That should not be your conclusion from the article.
"the voices" are hardly the only symptom that people with schizophrenia suffer from. A lot of those affected don't have auditory hallucinations at all and are still suffering from one of the (if not the) most debilitating mental disorders out there.
Calling it "friendly" risks trivialising of the very real symptoms.
> In Accra, Ghana, where the culture accepts that disembodied spirits can talk, few subjects described voices in brain disease terms. When people talked about their voices, 10 of them called the experience predominantly positive; 16 of them reported hearing God audibly. “‘Mostly, the voices are good,’” one participant remarked.
This seems clinically useful. The existence of other symptoms doesn't really change that fact.
I am merely commenting on your takeaway that this somehow means that some cultures see schizophrenia as "friendly", which does absolutely does not follow from the fact that the "mostly, the voices are good".
I would also think that this is likely due to cultural differences and in many cases probably adds to the problem.
https://doi.org/10.3109/09540261.2012.711746
From the full Article:
"People suffering from psychotic illness continue to hold multi-explanatory models. The cultural, religious and social explanatory models are predominant in non-western cultures."
"Limited evidence suggests that traditional belief models affect [duration of untreated psychosis], and explanatory models based on spiritual and social causes of illness may result in delayed presentations for professional help."