Magister Artium - MA / Amagqirha have been understood solely through the framework of health and illness. Their image is tainted and they are misrepresented as clad bone throwers and mystical scammers. There are very few studies that focus on their involvement outside the context of healing. This study seeks to fill this gap revealing the artistic side of amagqirha. I contend that by focusing on the ritual space which includes song, dance, fashion, poetry and story telling, allows us to reveal the aesthetics of ubugqirha, reconstructing the meanings of traditional healers in contemporary South Africa. Where does knowledge about ritual practice come from? What role do intergenerational narratives play in the meanings of amagqirha? In what ways do the rituals of amagqirha are grounded in a disctinctive aesthetics? With the use informal conversations, close interviews and participating in the rituals of amagqirha in the townships of Nyanga, Khayelitsha and Langa, this thesis argues that traditional healing is a complex form of being in the world which draws heavily from intergenerational knowledges. Furthermore it is artistic in its nature as it includes dance, songs, fashion and poetry.

ABSTRACT The Ministry of Health in South Africa has launched massive campaigns to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. However, South Africa still has more people infected with HIV/AIDS than any other country in the world. This has led to government and health care planners re-evaluating neglected traditional health systems as potential contributors to health care delivery. This report highlights some areas where traditional healers can play a role in the prevention of HIV/AIDS as told by traditional healers themselves. In discussing these roles, the report raises the need for supportive government policy. Up to now government policies on HIV/AIDS have relied largely on biomedical explanations of illness and ignored other popular explanations. This poses a serious problem in a country like South Africa, where a large proportion of the population consults traditional healers first before consulting the medical sector. Such policies also impact on collaborative measures between the two sectors. Thus far, almost all prevention programmes are run by clinics with very little interaction with other sectors. The report then goes on to discuss the perceptions on HIV/AIDS as discussed by traditional healers. In so doing, the report begins to touch on the role of traditional practices that relates to sexual behaviour in HIV/AIDS prevention. As custodians of traditional culture, traditional healers have a huge role to play in re-inventing such practices in a manner that raises awareness about HIV/AIDS and at the same time preventing the spread of the disease.

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Thesis (Ph. D. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Eurocentric literature has contributed towards the understanding of homosexuality for centuries. However, there is very little literature on perceptions of homosexuality from an African perspective. Based on this historical gap, the aim of the current study was to explore Northern Sotho traditional healers’ perceptions of homosexuality in the Capricorn District in Limpopo Province, South Africa. This was with the intention of documenting themes pertinent to Northern Sotho culture regarding homosexuality. Ten (10) participants (7 females and 3 males) were interviewed in the current study and they were selected using snowball sampling. Data was collected using individual face-to-face interviews guided by semi-structured questions and analysed using Thematic content analysis (TCA). The study was underpinned by Afrocentricity. The main themes and sub-themes which emerged from the data analysis were: homosexuality threatens family structure and values; homosexuality is regarded as a taboo and a disgrace; homosexuality and ancestral calling; historical evidence of homosexuality; homosexuality is confusing; homosexuality and western culture; homosexuality and cleansing (mourning process); homosexuality, traditional healing and ancestral calling; homosexuality and initiation schools as well as proposed interventions to curb homosexuality. The results of the study suggest that understanding homosexuality is not consistent with Northern Sotho culture. The study contributes to knowledge and information within Northern Sotho culture and offers suggestions for indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), academic training, policy development and legislation in terms of homosexuality and the indigenous culture. The study also offers guidelines, which health care workers and any other relevant personnel who work closely with homosexuals, should be cognisant of. Furthermore, valuable lessons were also reasoned from the current study in terms of homosexuality and Northern Sotho culture in the area where the research took place. Keywords: Afrocentricity, Culture, Homosexuality, Northern Sotho, Traditional Healer.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The training to become a traditional healer has been under scrutiny because of the symptoms that are experienced during ancestral calling. Ancestral calling usually presents itself in the form of a mysterious physical or psychological illness that will not ordinarily respond to western treatment. The Eurocentric perspective interprets the symptoms of ancestral calling and the resultant process to become a traditional health practitioner as a manifestation of some psychological disturbance. The researcher embarked on a journey with traditional health practitioners to understand their lived experiences and explored the psychological meanings of Vhavenda ancestral calling with a view to identifying and documenting the psychological meanings embedded in this culturally entrenched practice. A qualitative research method located within the interpretative paradigm was used. A descriptive phenomenological research design was adopted to explore the lived experiences of traditional health practitioners who have gone through the process of ancestral calling. Both snowball and purposive sampling methods were used to recruit 17 participants until saturation was researched in the findings. The six major themes that emerged are: a) signs of ancestral calling; b) meaning attached to ancestral calling; c) help-seeking pathway following an ancestral call; d) responding to the ancestral call; e) roles of the master healer; and f) post training realities and experiences. The findings of the study revealed that there are several symptoms that are indicative that one has an ancestral calling. These symptoms are often misunderstood and misdiagnosed when interpreted from the Eurocentric perspective. However, accepting the ancestral calling and going through training is linked with identity formation. The findings also revealed that ancestral calling is a life-transforming and therapeutic experience and a journey of self realisation / South African Humanities Deans’ Association and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Health care service providers in South Africa and elsewhere in the world are increasingly faced with an enormous challenge of modeling their approach to health care to meet the needs and expectations of the diverse societies they serve. The norms and customs that are inherent in these indigenous cultures are fundamental to the day-to-day existence of the people concerned and may hold a key to the understanding of many aspects of their lives, including the understanding of disease, in the case of this thesis, those transmitted sexually. A grounded theory study was used based on its theory of symbolic interactionism to explore the indigenous knowledge and health practices of the Vhavenda in sexually transmitted diseases. Data was collected through in-depth interview with traditional healers and key informants. Snowball sampling was used to idenify key informants as categories continued to emerge. Dara was analyzed using three basic types of coding namely, open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The findings of the study revealed a variety of terms used to identify SDs. Also emerging from the results was that cultural gender roles in the Vhavenda society justify women as sole agents of STDs. In accordance with grounded theory the decriptions of types of diseases, disease patterns, signs and symptoms culminated in "dirt" as the core category. It came out clear that dirt in the form of women'svaginal discharges and moral dirt is the main course of a STDs. It was also evident that strategies for combating STDs will have to take into account popular beliefs and attudes regarding views on STDs as well as the role and influence of traditional healers. Based on the above findings guidelines for designing a module for teaching health professionals has been formulated to aid them in understanding the beliefs and practices of people they serve. / Health Studies / D. Litt et Phil. (Health Studies)

Traditional healers are one among professionals that are viewed as the most significant people in African Society. They are accorded the highest esteem because of the role they play in saving people’s lives and promoting cultural aspects such as ukuhlonipha amasiko in isiZulu. It should be remembered that this word ukuhlonipha which means to respect, is used across cultures to maintain peace within family and society. It all depends on which culture promotes it more than others. It is sociolinguistic truism that ukuhlonipha is essentially linked to the ubuntu philosophy of African people. However, traditional healers more than other people follow ukuhlonipha culture in numerous ways, especially when they meet, being consulted and during traditional ceremonies. They serve and promote what in IsiZulu is known as ukuhlonipha, which to the uninitiated and sometimes even to the scholars of this philosophy is a mystery. It is for this reason and others that people view them as the soul of society. This study looks at relevant sociolinguistic theories especially the politeness theory to analyze most of the hlonipha features shown by traditional healers, apprentice and people during consultation. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

Health care service providers in South Africa and elsewhere in the world are increasingly faced with an enormous challenge of modeling their approach to health care to meet the needs and expectations of the diverse societies they serve. The norms and customs that are inherent in these indigenous cultures are fundamental to the day-to-day existence of the people concerned and may hold a key to the understanding of many aspects of their lives, including the understanding of disease, in the case of this thesis, those transmitted sexually. A grounded theory study was used based on its theory of symbolic interactionism to explore the indigenous knowledge and health practices of the Vhavenda in sexually transmitted diseases. Data was collected through in-depth interview with traditional healers and key informants. Snowball sampling was used to idenify key informants as categories continued to emerge. Dara was analyzed using three basic types of coding namely, open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The findings of the study revealed a variety of terms used to identify SDs. Also emerging from the results was that cultural gender roles in the Vhavenda society justify women as sole agents of STDs. In accordance with grounded theory the decriptions of types of diseases, disease patterns, signs and symptoms culminated in "dirt" as the core category. It came out clear that dirt in the form of women'svaginal discharges and moral dirt is the main course of a STDs. It was also evident that strategies for combating STDs will have to take into account popular beliefs and attudes regarding views on STDs as well as the role and influence of traditional healers. Based on the above findings guidelines for designing a module for teaching health professionals has been formulated to aid them in understanding the beliefs and practices of people they serve. / Health Studies / D. Litt et Phil. (Health Studies)

Traditional healers are one among professionals that are viewed as the most significant people in African Society. They are accorded the highest esteem because of the role they play in saving people’s lives and promoting cultural aspects such as ukuhlonipha amasiko in isiZulu. It should be remembered that this word ukuhlonipha which means to respect, is used across cultures to maintain peace within family and society. It all depends on which culture promotes it more than others. It is sociolinguistic truism that ukuhlonipha is essentially linked to the ubuntu philosophy of African people. However, traditional healers more than other people follow ukuhlonipha culture in numerous ways, especially when they meet, being consulted and during traditional ceremonies. They serve and promote what in IsiZulu is known as ukuhlonipha, which to the uninitiated and sometimes even to the scholars of this philosophy is a mystery. It is for this reason and others that people view them as the soul of society. This study looks at relevant sociolinguistic theories especially the politeness theory to analyze most of the hlonipha features shown by traditional healers, apprentice and people during consultation. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

This master s degree thesis is a ethnographic study on the religious works practiced by the female faith healers in the city of Itabaiana/SE. I attempt to show how these people exercise their cure practices in the several believers through the use of prayers and symbols such as the branch, the water, the oil, etc. Armed with these symbols, the female faith healers perform their healing rituals in private, within their own homes or in some other location such as the backyard, thus free from the interference of religions considered as official. In this research, besides of orality, we also relied on theoretical research of classical anthropology authors, as well as on contemporary authors. Therefore, this study shows that the female faith healers guide their life trajectory inside the popular Catholicism; however, they exercise their healing practices autonomously, fluidly, through symbolic exchanges and religious exchanges among the various spheres of popular and institutionalized religions. / Esta dissertação de mestrado é um estudo etnográfico acerca dos trabalhos religiosos exercidos pelas rezadeiras na cidade de Itabaiana/SE. Procuramos mostrar como essas pessoas exercem suas práticas de curas nos diversos fiéis, mediante o uso de orações e de símbolos como o ramo, a água, o óleo, etc. Munidos desses símbolos, as rezadeiras realizam suas curas em rituais privados, dentro de suas próprias casas ou em algum outro local, como o quintal, livres assim da interferência das religiões tidas como oficiais. Nesta pesquisa, além da oralidade, baseamo-nos também em pesquisa teórica de autores clássicos da antropologia, bem como de autores contemporâneos. Esse estudo, portanto, vem mostrar que as rezadeiras pautam sua trajetória de vida no interior do catolicismo popular; no entanto, exercem suas práticas de curas de forma autônoma, fluida, mediante trocas simbólicas e intercâmbios religiosos entre as várias esferas das religiões populares e institucionalizadas.