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The outbreak of COVID 19 and other global pandemics readily shows the importance of ethno-cultural channels of communication. However, modern discourses on medical referrals have narrowly focused their attention on the diverse challenges of referral services in biomedical establishments, but have generally ignored the cultural mechanics and religious dynamism in the contemporary operations of ethno-medical referrals in sub-Saharan Africa. Departing from these studies, the present paper underscores the active networks of referrals in African healing shrines that appropriate the diverse resources and expertise of different healing spaces in their treatments of sick clients. Using an ethnographical approach, the paper investigates the mechanics of ethno-medical referrals from the perspectives of more than 250 sick clients in African healing shrines, over 50 practitioners in ethno-medical shrines, several doctors and nurses, and church workers/Christian healers in Nigeria and Ghana respectively. The findings of this research suggest that there are lively networks of referrals between African healing shrines, hospitals, and Christian healing/prayerhouses, which dramatically turned these diverse healing spaces into an animated transborder space of creative negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Festivals are important occasions that African societies have used to bring members together to foster unity and forge development of the communities. Traditional leaders also use festival to propitiate the ancestral spirits and deities to help dispel evil in the society. Throughout the year, festivals and durbars are held in various parts of the country for reunions and developmental purposes, and to the strengthen beliefs of the society. Festivals help the community and people to forge a closer bond with their ancestors and to ask for their protection. Festivals are also held in order to purify the whole state so that people can enter the New Year with confidence and hope. This paper, uses newspapers, interviews, major secondary works and articles on the internet as a source of data. It also uses qualitative and phenomenological methods to assess the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the celebration of the Fetu Afahye festival among the people of Cape Coast (Oguaa) in Ghana. The advent of the pandemic in Ghana altered the lives of the people in the traditional society since it led to the cancellation of the celebration of their festivals. The paper also examines how the non-observance of such festivals, especially the Fetu Afahye, impacted the ritual lives of the people. The paper concludes that even though a ban was placed on the celebration of festivals, due to its significance the traditional leaders found a way to perform the rituals associated with them in the face of the pandemic. This was done in order to avoid incurring the wrath of the sacred and to give the members in the community a sense of identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]