That local narratives and oral discourses constitute important source materials for the reconstruction of histories of illness and healing in rural Africa is a widely accepted fact. What continues to attract much discussion in the humanities and social sciences, however, is the question of how such narratives relate to the reality they articulate, and whether knowledge implied in popular oral articulations generally has any efficacy to talk of. These concerns are by no means new. Yet their relevance persists, partly because of the need to continue the battle for theoretical clarity and partly because the varying positions in the debate have profound policy implications