KGAUGELO MASWENENG | ‘Why so many sangomas?’ — but why not?

Somewhere between the rifle and the bible, black people have not had the time or the luxury to respond to their ancestral calling with pride and honesty.

The contemporary experience of African spirituality has been summarised by this question: why so many sangomas suddenly? We are seeing a significant number of people documenting sacred rituals at rivers, adorned with Amathonga cloth (symbolic ancestral wear) and beads bearing different meanings.

The public’s instinct to question the shift is correct. But the cacophony of questions and criticism around this contentious topic can be silenced by one idea: a quest for the multiplicity of African spirituality.

Afrospirituality, specifically the ancestral calling element, is splintering into nothingness in front of us because, unlike other faith systems, we don’t have manuals that guide, comfort and educate us.

Around the fire, we are taught. In our dreams, we are shown. And in the streets, we are told. Not yet through well-documented and researched outlets. How can we measure the authenticity of a craft when we have so little to reference from and yet a vast knowledge base to learn, consume and feed from?

Indigenous knowledge has always been transmitted orally, and there is little written down about the secret traditions of initiating people to become healers. In some ways, the training can be experiential. Some have genuine intentions and actual understanding of the gift, while others display questionable practices.

How we can use the ancestral gift to contribute to other parts of society beyond endumbeni is a daunting challenge. It’s not one-dimensional. Through merging the gift with the expression of music, art, conscious political work, writing, medicine and other disciplines, a nation can cleanse itself and heal.

There is a grave responsibility that comes with carrying eldership and embracing a calling. Both as a teacher to the one called. But how do we know that people are in fact called or hustling because of their life struggles? Who discerns on behalf of the people who are told they have a calling when they may or may not?

One’s ability to navigate and express their healing repertoire in a way that can be experienced uniquely for the greater good is key.

With the greatest of respect and gentleness, I ask: do we have a generation of izangoma who understand what they are doing?

The cross path between the light and darkness is thin. If one is not in the right frame of discernment one often cannot make a nuanced and informed judgment of what is for the light or the dark. 

Just like we have suffered the scourge of fake pastors who lure people into their churches and weaponise their vulnerability. These dynamics can be seen in the ways some initiates are being initiated and showcase their “gift”. 

It is often questionable. There is a thin line between ukuthwasa and ukuthwala. One is a gift, the other a process motivated by the accumulation of material possessions through the spiritual realm. 

Media personality Khanyi Mbau has been called out for reducing the experience and authenticity of those who have “received a calling” to anxiety. In a series of Instagram posts, she said people must stop slaughtering animals and paying money to learn how to be sangomas and rather take vitamins and laugh off the sounds of drums in their heads.

“Urban sangomas, you do not have a calling, it’s anxiety. This is the most anxious generation. That’s why we have so many sangomas,” Mbau wrote.

But if you were to entertain the historical jurisprudence and lack of tolerance towards African spirituality in this country, you would also bear in mind that the “anxiety” was choreographed by laws that sought to limit the expression of self both in law and spiritually (Witchcraft Suppression Act 3 of 1957).

Because of the Witchcraft Act enacted by the apartheid system, black people — especially women — were targeted, trialled or killed for suspicions of faking divinity and powers to heal. Sangomas and traditional leaders were especially not allowed to operate on their own land.

This piece of law was the rifle in the face of blackness that sought to delegitimise the many forms of healing that people were accustomed to. It inhabited the air of concealed violence towards all things African spirituality.

But the attack on Afrospirituality did not end with the Witchcraft Act, it went further through spirited propaganda campaigns against those who dared to be themselves in the face of repressive laws such as the late and seasoned African prophet Bab’Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa. 

It was not just a ban on herbs and rituals, but blackness.

There is an urgent need for an African bible that harnesses existing texts into a usable manual. To further avoid all this confusion.

Mbau is correct, we are an anxious generation. We have been plunged into a constant state of a spiritual journey because, for so many years, black people have experienced themselves through the prism of others. And the “awakening” is bound to populate social spaces, and mistakes will be made — but at least we are free to express and experience our spirituality and journey among the stars without fear of reprisal from an intolerant state.

Among other contributing factors is the desperation for material gain and alignment in life. That on its own can unleash anxiety and confusion in a person. 

Mbau could have asserted her point without negating the experience of many South Africans who believe in the ethos of the system.

In 2018 I attended the birthday celebration of artist Thandiswa Mazwai at Newtown’s Music Factory. It was a beautiful day of food, music, poetry, talks and activism. Oh and boobs! A safe space created by women, for women.

But it was on this day that I experienced the use of words and music as a healing power without an intermediary. Mazwai is a conduit, an unapologetic force, who through her voice heals (if you’re into that kinda thing).

She is an example of how you can use your gift and the understanding of self to not only impart knowledge but comfort others. Her 2009 album Ibokwe is a lover’s discourse. A safe space for those hearing drums and dreaming of ancestors calling them, a spillway of the floodgates that is blackness and sanctity.

She has not been initiated as a sangoma, but her work resonates with that of a healer. She once said: “The stage has always been a site of ritual for me. Even without the burning of impepho I immerse myself in the fellowship between us musicians and the sacred spaces we can create with sound. Every song is a ritual for the suffering and landless masses.”

The contribution to the general healing of people is noble. The response to the call of a people who existed under a trigger-happy and physically, politically and socially traumatic system is correct.

But there is an urgent need for an African bible that harnesses existing texts into a usable manual to avoid all this confusion.

Let us make sure that as we take up space, we actually heal ourselves and others through our different gifts. We need to stop the mockery and theatrics and respect the work to allow others to not only understand why there are so many sangomas but respect the pursuit.

We don't need permission. We can be as many as we want! 

Thobela. Thokoza. Makwande. Camagu!