Funsho Ogundipe Musician/Composer/Founder Of Ayetoro, Lagos @101Ayetoro

21st Century Sangoma

Dineo’s small arms are heavy with a multitude of red and white beads wound tightly around her wrists. Above them, ispandla made of goat’s hide. She pulls a Jenni Button jacket over her petite frame and heads to the Golf Gti parked in the basement of the Upper East Side Hotel. Onlookers, passer-bys and acquaintances who share the odd polite conversation would never know that she is a Sangoma.There’s a reddish-brown bible on her bookshelf. It props up a year’s worth ofGlamour and Elle magazines; and in the corner of her studio apartment, next to the sliding door that looks out onto the mountain, a sacred shrine on an ox-blood red mat with candles, imphepho (incense), and a spear. There is a perceived clash here. Her apartment holds all the accepted hallmarks of an upwardly mobile modern woman. The greys, the matt blacks and the shiny silvers of post-modernism juxtapose jarringly with the bright crimson spirituality.

She speaks of being a sangoma nonchalantly, absent of the usual over-gesturing and pantomiming that usually accompanies conversations of this nature. She’s more comfortable with her calling now; shedding the long sleeves, high necks and head scarves she wore to hide the chains, beads and shells that signified her reluctant mission. A calling conveyed to her through a series of recurring dreams. In one dream, Dineo would see herself speaking to a woman in an indeterminable language. The woman would respond in her mother-tongue, telling her she has to thwasa. Breezing through my barrage of ignorant questions, she pauses often to explain to me the duality of being a 21st century sangoma. To her, there is no clash, and becoming a sangoma required little adjustment. She attributes this to having a very tolerant dlozi (ancestor).

“Some people’s ancestors are very harsh and strict. They aren’t allowed to wear shoes, they have to look and dress a certain way. Some aren’t allowed to work or go to school. They have to devote themselves fully to healing others. For some, the dlozi must evidence itself physically. If your ancestor walked with a limp, you will begin to walk with a limp. Your voice will change. Your tastes and preferences are altered. One girl who was at training with me, would be left in excrutiating pain when her ancestors entered or left her body. So painful that she would faint. My life however, hasn’t changed much. Every morning and evening, I burn imphepho to cleanse my spirit and my surroundings. I’m not allowed to eat pork and certain parts of an animal, and I have to introduce my partner to my dlozi to bless the union. On the face of it though, I am still very much the same person.”

A beaded white chain hangs off her neck, where a rosary used to be.

Somewhere in the bible, someone warns against the worshipping of false-idols, a prophet warns against false messiahs; but somewhere else in the sacred, ancient texts a holy spirit is sent to live amongst man. A burning bush conveys a command. An angel visits a virgin and tells her she is carrying the child of God. Refiloe Lerumo, a 23 year old business woman and sangoma, claims her ancestors are angels. To her they are medium used by god to convey messages and healing. She is another link in the chain, bringing the ancestral and godly gifts to the masses.

It is difficult to not be cynical of something that superficially, seems so ethereal. Religion and spirituality are often viewed by today’s thinkers as child-like, unrefined solaces for people who lack the ability to deal with the everyday oddities of life. Science is the new God. Science makes sense.

Weekly, The Daily Sun “investigates” laughable tales of withcraft. “Man buys lightning bolt to kill ex-wife”. Monthly, chilling stories about muti murders and suspected witches being burnt or bludgeoned to death make their way to News24. Daily, A8 sized flyers are forced into my hand. Generally Powerpoint productions that fade from blue to a deep purple as they outline, in fractured English, a myriad of ills and spiritual ailments that Gogo so-and-so claims to be able to cure. “Do you have low sex man power? Do you need amagundwane (mice) for riches? Do want to run away court case? Do you want to reduce vagina?” Unfortunately, there is no quality control in the spirit world. No checks and balances exist to distinguish charlatans from bonafide Sangomas, and get-rich-quick scammers who prey on desperation and, sometimes, ignorance. How then do you verify cause and claim in a space where a headache is most likely going to be seen as curse or a spiritual ailment, rather than a physical one?

According to South Africalogue, over 200 000 Sangoma’s practice in South Africa, and over 80% of the population use their services. With consultations ranging anywhere from R50 to R5000, being a Sangoma is serious business. No real barriers to entry + no regulations + no ceiling on fees or medicine prices = opportunistic swindler’s wet dream.

Then there’s the more baleful side. Muti-murders and witchcraft. Potions that rob people of free-will. Suspected witches being bludgeoned and burnt to death. The genitalia of young girls are used to concoct fertility medicine. Wise men are decapitated, and their brains brewed to make potions for increased intelligence. Human blood is consumed to strengthen health, and extend life spans. This is the side that no-one wants to talk about. Veiled in secrecy, the community of traditional healers is happy to leave the sinister aspects to speculation. Refiloe confirms that the use of powers and trade of human body parts is real. “Some people use their gifts to cause to cause harm, but it always catches up with them eventually. The ancestors cannot be abused.” Still, the practise continues, and with no open dialogue, very little can be done to eradicate it.

The Traditional Healers Organisation aims to provide some legitimacy. They train and certify traditional healers, but their attempts to lend them any credibility is undermined by their own administrational failures. None of the sangomas I spoke to were registered with them, and all emails and phonecalls directed to the organisation went unanswered. Suffice to say then, their fancy website aside, they will not be the new age bridge between traditional healers and western civilisation.

Refiloe is what I’ve termed a Cyber Sangoma. On her website, she offers online readings and consultations. Another opportunity to be sceptical. She says reason behind the website is to provide clients with convenient access to her, but however noble its intentions are, one can’t help but sartorially picture her dumping her bag of bones and die onto the keypad of a Mac computer. Without physical contact, how is Refiloe able to connect to some else’s ancestors? Are the ancestors at peace with their gifts being used in this somewhat impersonal manner? Is my inability to grasp this just another indication of my ignorance, and complete lack understanding?

Where white is the colour of peace and tolerance, harsh shades of red are the colours of being a Sangoma. Forceful and unrepentant, it burns brazen with the colour of passion and heat, defiant of whether or not it is legitimised in an increasingly critical world. But there is a lot of grey scattered amongst the red. Questions that cannot be answered. Conversations that will not be held. The murkiness of the unknown, the unquantifiable. And while there is no method to prove the unproveable, the industry continues to grow, raking in millions of Rands a year. This faith-based contract is built on cultural legacy and funded by today’s money; but despite its popularity and profitability, it is still largely unrecognised by both the lawmakers and practitioners of modern medicine.

We’re reluctant to openly embrace it, and yet we’ve included alternative eastern practise as part of modern life. Yoga in the morning, acupuncture for healing; what is it about sangomas that discomforts us so? Is it because it represents a part of us that was meant to have died a long time ago? A backward notion held by the natives who refuse to be integrated into a globalised South Africa? Or is our reluctance to recognise it actually a fear? A phobia brought about our uneasy relationship with the great “unknown”. Do we need Madonna to do for it what she did for Kabbalah? Maybe get Mandoza to jump up and down on Noeleen’s couch before we pay it any heed? Perhaps what we need to be doing, is accepting Traditional Healers as a relevant part of South Africa, and not a relic of the dark days. Because one thing is certain, our denialiasm will not deter its prevalence

**This article was written by Lindokuhle Nkosi and initially published on Mahala. (http://www.mahala.co.za/)

AfroSuperHero: Kesiah Jones aka Captain Rugged, occupe les rues de Lagos prêt à défendre le pauvre et l'opprimé. 

Musique Kesiah Jones - Illustrations Native Maqari

Time is not a general framework but a provisional result of the connections among entities. Modern discipline has reassembled, hooked together, systematized the cohort of contemporary elements to hold it together and thus to eliminate those that do not belong to the system. This attempt has failed; it has always failed. There are no longer - has never been - anything but elements that elude the system, objects whose date and duration are uncertain. It is not only the Bedouins and the !Kung who mix up transistors and traditional behaviours, plastic buckets and animal-skin buckets. What country could not be called ‘a land of contrasts’?

Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (1991)

Breathtaking Photos of Witch Doctors and Healers Reveal the Spiritual Diversity of Bolivia

Frances Bodomo | Writer/Director

Frances Bodomo is a Ghanaian filmmaker who grew up in Ghana, Norway, California, and Hong Kong before moving to New York City to study film at Columbia University (BA) and the Tisch School of the Arts (MFA). Her goal is to make conceptually strong films that bring fresh African images to the international forefront. 

Her first short film, Boneshaker (starring Oscar-nominee Quvenzhané Wallis), premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and played at over 20 film festivals including Telluride, SXSW, LA Film Fest, and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Her latest short film, Afronauts (recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Production Grant & Spike Lee Fellowship), will premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. She is developing the feature version of the film. 

She was most recently accepted into the 2014 Berlin Talents program. @tobogganeer

Lu dans Oruun : Vitshois, un artiste épris de “librisme”...

oruun 

Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo est sans doute un des artistes congolais contemporains qui va marquer sa génération. Ayant développé une technique de collage à partir d'images récoltées dans les magazines de mode, cet artiste travaille sur le message d'un monde globalisé et dans le même temps chaotique d'où peut sortir quelque chose d'inédit. Sa notion de contemporanéité se rapporte ainsi à une idée de création résultant de rencontres, de chocs et de brassage des cultures. Héritier de la philosophie du librisme, Vitshois questionne de manière quasi permanente la place de l'art congolais sur l'échiquier du marché de l'art contemporain international. C'est donc dans une volonté d'échapper aux frontières géographiques et culturelles qu'il a créé sa propre structure à Kinshasa. Il propose à des jeunes artistes congolais sortis de l'académie des Beaux-Arts un lieu où ils peuvent venir expérimenter, échanger, apprendre et développer à travers leur travail une identité artistique propre. Une identité libérée de tout carcan et autres cases dans lesquelles, malheureusement, on essaie souvent de les confiner.

la suite ...

Barkley L. Hendricks, Lawdy Mama, 1969

Video de 1975 de la Tout Pouissant O.K. Jazz en un canal de televisión local de la época. Una de las formaciones musicales con mayor influencia en la música africana y con grandes intérpretes y creadores en sus filas.

Chaque fois que les liens familiaux se défaisaient, chaque fois qu'on se dressait contre son semblable, l'Histoire se répétait. Douloureusement, impitoyablement, dans un entre-soi subsaharien. La traite négrière était à inscrire au patrimoine tragique du genre humain. Parce qu'elle avait impliqué des régions différentes du monde. Parce que les bourreaux n'avaient pas été que d'un seul côté. Parce qu'elle était, à cette échelle-là, le premier crime contre l'humanité dont on ait gardé trace. Celui qui trop longtemps ignoré, avait engendré les autres. Une fois qu'on avait réduit des humains à cela, qu'hésiterait-on à commettre? Devant quoi reculerait-on? Aux quatre coins du monde on se surpasserait pour défier l'horreur. La zone subsaharienne du Continent était concernée au premier chef. Elle avait été la source unique du trafic. On ne s'étaient pas servi ailleurs. Et depuis, les rapports de cette région avec le reste du monde demeuraient les mêmes. Elle était le puits sans fond d'où les autres tiraient leur croissance. Et, comme par le passé, il se trouvait toujours une main autochtone pour participer au crime. Les soulèvements populaires observés çà et là, loin du regard de la Communauté internationale, ne venaient jamais à bout des régimes scélérats. Le mal venait de loin.

Léonora Miano, Les aubes écarlates. Sankofa cry. Plon, 2009.

Mbari is a visual art form practiced by the Igbo people in southeast Nigeria consisting of a sacred house constructed as apropitiatory rite.  Mbari houses of the Owerri-Igbo, which are large opened-sided square planned shelters contain many life-sized, painted figures (sculpted in mud to appease the Alusi (deity) and Ala, the earth goddess, with other deities of thunder and water).Other sculptures are of officials, craftsmen, foreigners (mainly Europeans), animals, legendary creatures and ancestors. Mbari houses take years to build and building them is regarded as sacred. A ceremony is performed within the structure for a gathering of town leaders. After the ritual is complete, going in or even looking at the Mbari house is considered taboo. The building was not maintained and decayed in the elements.

Chinua Achebe, renowned Nigerian novelist and literary theorist said, in his essay on Mbari, “Mbari was a celebration through art of the world and of life lived in it. It was performed by the community on command by its presiding deity, usually the Earth goddess, Ala, who combined two formidable roles in the Igbo pantheon as fountain of creativity in the world and custodian of the moral order in human society.

Afrakans consist integration with the spirit of the land and heavens. Symbolism and Spirituality in all aspects of life.- Khepri Neteru