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Traditional Healers
in South Africa
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While at the 13th Int'l AIDS Conference, Global Focus Films sat in on numerous dry monologues given during sessions focused on developments in drug treatment protocols and their studies (some researchers were clearly offended when confronted about the lack of control groups in their African studies), we wandered the display booths and chatted with some of the 12,000 delegates representing international nonprofits, NGOs, CBOs, activists, traditional healers and PLWAs. We met the great Credo Mutwa, sub-Saharan Africa's most renowned traditional healer, storyteller and philosopher.
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Credo Mutwa
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"We have a project in an area called Witbank, which is particularly an industrial area," says Grace Mnguni, Program Director for AFXB*. "There are a lot of coal mines and so forth there. From our perspective, it is a rural area. In South Africa we have urban and rural areas. In rural areas a lot of people believe in traditional healers. Before they go to a doctor, hospital or clinic they first go to a traditional healer. Especially people who have TB. Many believe they have it because somebody poured a 'muti' in their food and that's why they are coughing. They always find an explanation that will take them back to their traditional healer.
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"Traditional healers are a very important part to bring on board. Especially when you talk about HIV/AIDS because they are educated. We have a program where we teach them to be able to identify opportunistic infections. If somebody has diarrhea, they say there's something bad in your tummy and there is a mixture they give that makes your tummy run. So we say if somebody does have diarrhea, you don't give them that mixture, that person shouldn't be made to vomit. Another thing, there is a system they use we call 'uctava' where they take a razor and cut you here (pointing to wrist) and here (pointing to neck).
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"They then apply a mixture to those areas and say it makes you strong. We encourage them that if they have to do that, people must bring their own razors to reduce the risk of transmission. Traditional healers are a group that shouldn't be left out. If they are left out, you are leaving out 80% of the community. Plus, some of the herbs they are using are actually working in dealing with opportunistic infection, in stopping diarrhea and healing sores.
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"There is not, however, a traditional healer that can cure AIDS. They come to us every now and then and say, 'I have a mixture that cures people.' There was a case of a traditional healer who promised somebody who was HIV-positive that they would give them 50,000 Rand (approximately $7,500) if that person would say they had been healed by them and were now HIV-negative. That would then bring many people willing to pay."
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How do you begin to bridge the gap
between biomedical professionals
and traditional healers?
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"It can be very difficult," says Grace, "but with this pandemic we are seeing the first step. Over the years there hasn't been a disease where we could actually say we need to bring these people in, that we need to recognize them as healers. When you say that you educate the community, you hear about traditional healers and spiritual healers," says Grace. "We in the community have recognized that you cannot talk about educating and preventing HIV/AIDS without this other group. But you bring them in with the understanding that they are playing a role with the HIV-positive individual.
"It hasn't been easy. The Western medical profession has not recognized them as doctors or healers. AIDS has made them step back and say, 'Hey, the people we are trying to help are first consulting with traditional healers.' What we are seeing is healers referring people to hospitals but not the other way around," says Grace.
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Of tremendous concern to the producers of Global Focus Films was the lack of inclusion of traditional healers on any of the panels in sessions focused on tradition healing at the 13th International AIDS Conference in South Africa in July 2000. All panelists and presenters were biomedical professionals, most of them doctors. In an effort to help bridge the gap between these two necessary groups in the fight against HIV/AIDS we encourage the use of such workshops as described on the web page below.
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To learn more about efforts to bridge the gap between effective collaboration between traditional healers and biomedical professionals CLICK HERE.
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Photos and text by Kellie Gibbs.
*Representations of people on this page are not an indication of their HIV/AIDS status.
Copyright 2000
Global Focus Films
All rights reserved.
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