This ethnographic documentary is based on long term medical anthropology research and collaboration since 1998 with the Vava’uan spirit healer Emeline Lolohea and the Tongan Psychiatrist, Dr Mapa Ha’ano Puloka. In Tonga videos of funerals are sent to relatives in New Zealand, Australia and the USA as a form of thanks for financial contributions and to affirm mutual support and the responsibilities of the extended family. By watching these videos people can identify how they are related and therefore how responsible they need to be for future social commitments.

In a similar way this documentary creates a responsible conversation between two health practitioners whose explanations for mental illness are very different.  It is based on extensive research on mental health and Tongan traditional healing (Poltorak 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016) and video recorded as part of research.

We explore Tonga’s health challenges from the perspective of a healer and her family, doctors, patients and caregivers, and the value they give to Tongan medicine and the challenges of public health provision. The extraordinary dedication and commitment to the value of giving and being available to heal, and involvement in the lives of their patients is common to both the healer and psychiatrist. The documentary embraces visual anthropological insights on the inquisitive camera and presence of filmmaker, video elicitation, use of archival footage, the use of video messaging for diagnosis, the reception of mainstream movies and the vital process of feedback.

Jean Rouch aspired and argued for a  ‘shared anthropology’.  The process of production of this documentary is attentive to multiple and diverse audiences:  first to the participants in the film, secondly to the extended Tongan community and those engaged in understanding and representing it, thirdly to those working within a global health paradigm and finally to an audience interested in mental health but with little knowledge of Tonga. The ethnographic, interventionist and documentary credibility of this documentary rests on the ability to move these multiple audiences to greater appreciation and action.

The future of Emeline Lolohea’s and Dr Mapa Puloka’s healing practices and initiatives is fragile. This documentary is contributing to discussion and policy actions on greater collaboration between traditional and biomedical medicine.  Imagining new healing futures for Tonga requires collaboration in New Zealand where there is a large, active and engaged Tongan diaspora. In New Zealand the development of a public psychiatry sensitive to traditional healing will also bring positive health outcomes.

In New Zealand two recent films, Belief: The Possession of Janet Moses  ( a documentary, 2015) and One Thousand Ropes (drama, 2017) frame very dramatic  relationship with spirits.  In the Healer and the Psychiatrist spirits are familial  and the relationship between their actions, sickness and access to health care very clear. The message of the film is of great importance to encourage a growing expansion of mental health services around the world to engage sensitively and productively with traditional ideas and healers.

Process and Feedback

The film is the result of research and collaboration in Tonga since 1998 when I first started my doctoral research.  Then I brought a camera to document healing encounters because of the challenge of noting everything on pen and paper. In Vava’u people asked me to record important events such as funerals, rugby matches, birthdays and church feasts to share the videos with families overseas as a form of gift for help given. The documentary aims to integrate these two different uses of video, as documentation and as a form of socially transformative communication, an audio/visual gift.

A feedback version was created from footage filmed in 2011, 2005 and 1998. It was screened in New Zealand (AUT & Onehunga), Tongatapu (‘Atenisi University, Lo’au University and the Psychiatric Unit) and Vava’u (Tefisi) in October 2018. Further filming and research in October and November 2018 was informed by feedback to ensure engagement with contemporary issues and update the current situation of the key protagonists. Sections were screened at the Ecologies of Mind Workshop in May 2019 in Freie Universität (FU) Berlin.

Resources

The doctoral thesis on which this documentary draws can be read here.

Dr Karlo Mila speaks about her mental health challenges and relationship with Tongan spirits on an Out of My Mind podcast.

A resource booklet on cultural competence for treating Pacific Islander patients produced by Mauri Ora for the Medical Council of New Zealand.

A key publication in Pacific Health dialogue on finding the interface between cultural understandings.