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Sangoma: diviners of Swaziland

A very important member of Swazi society is the "sangoma" or diviner whose role it is to find the cause of misfortune or disease, prescribe actions to recify it and prepare medicine to cure illness. Although often misunderstood by Europeans and given the epithet "witchdoctor", they would more accurately be described as "witchfinder". Witchcraft is an accepted fact, something bad people can do to harm someone else and when, in the colonial days, the European administration made it an offense to be a sangoma or wear the distinguished hairstyle of one, "witchcraft flourished as never before" as the very people who could fight it had been stopped doing so.

This was rectified at Independence and there are now various "schools" where learner "tangoma" (plural of "sangoma") learn their craft. The small homestead of Bethany, near Matsapha in central Swaziland was such a "school", led by LaMabuza, a frendly lady who had about a dozen or more learners staying with her. During this time they had to observe various taboos: they were not allowed to quarrel, shake hands with anybody and have sexual relations, among others.

One of the skills the sanoma had to learn is "Throwing the Bones" ("ematsambo"); a collection of small bones, to which were added a variety of other small objects like beads, dice etc. was thrown on a mat and from the way they would fall the solution to a problem could be divined. And almost every evening there was drumming in the small house that was the learner's base and they would enter, in a trance, grunting and sweating, dance to the drums and communicate the messages of the "emadloti" or ancestral spirits.

Then they would drape a red cloth over their shoulders, the drum rhythm would change to that of the "emaNdzawe" (or Ndau, a people living in Mozambique and Zimbabwe): long ago, a group of Swazis, marauding in the area had come across some cattle belonging to those emaNdzawe; they had been told not to kill those as these cows were reserved to be offered to the ancestral spirits. The Swazi ignored this, killed the cattle and also killed those people daring to oppose them. Since that time the emaNdzawe spirits have haunted them and they need to be placated in these ceremonies. The tangoma were vigourously shaking to the rhythm of the drums and would then speak in a strangled voice in a language that was said to be an old form of Ndau, a language they didn't know when out of the trance.

	Rondavel hut	Senior Sangoma	Reading the Bones	Making medicine
	Tangoma in trance	"Emadloti" ritual	Male "sangoma"	Ceremonial drumming
	Greeting ancestors	"EmaNdzawe" ritual	Possessed by spirits	"EmaNdzawe" ritual

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