At least once a week when I walk down High Street towards Grocott’s Mail, I am handed a flyer advertising traditional healing for penis or boob enlargements and making your partner faithful.
At least once a week when I walk down High Street towards Grocott’s Mail, I am handed a flyer advertising traditional healing for penis or boob enlargements and making your partner faithful.
Usually I glance at the advertisement while making a paper aeroplane out of it. But as I was folding the corners of the last flyer, it struck me how trendy traditional healing has become as a form of healthcare among all citizens in society not only people whose cultural heritage is traditional healing.
Well, what does a young, white, South African woman who has been brought up in a westernised home know about traditional healing? Well amid my paper aeroplane folding, I did what any journalist who is probing for a story would do.
I read up on it. Flashing among articles and definitions, I found a warning light. As with all health practitioners, the same question is raised with traditional healers.
Are they genuine? During apartheid, there was a prejudice against traditional healing as being witchcraft and the cause of horrific murders.
But with 80% of the country’s population now consulting traditional healers, it seems that this prejudice is being reconciled.
Intent to do harm is ubuthi which is witchcraft, not umuthi which is practiced by sangomas and is meant to heal.
Age-old forms of treating illnesses have a steady place in modern society with people of all races and from different backgrounds using, practicing and investigating traditional healing.
Don’t think that I don’t notice the sceptical, nervous, questioning expression on the face of the person who hands me the flyer, but he does extend his arm to hand it to me.
Admittedly, at first I took the flyer from him to relieve one from the wad gripped in his palm, but now I take the flyers to see which new traditional healer is advertising their services and to see whether their authenticity is valid, or even evident.
According to an anthropologist and senior research specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council, Dr Pearl Sithole, in South Africa many citizens use umuthi and western treatment interchangeably depending on their illness.
Some of the popularity of traditional healing can be attributed to its accessibility to all people in society, which is visibly evident in Grahamstown.
But the large number of traditional healers makes me question whether all of these practitioners have a faithful stamp.
What makes it more difficult deciding whose practices are genuine is that, in general, traditional healers’ appearances have moulded to modern society.
Western suits are adorned with traditional wear such as beads, skins and head wraps. But deciding which practitioners are authentic is not impossible.
Just as the authenticity of a westernised health practitioner can be checked out with the Department of Health, so too can a traditional healer’s practices be verified before consultation.
Authentic traditional healers are registered at traditional healers’ organisations and have undergone certified training. Unfortunately, unlawful practices are a reality in contemporary society.
Health practitioners have a duty to be trustworthy but power is in the hands of the customer to check out their credibility before making use of their services.
I might continue to make paper aeroplanes out of traditional healers flyers until I need a health practitioner’s services. But if I do, I’ll be sure to check out their authenticity.
