Traditional Healing in South Africa

Why is it important?• World Health Organization in 1970’s concluded that traditional

healing systems have intrinsic utility and should be developed for the wider use/benefit of mankind

• It can solve certain cultural health problems• It contributes to science and universal medicine• It is historically tested and contextually relevant knowledge

developed and passed on through generations• Healers are respected in the community because they have an

intuitive understanding of the conflicts that are common in their culture and they participate in the worldview of their patients

• Research shows that a number of other countries rely on consultations with traditional healers

South African Healers

Traditional Healer• Use of traditional herbs

and medicines• Contacts spiritual

ancestors• May act as a medium

with spirits.• They play an important

social role within communities

Faith Healer• Integrates religious and

traditional contexts based mainly on Christian healing principles• Holistic understanding of

health and wellness• An individual must be in

harmony with themselves, their body, family society, spirits and God.

Herbalist

South African HealersHerbalists

• Not mystically called to their profession• Decide to apprentice for an established herbalist

who will accept them an teach them • Resemble Westerns societies pharmacists• Have a knowledge of a vast array of plants, roots

and other substances

South African Healers

Witchcraft• Emphasis on supernatural power for evil• Used to harm others or help oneself at the

expense of others• A person is labelled a ‘witch’ and would not

identify themselves as such• Jealousy perhaps the most common driving

force• Confusion surrounds magical force as it can be

used as both for good an evil

Prevalence of Healers• 24.8% of black urban South Africans favour Faith Healers while

24% favour Traditional Healers• 28% of patients in a Johannesburg psychiatric hospital

admitted to seeing a traditional healer prior to admittance

Right: Phephisile Maseko, National Coordinator of THO, with a Western health practitioner

The West vs The rest

Thwasa (rite of passage)• A person is ‘called’ by their

ancestral spirits• Spirits visits person through

dreams and/or animals• They accept the illness and

become initiates for a period of three to five years

• Training involves dance, dreams, songs and ceremonial rites

Western perspective• Calling is associated with sickness

and disintegration• Dreams regarded as

subconscious interpretations• Psychiatry believes symptoms

represent schizophrenia, epilepsy, psychosis or a psychoneurotic condition

• Anthropology views it rather as ‘spiritual emergency” that can result in psychological well-being

Western Perspectives

• Emphasis on spirits, animal familiars, medicines from bizarre ingredients, outlandish garbs worn by some diviners and herbalist and the fear of witches all seem far removed from the clinical procedures and logical thought sequences of western medicine

THOKOZANI BOGOGO NABOMKHULU!

(“Praise/Hail the respected Elders!”)

Traditional Healers Organizations • "THO is an organisation that organises, trains and certifies

traditional health practitioners. It fights for member’s rights to practice the tradition of healing. We also assure the values, quality of treatment, efficacy, safety and ethical standards of member practitioners. Empowering healers of Africa to heal the continent".

• http://www.traditionalhealth.org.za/t/traditional_healing_and_law.html

Contact List• Tony Dold - Curator of the Selmar Schonland Herbarium,

Grahamstown, Lecturer of Botany at Rhodes University• Michelle Cocks – Researcher at Institute for Social and

Economic Research, Lecturer of Anthropology at Rhodes University

• Siyazama Pre-School Project, LM Mtwalo (email e.coetzee@ru.ac.za) – VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUvPhiSUR0o

• Traditional Health Organisation Secretariat – thohealth@gmail.com

Angles

• Liminality – the space in-between• Western vs Traditional practices• Legitimizing traditional healing as a practice• Stigma against Traditional and Faith healers and

debunking myths• Western (mis)understandings of psycho-spiritual

practices • Development of traditional healers through

thwasa

Consultation room for vumisa

Traditional medicines