Photos from Our World

The iNtfwasa initiation Ceremony in Swaziland (part 5)

Towards the end of the ceremony the tangoma dance again and then the new diviners are helped into an "umfembi", a device draped around their upper body. This helps them to "smell out" bad sprits that may have entered the bodies of their patients. They then perform a "kufemba" ritual in which they carry a "sizinga", a brush that contains, like the "umfembi", magical ingredients; the most important of that is the nose of a hyena: a hyena has a very keen sense of smell and this will help the sangoma to smell out that spirit body.

One by one they are guided past a row of people, sitting on the ground on mats. The sangoma crawls on hands and knees among them, brushing them all over, brushing hersel under her nose and "sneezing the spirits out". When she finds an evil spirit on one of those people she physically attacks him or her; she may grab and wrestle him or her to the ground and even sit on the unfortunate patient. The sangoma, guiding her, tries to pull her off the patient and brushes her under her nose so she can sneeze that spirit out, which breaks the spell. She seems to be in trance and can attack anyone, even small children. Most "patients" take this with good humour.

After this the new tangoma have to sit on a mat and one of the "bogobela" or senior tangoma performs this kufemba ritual on them. Here too bad spirits are smelled and sneezed out. So the newly qualified tangoma are "clean" and then, the red cloths still draped around their shoulders, drink more "umuti", water with traditional medicine in it, calmly stick a finger in their throats and vomit is out again to cleanse them: they are now ready to start life as a fully qualified sangoma.

	Sangoma dance	Putting "umfembi"	Kufemba ritual	Doing "kufemba"
	Attacking the patient	Kufemba on boy	Graduates lined up	Kufemba by seniors
	"Seizing spirit"	Senior's kufemba	Overview kufemba	Ritual vomiting

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