Our forefathers and mothers dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder in a very significant way. It was often held that a soldier needed to prove his manhood after he returned from active duty before civilians would welcome him back. For three months, he stayed at the shaman's temple and through a process of inner purification.

Our forefathers and mothers dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder in a very significant way. It was often held that a soldier needed to prove his manhood after he returned from active duty before civilians would welcome him back. For three months, he stayed at the shaman's temple and through a process of inner purification. 

It was believed that the human spirit needed to go through a r.itual in order to go back into harmony with nature and society after a war. Blood that had become sluggish or otherwise dysfunctional was brought to the surface by means of a horn. This is a r.itual that was carried out on the warriors to rid them of any potential mental disease or trauma they might encounter in the future. 

Many centuries before it was supposedly invented in China, Africans were already using this method. African suction cup was a term coined by colonialists to describe this tool. Because of African s.lavery and colonization, many cultural practices like this one were lost.