iZangoma in Cape Town
For a visitor in Cape Town, luxury hotel accommodations are the centerpiece to a lovely journey. Whether the purpose of the stay is business or pleasure, there is much to see and do in this most beautiful city. Considered by many to be the most stunning place on the continent, if not the world, Cape Town is rich in natural resources, historical interest, and deeply fascinating human cultures. There is a very strong mix of cultural practices here, as the mix of languages would suggest. There is Afrikaans, English, Dutch, French, and a number of indigenous African languages.
Traditional African healing practices are of course very much alive here, and there are tremendously fascinating stories about the practices of the iZangoma. The plural of Sangoma, iZangoma refer to the 200,000 or more traditional doctors here. They practice contemporaneously with doctors of western medicine, and sometimes they work in conjunction to compliment each other, but generally speaking they are in different worlds. There is a deep mistrust toward traditional African medicine, because of its origins in nature, and this also works in reverse, where western doctors are not trusted because of their inability to see the whole patient, only the sickness.
To become a Sangoma, one is usually born into the tradition, with someone in the ancestral line having held this title. Often iZangoma grow up in the traditions, and have a basic knowledge of plants and the spirit worlds. For healings, the Sangoma works with ancestral spirits and spirits of nature to consult them for advice on cures, and methods of healing. Sometimes they use states of trance, or even possession, depending on the temperament of the spirit consulted. They have to have a very thorough knowledge of herbs, and the plethora of plant life in the area means that this knowledge is tremendous. In Cape Town, all the locals would have some knowledge of these traditions, but not necessarily respect. There has been conflict here as in many areas that are culturally specific and especially traditional. But there are more signs that the schools of Western and African thought are coming together, and recently HIV/AIDS awareness has begun to enlist the help of iZangoma to spread information about this disease, since so much of the population here works with these healers.