After decades in the shadows, South Africa’s traditional sangoma healers are modernizing and becoming big business, raising questions about the need for regulation.
“Granny” Mahlasela Matcheke runs her practice from a squeaky clean white floor-tiled home in Johannesburg’s up-and-coming Soweto township.
Her consultation room is ringed by orderly shelves of transparent jars containing a kaleidoscopic collection of colored powders and roots.
Each is carefully labeled and ready to be prescribed to patients who undergo a physical examination that accompanies divination involving bones, sea shells, dice and coins.
The scene is far from the common perception of disheveled and old-fashioned sangomas waving sticks around and operating from dingy huts in rural backwaters.
While that image still rings true in some cases, a new generation of urban practitioners are presenting a much more modern spin on the traditional practice.
Social science graduate Nokulinda Mkhize, 28, has been practicing for five years and consults her clients face-to-face or via Skype.
Embracing technology for consultation is “a logical, natural step” making her “more accessible” to patients needing her services, she said.
It “allows me the freedom and flexibility to express my gifts in ways that are less restricted and more true to who I am as a young woman,” she said, adding the decision to become a sangoma was a “calling, my destiny.”
Sangomas have played a key role in South Africa for decades, and are consulted not only on illnesses, but also for communication with the dead.
New practitioners must go through long initiations, learning the uses of herbs and other items before they are considered ready to start a practice.
They still lack the sort of formal qualifications and regulation that have increasingly become necessary for practitioners of Chinese alternative medicine, aromatherapy and the like.
Data about how many South Africans visit traditional healers is hard to come by, but it is clear that millions of South Africans regularly consult the tens of thousands of practitioners operating across the country.
For many, it is a cheap and trusted alternative to expensive Western medicines.
Gradually, sangomas have gained official recognition for the role they play in South African society.
Today some traditional healers are receiving training in basic pediatric oncology and in managing the treatment of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
And a network of “pharmacies” retail neatly packaged herbs, some of which are also found in some conventional chemists in Johannesburg shopping malls.
One Johannesburg medical doctor, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her license, said she has used sangoma’s herbs herself and sometimes prescribes them to patients.
“I found them to work beautifully ... and sometimes I recommend them, if they are willing, and if they are not then I go the conventional way,” she said.
Favorable court rulings notwithstanding, the sector is almost unregulated, leading to uncertainty about the efficacy of medicines and fears of abuse by quacks and charlatans.
Many less scrupulous “healers” claim to have powers to increase wealth.
Instances of traditional medicine crossing the line into witchcraft and even human sacrifice are not unheard of.
Traditional healers are angry that medical boards are not ready to give African medicine the same standing as Chinese medecine, Ayurvedic, aromatherapy or a panoply of other complementary treatments, which have begun the process of certification.
The lack of regulation has much to do with cost. A lack of funding to carry out hugely expensive clinical trials means traditional herbs are not certified by the country’s medicines control agency.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number