I literally just finished up a photo shoot, so I'm like "I feel like talking about this."
I feel like talking about this because it just came up.
Hello and welcome to Sangoma Society.
My name is Honey Makwakwa.
I am Makhosi Nomabutho emsamo and this is Sangoma Society where we demystify all things
pertaining African ancestral spirituality.
I just finished a photoshoot where different kind of health care workers are being photographed
for a certain body of work and I was being photographed as a sangoma, inyanga, a traditional
healer and other people's angles, you know, they're like a portrait, that Getty Images
portrait that you know is what a doctor looks like to show concern, what a health care worker
looks like...
And then there's you, isangoma and now the angles have to change, and it's got to be
like that angle that goes, you know, shooting you from below so that you appear larger than
life, so you appear authoritative and it's like, but that's not how other health care
workers are perceived.
Why is it that the minute we start to speak about izangoma in any capacity: as health
care workers, as individuals, as members of our communities, as leaders in our communities,
immediately we start with the deification, you know?
We start creating these godlike deities, these other entities.
We don't say "Oh, this is a person who works in this capacity."
We just take it to that place.
I think that if we're honest with ourselves we will examine the gaze and where we inherit
this gaze from, because it is a very western gaze wherein African healers are looked at
as something mystical and not part and parcel of the fabric of a society.
When somebody comes to a sangoma or inyanga egarding physical ailments, there is this
understanding, the same understanding that someone from the West might have when going
to another kind of medical doctor, that "this doctor can see things that I can't see.
This doctor understands certain symptoms and knows how to determine, based on those symptoms,
what my ailment might be."
Just as when you go to a Western doctor, you know that as much as you may present as a
healthy-looking person, because they have certain ways of understanding symptoms that
you would see that are indicative of what's going on inside of your body, you have that
expectation of understanding.
It's the same thing when you come to a sangoma, there is that expectation that this person
will be able to see what is happening in your spiritual body, you know?
You expect a prescription the same way you expect a prescription from a doctor, you know,
of the Western inclination.
So why is it that we're looking at these two medical practitioners in these very different
ways?
Because just as much as doctors are studied, izangoma are also studied.
You can't just wake up and then now you're a sangoma, you know?
Same way you can't just wake up and then now you're a doctor.
It doesn't work like that.
But then immediately when we say isangoma, when we say inyanga, when we say ngaka, then
now there becomes this deification.
Why is that?
Where is that gaze coming from?
The minute we start engaging with a healer, a healthcare worker essentially through that
gaze, we start divorcing ourselves from our autonomy in this dynamic.
We start putting ourselves in the position of gazer, you know?
As opposed to seeing yourself as someone who is actively engaging with the dynamics of
their spirituality.
You cannot engage in an egalitarian way with your spirituality if you're seeing it as something
so other and something mystic, magical, you know?
I know we've got jokes and we talked about Hogwarts and we, you know, do all that but
that's just banter.
Let's get serious.
When we're talking about ubungoma and your ancestors, you have a responsibility, you
have a role regardless of your age and regardless of whom you are in your family, you have your
own individual role and relationship with your ancestors and you can't leave that, you
can't surrender that to magic.
This is not magic and this perception of ubungoma, bo ngaka, bunyanga, being magical is a result
of the Western gaze.
And I think that we all engage in it in some way to some extent, whether we're aware of
it or not.
Even those amongst us who are practitioners, how we show up as heinous and the performance
that goes part and parcel with that.
I'm not talking about trancing, I'm not talking about that.
I'm not talking about ukugida.
Please don't get me wrong.
I'm talking about us as individuals in the real world when we are simply engaging on
a day-to-day basis with the world around us and how we perform the engagement and how
that could either aid or dissuade a relationship with the ancestors.
It's just something that, you know, I think about a lot.
And I wanted to talk about it today because it came up today.
I hope that me bringing this up today gives you a moment to pause and think about how
it may be coming up in your life.
How the gaze may or may not be showing up in your life and in your relationship with
your ancestors.
If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to drop them in the comment
section below.
And until next week.
I am Makhosi Nomabutho.
Makhosi.