Training of traditional healers

For certain categories of traditional African healers such as diviners, training is a formal and meticulous process that can take between months and years depending on how fast the trainee learns the trade (Peek, 1991).

To become a traditional healer a special calling from the ancestors is required. This calling can come through what is generally called an ‘illness’ in the Western paradigm.

These include schizophrenia and psychosis, as well as constant visitations through dreams by one’s ancestors and apparitions instructing a person to become a traditional healer.

The authenticity of such callings is verified by a diviner who advises on who should undergo training at an appropriate trainer.

Moreover, not every qualified traditional healer is qualified to train prospective traditional healers. Training of traditional healers is a specialty and yet another calling, in addition to simply being a healer. A traditional healer has to be called to become a trainer of other future healers.

There are traditional healers who combine both the normal traditional healing and who specialise in training of prospective traditional healers.

During training, the trainee is required to live with his/her trainer, the trainer’s family and other trainees, and is therefore constantly observed by the trainer (Rudnick, 2002).

During the training process, trainees receive instructions on a variety of aspects such as different medicinal plants and animal extracts to use, interpreting bones, dream analysis, communicating with the ancestors and different illnesses and how to treat them.

There are certain practices that are proscribed during the training process as per the instructions from the ancestors. For example, a trainee does not greet other people by shaking hands.

When greeting others, especially when they meet others in the homestead, they kneel down and clap hands by placing one hand over another in an up and down fashion or sideways.

When they meet relatives outside of the homestead, they curtsy and clap hands without kneeling down but does not normally greet strangers outside the homestead. A trainee is also prohibited from engaging in a sexual relationship (Hammond-Tooke, 1989).

Once the training is completed, the trainee is taken to a river where final rituals are performed at a ceremony in the presence of community members, called ‘go ja ntwase’.

Animals are slaughtered according to the instructions of the ancestors that are communicated to the trainer through the trainer’s divination.

This ceremony is a form of an assessment to test if the trainee has mastered the trade and can be allowed to practice as a traditional healer (Mutwa, 2003).

One of the methods that the trainer healer employs when assessing the trainee’s level of competence in using the spirits of the ancestors is to hide a safety pin in the vicinity or in one of the spectators’ pockets. The trainee is required to find the pin by being guided by the spirit of the ancestors.

If it happens that the trainee fails this assessment, the training may be extended by some more months.

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