Cultural Artifacts and the Oracular Trance States of the Sangoma in South Africa Introduction he Sangoma (South African shaman) is a central figure in South Africa. Research from the Pietermaritzburg Institute of Natural Resources found that 84 percent of the South African population consult a Sangoma more than three times a year, after or instead of going to a Western medical doctor or clinic.1 In 1997 it was estimated that there were some two hundred thousand practicing Sangomas/traditional healers in South Africa.2 Daniel Baloyi, the Tsonga Sangoma (fig.1)is forty-four years old. He began his training when he was eleven years old after an "initiation illness" called the ukuthwasa.3 For the last thirty years he has been practicing as a Sangoma in Snake Park, close to Soweto. He is a Sangoma teacher who trained and initiated me in 1998 and is currently of the Majoye School of Sangomas. I therefore write with the "voice" of both a Sangoma and a clinical psychologist, focusing on the shamanic traditions in South Africa. Ten Sangomas were interviewed for this research project.4 There have been various attempts to categorize traditional African healers.5 Most anthropologists have made a primary distinction between the ancestrally designated diviner or mediator (isangoma, Zulu; igqira, Xhosa; nga ka, North Sotho; selaodi, South Sotho; mungome, Venda and Tsonga), and the herbalist or doctor (inyanga, Zulu; ixhwele, Xhosa; ngaka, Sotho; nganga, Venda; nyanga, Tsonga; who works primarily with herbs and other forms of medication and who has not been called by the ancestors. Many Sangomas (izangoma; plural of isangoma) or diviners are also herbalists, while many herbalists (izinyanga) practice divination and communicate with their ancestors.6 Daniel Baloyi calls himself a Sangoma (a term that has lost precision in current usage). He is both an herbalist and a shaman (diviner/mediator). Anthropologists focusing on Africa have been reluctant to use the term "shaman," preferring terms such as "spirit mediators,"7 "traditional healers,"8 or "diviners."9 While these terms identify important facets of their practices, they do not encompass all the various roles of the Sangoma. The term "South African shaman" is thus applied here to either a diviner or an herbalist (isangoma, isanusi or inyanga, igqira or ixhwele) who enters trance states, although not all diviners enter trance states. The purpose of trance states is to communicate with the ancestors, to achieve extrasensory perception, and to develop paranormal abilities. Sangomas (male or female) play many different social and political roles in the community. They are involved in divination, healing, directing rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting "warriors" (Sangomas offered protective medicine [muti] to freedom fighters during South Africa’s political struggles), and "smelling out" witches, as well as narrating the history, cosmology, and myths of his/her tradition.10 However, these functions should not be artificially separated. The oracles that ancestors deliver through diviners during trance states provide a discursive arena for expressing resistance and articulating contradictory values or for raising difficult issues in an acceptable format.11 Thus, the healing and oracular trance states of the Sangoma have always been a form of social activity or political performance. The main function of the Sangoma is to heal and protect people in the community. The healing that a Sangoma performs is holistic and symbolic in nature,12 and thus is powerfully determined by cultural factors. The three major causes of illness and misfortune that a South African shaman seeks to divine and heal are ancestral illnesses, illnesses caused by witchcraft, and those due to "pollution" (ritual impurity), such as menstruation and miscarriage. Color symbolism within shamanist medicine is central to South African shamanist practices. The important symbolic colors for medicines are black (mnyama), red (bomvu), and white (mhlophe); treatment with such colored medicines is intended to establish a balance between the person and the environment.13 During the initiation and transformation processes, there is a symbolic dissolution of opposites: life and death, light and dark, male and female.14 Psychological androgyny, common to shamanism worldwide, is also associated with Sangomas. Harriet Ngubane emphasizes the importance of opposites in the colors of South African shamanic medicines: black medicine is used to represent darkness, night, danger, and difficulties, while white medicine refers to health, purity, and success; red is the bridging color of transformation. The method of cure begins with detoxification (through the power of the black medicine), followed by a transformation (using the red medicine), and ending with a strengthening of the client (with the white medicine).15 The South African shamanist meaning of these colors has its parallel in Western alchemy,16 as well as in spagyrics or plant alchemy.17 Most Sangoma novices (thwasas) wear red, symbolizing the transformatory process that the apprentice is undergoing. When I was a novice, my own dress included what my shamanist teacher called a "skirt," suggesting a symbolic synthesis and overcoming of sexual differences. This highlights the shaman's marginality and the liminality of his/her androgynous state as expressed through cross-gender identification. The Sangoma is a wanderer of borders and boundaries and confronts within himself/herself the unknown spiritual terrain of the ancestors. The position of the Sangoma at the very limit of the community is both a privileged position and a dangerous one in that the initiation of the Sangoma becomes the death of the old self and the rebirth of a new Sangoma. The individual is "called" by the ancestors through an initiation illness (ukuthwasa), one of the dangers of liminality. The initiation of the novice is a healing process, during which a relationship with his/her ancestors is forged, enabling the formation of a new identity, turning a citizen who conforms to social norms into a wanderer who explores and goes beyond the established limits. CONTINUE		Fig. 1. Daniel Baloyi, a Tsonga Sangoma, dressed in traditional regalia in his "surgery period." The cabinet contains herbal medicines (muti) prepared in accordance with traditional recipes.
				1. J. Simon, "Time Will Prove to Be the Great Healer," The Star 5 (1997), p. 13 2. B.-E. Van Wyk, Bosch Van Oudtshoorn, and Nigel Gericke, Medicinal Plants of South Africa (Pretoria: Briza Publications, 1997). 3. M. C. O’Connell, "The Aetiology of Thwasa," Psychotherapeia 6 (1980), pp. 18–23. 4. Ingo R. Lambrecht, "A Psychological Study of Shamanic Trance States in South African Shamanism" (Ph.D. diss., University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1999). 5. A. T. Bryant, Zulu Medicine and Medicine Men (Cape Town: C. Struik, 1966); David Hammond-Tooke, Rituals and Medicines: Indigenous Healing in South Africa (Johannesburg: A.D. Donker, 1989); Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (London: Academic Press, 1977); S. A. Thorpe, African Traditional Religions (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1991). 6. Van Wyk et al., Medicinal Plants. 7. John Beattie and John Middleton, Introduction to J. Beattie and J. Middleton, eds., Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. xvii–xxx. 8. Hammond-Tooke, Rituals and Medicines. 9. Philip M. Peek, "African Divination Systems: Non-normal Modes of Cognition," in Peek 1991. 10. S. D. Edwards, "The Isangoma and Zulu Customs," Journal of Psychology (University of Zululand) 3 (1987), pp. 43–47. 11. Michael Lambek, "From Disease to Discourse: Remarks on the Conceptualization of Trance and Spirit Possession," in Colleen A. Ward, ed., Altered States of Consciousness and Mental Health: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (London: Sage Publications, 1989), pp. 36–61. 12. T. Len Holdstock, "Indigenous Healing in South Africa: A Neglected Potential." South African Journal of Psychology 11 (1981), pp. 123–29. 13. Ngubane, Body and Mind, p. 113. 14. Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives (New York: Arkana, 1979). 15. Ngubane, Body and Mind. 16. Mark Haeffner, The Dictionary of Alchemy (London: Aquarian Press, 1991). 17. Manfred M. Junius, Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy, trans. Léone Muller (New York: Inner Traditions International, 1985).
		Home | Works of Art | Curatorial Departments | Collection Database | Features | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | Explore & Learn | The Met Store | Membership | Ways to Give | Plan Your Visit | Calendar | The Cloisters | Concerts & Lectures | Educational Resources | Events & Programs | FAQs | Special Exhibitions | My Met Museum | Press Room | Met Podcast | Met Share | Site Index | Now at the Met | MuseumKids Photograph Credits Copyright © 2000–2009 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. All rights reserved.  Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy.