|
+27-31-266 8472
086 505 8684 (local)
+27-83-311 0675
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| The Zulus believe their daily lives are guided by the spirits of their ancestors, or Amadlozi, and make sacrifices to them to ensure that they look favourably upon them. Ancestors are only seen in dreams, and a diviner or sangoma alone has special powers to communicate with them. People consult a sangoma if a simple sacrifice has failed to bring about the desired results. Diviners are called to their profession by their ancestors, and at first are apprenticed to a teacher and trained to contact the ancestral spirits as a source of inspiration. This enables them to diagnose misfortune and illness. They also locate lost or stolen objects and tell fortunes through a medium of bone-throwing. In this profession women outnumber the men, who have adopted a distinctive beaded attire of their female counterparts - the long wigs threaded with white beads and crossed breast bands of animal skin. Topping their headdresses are inflated bladders of animals which have been sacrificed to ancestors in order to augment the wearers 'power of sight' into the spiritual world. This regalia sets the diviners apart from ordinary members of society and proclaims their supernatural powers. The belief that they alone are able to mediate between people and their ancestral spirits gives them considerable influence. The beads on a sangoma's headdress are said to be strung in loops so that the spirits they call have somewhere to sit as they speak into their ears. A sangoma often works in conjunction with a herbalist or traditional medicinal healer known as an iNyanga. |
 |
|
|
|