Medicine Man of South Africa

Medicine Man of South Africa

Medicine Man from South Africa photographed circa 1890-1910 for the Photoglob Company by G.W. Wilson. Traditional healers of South Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine. They fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including divination, healing physical, emotional and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft, and narrating the history, cosmology, and myths of their tradition. There are two main types of traditional healers within the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, and Tsonga societies of Southern Africa: the diviner (sangoma), and the herbalist (inyanga). These healers are effectively South African shamans who are highly revered and respected in a society where illness is thought to be caused by witchcraft, pollution (contact with impure objects or occurrences) or through neglect of the ancestors.

Album / Science Source / Library of Congress

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3224 x 4200 px | 38.7 MB

27.3 x 35.6 cm | 10.7 x 14.0 in (300 dpi)