ANCESTORS & INNOCENTS
Why children are answering the call
● For six months, Thembi Mnisi would wake up before 3am every day to take her place in the hut of her mentor in Soweto to receive sangoma training.
A few hours later, she would take her seat at her primary school in Westbury, ready to start another part of her education.
Last week her ukuthwasa (sangoma training) was completed and the Grade 7 pupil, who was teased at school for “practising witchcraft”, says she can now focus on getting to high school.
Thembi turned 13 on Monday. In 2015 Kyle Todd, then 11 years old, made headlines as the youngest trained sangoma in SA.
The sangoma who trained Thembi, Zanemvula Mthembu, says though it is unusual for youngsters to get the calling, the ancestors are increasingly seeking out young people “as more adults have converted to Western religions”.
Thembi said this week: “It’s been very hard. I was so tired all the time at school and then my friends started to tease me. They called me names and said I was into witchcraft because of my beads and my hair [worn in the traditional siyendle ochrecoloured locks].”
She said the school made her cover her hair. “When I was tired, it was hard to concentrate. The ancestors were constantly taking my attention away from school work.”
Her mom, Ella Mkhize, said Thembi began her journey after she became sick last year. Doctors struggled to find the cause.
“We even took her for scans at a hospital after she began to throw up blood. We were very worried. Then a doctor suggested we speak to her ancestors. It was new to us, but we had tried everything else.”
They remembered friends speaking about Mthembu and took Thembi there.
“He confirmed to us Thembi had received the calling and in February she started her training with him. At that time her health also started to improve,” Mkhize said.
Thembi later admitted she was secretly aware she was being called but loved school and did not want to listen to the ancestors.
“Now that my training is done I feel completely new. Before, I thought of becoming a chartered accountant. Now I am unsure of my path. I will still have a career alongside being a sangoma. I feel like the past six months have changed me, but I know I did well in my exams,” she said.
Mthembu, 37, said irrespective of age, all trainees went through the same stringent ukhuthwasa. “I recently heard of a child as young as 10 going for ukhuthwasa. The ancestors are calling for the young as the older generations become more defiant.
“It’s not easy to train young or old sangomas. I once had a 68-year-old sangoma who was diabetic, with high blood pressure. It wasn’t easy to get her out of bed at 3am to
I recently heard of a child as young as 10 going for ‘twasa’. The ancestors are calling for the young as the older generations become more defiant Zanemvula Mthembu, above Thembi Mnisi’s mentor
greet the ancestors. So you have to be strict!”
Todd’s trainer, Solomon Mathebula, said the boy, who changed his name to Frank Marshall after becoming a sangoma, was taking a break from the media until he finished his schooling.
Mathebula said when Frank moved with his parents from Pretoria to Musina in Limpopo, he had to change schools after being attacked by boys who had seen media reports about him.
“We will wait until he has matured more, when he can defend himself — not with his hands but his voice. I still get a lot of calls for people wanting him to do a reading. He’s very good. It’s better to train them young. I have a girl who is eight years old who started practising last year. She got the calling when she was six,” Mathebula said.
Phepsile Maseko‚ national co-ordinator of the Traditional Healers Organisation, said because traditional health practice was both spiritual and a science, it was difficult “to regulate spirituality”.
“Young and old can have idlozi [the spirit which enables a person to become a healer] and be expected to develop it to its full potential and later return to their other life. We have a limited number of young amathwasa, who we encourage to return to school to complete their education.”