Traditional healers of South Africa
Traditional healers of South Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine in Southern Africa. They fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including divination, healing physical, emotional and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witches, and narrating the history, cosmology, and myths of their tradition. There are two main types of traditional healers within the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana and Tsonga societies of Southern Africa: the diviner (sangoma), and the herbalist (inyanga). These healers are effectively South African shamans who are highly revered and respected in a society where illness is thought to be caused by witchcraft, pollution (contact with impure objects or occurrences) or through neglect of the ancestors. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 indigenous traditional healers in South Africa compared to 25,000 Western-trained doctors. Traditional healers are consulted by approximately 60% of the South African population, usually in conjunction with modern biomedical services.
Podcasts:
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by John Kay
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by Joanna Wang
John Kay
by: John KayI spent my life twenty years in the basin
My only friend was a man of much more
He lied with power in his weary eyes 'till day came
And all at once I knew his name
Giles of the river...comin' in to make my precious day
Giles of the river...comin' in to tell one tale and take
My breath away...and he's on his way
He took me down through good times late departed
And through the world as it was and will be
By bad self I watched you as you hung your head out my door
But you won't grieve me no more