Types of traditional healers

Traditional healers, like medical doctors, are not a homogenous group (Ensink & Robertson, 1999). The term traditional healer is an umbrella concept that encompasses different types of healers with different types of training and expertise.

Researchers have identified different types of traditional healers in different regions (Freeman & Motsei, 1992; Green & Makhubu, 1984).

In the Bapedi tribe, traditional healers are generally called ‘dingaka’ or ‘mangaka’. The different types of traditional healers include, diviners (‘Ngaka ya ditaola’), Sanusi (‘Sedupe’), traditional surgeons and traditional birth attendants (‘Babelegisi’).

The diviner uses bones and the spirits of the ancestors to diagnose and prescribe medication for different physiological, psychiatric and spiritual conditions.

This category includes those that deal with ‘mafofonyane’ (schizophrenia) and ‘malopo’ (being possessed by the spirits of the ancestors that can be healed without the possessed person becoming a traditional healer him or herself). ‘Malopo’ can be treated by a combination of therapies that include dance (Hammond-Tooke, 1989).

A Sanusi can be both a diviner and herbalist, or as is the case in the African independent Christian churches, in the form of a prophet or what the Zion Christian Church calls ‘lebone’.

This is someone who is possessed by the Holy Spirit and is able to foretell the future and advice on how to avert an undesirable event.

For healing purposes, some of the prophets, as is the case with the prophets in the Aladura church in Nigeria, use water in addition to prayers (Rinne, 2001). They often combine the Christian Holy Spirit with the ancestral spirit which falls within the realm of traditional healing (Truter, 2007).

According to Green and Makhubu (1984), the ‘baporofeta’ (prophets) emerged out of independent churches that sought to Africanise Christianity by including African traditions and customs in their religious practice.

The ‘baporofeta’ and the ‘Africanness’ of the independent churches are some of the major aspects that attract millions of Africans to these churches; hence, the Zion churches are the largest in South Africa (Anderson, n.d.).

It is, however, noteworthy that Green and Makhubu (1984) do not regard the ‘baporofeta’ category as traditional healers although they concede that they share a common theory of health and disease with traditional healers.

The basic difference between faith healers and traditional healers is that the former receive guidance from God and the Angels while the latter are guided by the ancestral spirits.

What is confusing about their argument is that some of the former use herbs at times; how this is connected to God and Angels is not entirely clear (Green & Makhubu, 1984).

Contrary to Green and Makhubu‘s (1984) assertion that ‘baporofeta’ are not traditional healers, the Traditional Health Practitioners Act of South Africa classifies the ‘baporofeta’ as traditional healers (Government Gazette, 2005).

Traditional surgeons include those who are qualified, accredited, trusted and recognised by village chiefs to perform circumcision on boys (Government Gazette, 2005).

Their practice and expertise as surgeons can also encompass the practices and expertise of other types of traditional healers such as diviner and sedupe/sanusi.

Traditional birth attendants are usually older women who have perfected the skill of midwifery over the years through experiencing, witnessing and assisting in many births throughout their adult lives. The skill is transferred from one generation to the other. As a result, any older woman can become a birth attendant.

It remains to be seen if the traditional birth attendant category will survive for long, as more Africans people prefer to give birth in hospitals and not at home as was previously the case.

Traditional Healer http://www.traditional-healer.net
Love spells http://www.traditional-healer.net/love-spells.html
Voodoo healer http://www.traditional-healer.net/voodoo-healer-spells.html
Money spells http://www.traditional-healer.net/money-spells.html
Thwasa training http://www.traditional-healer.net/thwasa-training.html
Fertility spells http://www.traditional-healer.net/fertility-spells.html
Magic rings http://www.traditional-healer.net/magic-rings.html
Ancestral spirits http://www.traditional-healer.net/ancestral-spirits.html
White Sangomas http://www.traditional-healer.net/white-sangomas.html
Spiritual healer http://www.traditional-healer.net