What It’s Like To…Be a Sangoma in a Digital World
An increasing number of South Africans have, in recent times, sought guidance from the spiritual realm in an attempt to establish a connection with their ancestors. Spiritual mediums, known as sangomas, are the ones entrusted with the delicate task of facilitating this communication. With this increased interest comes heightened visibility for sangomas, with shows like Izangoma Zodumo dispelling myths about what type of people can partake in the work of healing. On the other side, the prevalence of discourse about spirituality leaves the field open for scammers on the prowl.
Vuyiswa Xekatwane, 33 is a sangoma who answered her calling in 2018. Like most South Africans, she grew up in a predominantly Christian household and became more aware of the spirit world when she was a teenager.
In segments edited for length and clarity, Xekatwane tells OkayAfrica about being a sangoma in the digital age.
Vuyiswa Xekatwane: I think South Africa is that kind of society where we’re just straddling both the traditional and the religious. I don't know whether there was a specific way in which I merged the physical and spiritual realms. But it was definitely something that was just part of my consciousness; that there is what we understand to be God, but there's also a place for ancestral veneration. The gift is something that you're born with, it's not something that finds you. And then the calling, or what people understand to be the calling, the thing that leads you to intwaso (initiation), happened to me when I was 27.
Once I had gone into the initiation school, I was able to realize that it was something that was beckoning to me my whole life. I had very specific dreams that kind of made me want to find out what they were about or what was going on. The work that izangoma (sangomas) do is very special and specific. Even though I deal with a person, there's [another] person that comes and engages me, but the work that we do actually transverses the past, present and future. That's something that I really enjoy about [what] I do.
The challenge for me is around people not viewing [sangomas] as people that are trained [and] equipped with knowledge. This shows itself in how people want to pay you, the kind of advice that people expect to get from you for free.
Photo courtesy of Vuyiswa Xekatwane.
Vuyiswa Xekatwane is more concerned about giving people the means to connect with their ancestors.
I use my platforms to discuss [matters of healing]. If I take my own practice seriously, then I feel like people who engage in it have no choice but to do the same. I'm very much not in the place where I'm trying to destigmatize, because I think that there has been a conversation for the last five or whatever years where people are like, ‘We want to destigmatize ubungoma (healing), we want to make it more mainstream.’ It does come from a history of being something that people did at night. I think the work of my practice is to align people with their ancestors. What I'm more concerned about, instead of performing miracles, is giving people the tools and the resources to be able to connect with their ancestors. Ancestral guidance is something that all of us are open to; you don't have to be a sangoma to be able to communicate or receive guidance. That's the core of my practice. In the negligence of ancestral consideration or communication, I feel like people are missing out on a lot of guidance for their protection, prosperity and health.
There isn't really any major thing that happens before consulting. I would obviously have to phahla, which is to speak to my ancestors to say, ‘Here is a person, these are their surnames, this is their name, please guide us.’ I would prepare just like any other person in a professional setting would prepare to welcome a client.
Ubungoma (healing) is not stuck in a particular time. The reason that healers operated the way that they did in the past is because of the time that they were in. So even when people today say “modern sangoma,” every sangoma was modern in their time. I think everything that is happening is natural. There are some things that are part of the tradition of healing that are very specific in the sense of the tools that you are using. But even those are changing, people are divining with other tools. But at the core of the work is ethno-medicine (umuti), divination tools, which usually is the bones; people are using tarot now, other people use shells. Every healer is a healer of their time. Being a healer of now has allowed my practice to be so much more than anything that my ancestors, who were healers, could have been. By that, I mean that I'm able to consult people all over the world because I do offer virtual consultations, whereas my ancestors [had] very clear limitations [in their time]. It’s just a sign of the times, which I think is what healers have always been - they have been a reflection of the time.
Ukuhlola, which is the act of divining, actually means to investigate. The tool of investigation is the bones, and a person doesn’t need to be physically present in the room. Even though [the person’s physical body] can lend itself to visual clues or visual aids, or things that can help the investigation, what I actually need in order to tap into the messages is the bones.
Obviously, the fact that we are now consulting digitally or virtually is a modern thing, but even years ago, you wouldn’t necessarily need the person to be able to be in the room with you in order to gain insight, via the bones, about things that are happening in their lives. And this is also where the ethics of the practice come in. If I was an unethical healer, I could check anyone that I wanted. I always say to people that ‘if I wanted to throw Beyonce’s bones, then I could,’ but obviously because this is a practice that is guided by values and ethics. You can’t look into someone’s life without their permission. But it’s definitely possible.
In terms of [technical issues I’ve experienced], sometimes I don’t have network coverage, for my international clients, [the issue of] time zones, and load shedding. I’d say 60-70 percent of my clientele is international, and therefore virtual. Even in the context of South Africa, I live in Soweto, so sometimes a person who is further out from where I am would rather opt for a virtual consultation as opposed to driving all the way. Following COVID, I saw a shift in my practice where people would rather opt for a virtual consultation than [physical].
There is quite a bit of interest from abroad. I think there’s a global phenomenon right now where young, Black people particularly are trying to connect with the ways of their ancestors. There was a time I had a clientele of these girls who were teachers in China. [When people try] to connect with their ancestors [today], izangoma and other indigenous healers will be their first point. Their first point should be their families, but with everything that is going on with the internet and this hyper-visibility of healers, I think a lot of people, when they think about ‘how do I connect to my ancestors?’ their first point of reference would be to engage a traditional healer.