Traditional doctors are coining it as the black business sector mushrooms, report Meshack Mabogoane and Eddie Koch
The growth of black business in South Africa has reinforced another thriving economy — the informal sangoma and muti trade — as new entrepreneurs and executives resort to the supernatural for luck and to protect their cars, taxis, homes and businesses from misfortune.
Interviews with businessmen and traditional doctors this week showed a symbiosis between the emerging black business sector and traditional doctors whose practices are mushrooming, along with black advancement, in urban areas.
This challenges the conventional Eurocentric view that “modernisation” and material development erode “traditional” beliefs in the supernatural.
The way technology and traditional culture intertwine with each other to shape parts of the emerging economy is highlighted in the taxi industry, by far the largest black-owned industrial sector.
Traditional doctors (sangomas) and indigenous healers (inyangas) interviewed this week disclosed that most taxi owners are willing to pay fees of around R500 to ensure their vehicles are protected against malevolent people using the supernatural to stifle or destroy their ventures.
Makhosi Dlamini, an inyanga from the Eastern Cape now based in Gauteng, says this is standard practice. “Not all resort to muti at the beginning. However, the majority do so as part of a heritage and out of experiences in the course of their lives. There are many reasons for this involvement depending on the individual,” he told the Mail and Guardian.
“Some need protection against unknown forces that are likely to affect them. Many come for the charms that count in a business that is so competitive — muti can create a favourable image of a vehicle and driver to attract customers. Others do so to evade the police nets in whatever illicit dealings they are involved with … There are many reasons.”
Dlamini said certain inyangas specialised in providing a service to taxi owners and other businessmen. This specialisation was important for quality treatment and it was, therefore, important for clients to check the type of training that an inyanga had received. “It’s like in medical practice, where the general practitioner may be good for simple ailments, but for complex work you need specialists.”
Among drivers and owners, the ability to find the right sangoma to “work” or protect a vehicle requires much fine tuning and can be compared to the way executives rely on insurance brokers to find them the right company and package of short-term cover.
Other black business sectors are shaped by the same relationship between technology and the supernatural. “This custom is rife throughout black Africa,” says Innocent Brown, representative of the Traditional Doctors’ Association. “But it’s not peculiar to Africans. Many Europeans consult with astrologers, and Asians with gurus and other spiritual practitioners.”
Black executives and professionals also make use of the supernatural to ensure their newly acquired homes, vehicles and other material possesions are “insured”. To protect a home could cost thousands of rand, depending on its location. The more prestigious the locality, the greater the premiums, because the chances of enemies and rivals aiming their malevolent intentions at the home are more likely.
“The ability of some people to influence spiritual forces and cause misfortune is real,” says Brown. “No matter that we now have formal education and exposure to Western material culture, the beliefs and practices of the majority of our people cannot be wished away or considered pure humbug. That’s why many executives and professionals are coming to sangomas. To be forewarned about the unknown requires that one must be forearmed in case mysterious accidents occur.”
It is not only the fear of the unknown and possible evil intentions of rivals that has made the muti industry thrive. Identification with a people’s culture also drives the elite to associate with these practices.
Even major black-owned companies are coming into the open and boldly experimenting with supernatural forces for production. In 1991 and 1993, the Sowetan newspaper made sacrifices to the ancestors in an attempt to counter low staff morale and flagging circulation
“There is a wealth of benefits and lessons from cultures of the people (blacks) who work in businesses. The ceremonies had a deep meaning for me. I was moved to be included in somebody else’s culture,” former general manager of the Sowetan, Rory Wilson, is quoted as saying in a recent edition of Enterprise magazine.
There is also ample evidence that collective bargaining and conditions of employment are being shaped by the same interconnection between the material and the spiritual. In the Northern Province and Eastern Transvaal, a series of labour disputes have been resolved only after management agreed to allow employees to consult sangomas to ‘”sniff out” colleagues accused of using sorcery to bring collective misfortune to the workforce.
For many years unions have been demanding that companies recognise sangomas and inyangas as bona fide medical practitioners.
Although no statistics have been gathered, it is clear that the cultural roots of black business must account for millions of rand in an underground economy that is not taxed and whose internal workings remain closed to scrutiny from the outside.
In response to the growth in the sangoma and inyanga consultations, thousands of practitioners and consultants have been organised into the Traditional Doctors’ Association. The organisation runs an office at Darragh House in downtown Johannesburg and has begun putting details of its members on a computerised data base — all part of upgrading their image, along with the growing sophistication of their clientele.
Hundreds of sangomas have carved a niche in middle- class life and there are reports that some have moved into upmarket suburbs. And many individuals and enterprises have been empowered by owning large muti production and distribution ventures. Both as business and belief, witchcraft is a significant aspect of South Africa’s socio-economy.
“Insecurity in the wake of the growing disintegration of black communities is responsible for an increase in the belief in the supernatural,” says Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo from the African languages department at Wits University. “People are holding on to something, and supernatural practices and beliefs deal with these uncertainties
“But there is also a decrease in these beliefs among the educated and those embracing Christianity. We are in a transitional stage and so many are combining both African beliefs and Christianity; there is no contradiction between the two, just a misunderstanding.”