication with his parents in his dreams and its meaning is discussed. His hostility toward the white man and his gradual resolution of this problem and many other facets of his personality are described. The sto