Sangomas, Witch doctors, The Karoo is Home to All

It is exactly the description proffered in cultural magazines. An animal skin is draped on the wall, a bamboo mat is set in deep, handmade potions line the wooden shelves and liquor – bottles of it – are splayed out on the linoleum floor. In thick dreadlocks Lihle Matebese, a ward councillor by occupation but a sangoma at heart is the only contradiction. Nothing of the grizzled, surly and gargoyle-ish witch as portrayed by the likes of HR Haggard in her as we are ushered into her umsamo.

The Buddhist has his Zendo, the Moslem his mosque, Lihle’s sacred umsamo is an elegant ode to the traditional style of the rural rondavel. This is where she divines with ‘those who are under,’ the ancestors, burns ‘impepho,’ incense, and treats her patients – many who come with indisposition ranging from tormented or polluted spirits, suspicions of being bewitched or in the hope of circumventing such sorcery.

Guided by her idlozi – an ancestor who informs her every decision – she will endeavour to treat their afflictions, exorcise the demons and break the spells because that’s what she signed up for when she went into ukuthwasa, her initiation.

It’s not quite as glamorous as the sangoma influencers make it seem on TikTok, though. Far from it. For Lihle, she fell gravely ill, to the verge of insanity. That’s how her calling visited her; through bouts of intense pain and madness, shrieks of rage and obscenities. The episode had the family unnerved. Doctors couldn’t quite put a finger on what was wrong with her. But a certain traditional medicine woman gave a concise diagnosis: the ancestors desired that she join the ranks of the ‘spiritual ones’. 

And so for around a few months Lihle went under the tutelage of an elder and slipped into the unknown. But the interlocutor soon gets the impression that this is the cultural equivalent to ‘what happens in Vegas ….’ Lihle would much rather not delve into gratuitous detail about that phase of her journey save to say it was hard work that tested her innermost recesses and that she eventually emerged out the other side cured and free of all illness. But mostly, she became a practicing sangoma in her own right. 

Expecting to find the presumptuous throwing of bones on our visit, we discovered that behind the mysterious nature of the practice, there are yet many more mysteries to find. Less a one-size-fits-all more than vast subdisciplines co-existing within the whole. Lihle confides that she doesn’t even work with bones.

In recent years there’s been a push to formalise the practice – redeem it from commonly-held perceptions that reduce it to African mumbo-jumbo onto a scholarly path complete with literature, ethical codes and a regulating body. In fact just days before our interview, a gathering of local sangomas was taking place at the N1 building in Colesberg. The region’s ‘white people’ as they refer to those who’ve embraced the calling were assembled under one roof, heads cogitating, pens jotting down notes.

One would think that in a community as small as Colesberg you’d find only a handful of these practitioners. You’d be surprised. On the contrary, there are about as many practicing healers as there are churches, – even spazas – sometimes several operating in the same area. Also iintlombe, those all-night bacchanalias of meditation, characterised by powerful – intensely so – African cultural song and stomping of feet and the booming big drum made from cow hide thudding relentlessly, sometimes for days on end, are part of Kuyasa’s social fabric. Listen to them long enough as you lie awake; the repetitive chants, beads rattling, bare heels reverberating on the earth and see the women slip into something that the English language might call a ‘trance.’ 

The nomenclature can be downright brutal even to those of African descent, so it would be advisable to refer such a person to the literature. Lots of gems on the internet but a book that might be of some appeal is entitled Madumo, A Man Bewitched (available at the Mongezi Juda Library). 

Written by Adam Ashforth, an Australian who visits his longtime friend, Madumo, in Soweto only to find him fallen on hard times. Madumo is adamant that he’s been bewitched. Ashforth is sceptical, but nonetheless not only funds Madumo’s visits to various traditional healers but these ultimately form the basis of his book. It’s an interesting account of how a person who’s not from a world where witches are said to exist might see the practice. 

Outside of the realm of spirituality, being a sangoma is also a legitimate means to earning an income, even to putting one’s name on the social radar. In the early 90s, one such celebrity healer visited Colesberg. Tat’ uMhambi – ‘the traveller’ as he was known – had made headlines in black South Africa when he made bold claims that his holy water could cure just about any illness under the sun. At the time, all across the country HIV/AIDS was wreaking havoc and antiretroviral therapy was still many years into the future. 

Tat’ uMhambi had appeared on the fashionable black magazine of the day, Bona. There were impassioned video testimonies – and photos – from former patients and so when the man rolled up to Kuyasa in a Toyota Venture (more than a respectable ride in those days), he was met by snaking queues – the writer’s late grandma amongst them – and lots of money. At a R50 fee, believers would bring water – as many barrels as they desired – over which the man would pray, flailing what looked like a goat’s cured tail in the air. Tat’ uMhambi would consequently leave with untold sums of money but whether his elixir actually worked, the jury is still out. 

In nearby de Aar, Nosithembiso Cofa is also an assiduous practitioner, but it is her story as to how she found herself in the maw of this spirituality that beggars belief. From her days at school, she says, she used to experience intense headaches. Traditional Western medicine, she goes on, didn’t seem to offer any relief. But after a consultation with a sangoma, she too was advised to go down the traditional initiation route. Being a church-going person, initially, she’d balked at the idea.

Then one Sunday morning at church, what she considers a miracle happened. Her memory of the episode is a blur: one minute she’s singing, the next she’s regaining consciousness on the church floor and one of the women who’d come to her aid – Nosithembiso, swears – she’d seen her in a dream. Turns out that woman was also sangoma and would thenceforth take Nosithembiso under her wing. 

The stories out on the streets abound, and to a lowly writer, they are the stuff of fantasy novels. There’s the guy who swears that he owes his court acquittal to the sangoma who gave him a herb to burn before he was to appear before court and something to put under his tongue when he was inside the dock. There are alleged rainmakers and sangomas so powerful they can call upon lightning strikes. Or curses. Even maybe get you stinking rich. But who are we to make any pronouncements or attempt a two-cents worth because, whether you believe it or not, to many in our rural communities the sangoma tradition is just as real and palatable as the trees that blow outside in the wind or the veldt that stretches as far as the eye can see.

There can also be no doubt that, through social media, the sangoma has been brought to a whole new audience. Take Zodwa Wabantu who moonlights between adult entertainment, television and social media and also underwent her initiation a few years ago. There is Gogo Maweni as well as a seemingly growing list of celebrity sangomas.

Oh, and if you’re still wondering; the liquor I mentioned earlier are gifts of gratitude from Lihle’s patients, and even though she’s not much of a hard spirits drinker, they mostly serve the purpose of appeasement to the ancestors, she says with a naughty grin.

Disclaimer: This article is merely for purposes of reportage. eParkeni does not endorse any of the topics contained herein. For that, we’d recommend the reader consult qualified and relevant people.