The Amagqira: Surviving The Townships Of South Africa

In the townships of Cape Town—Guguleto, Langa, Nyanga, Crossroads—are the scene of much civil disorder and police and army repression in recent years. The work of the amagqira-sangoma is to a far greater extent than in the other urban settings that of providing solace and encouragement and social network support to the many who come to them. African society of the townships has very little genuine authority. A survey taken in Guguleto found one in four households was involved in one way or another with an ngoma network: as sufferer-novice, mid-course-novice, or graduated and practicing healer-diviner (igqira-sangoma). In addition to the churches, trade unions, legal or illegal political groups, and the mistrusted township committees, the ngoma structure is one of the most pervasive dimensions of the social fabric.

As already noted, the institutional structure of ngoma in Cape Town is unitary, that is, without disparate, named ngoma orders, as in Kinshasa or Dar es Salaam, despite the varied ethnic backgrounds of the Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, or Tswana participants, and without the hierarchy of modes of divining and possession, as in Swaziland. Divination is done without any discernible paraphernalia, more as a Western social worker interviews clients. The third party who "agrees" or "disagrees" with the divination is, however, on hand.

The participants of ngoma in Cape Town, when interviewed about their own histories, reveal the usual accounts of headaches, weakness, disorientation, and other afflictions; of dreams of ancestors or of healer-dancers with furred and beaded costumes. There are many novices, but not all make it through the therapeutic initiation to become builders of personal networks. Yet those who do make it through the initiation, the "course through the white," far from fitting the classic image of the psychotic healer, strike one as very strong individuals who have overcome psychological and social contradictions to act out their calling and to be pillars of society.

The following case illustrates some of the characteristic stresses of life for blacks in the Western Cape, where there is chronic anxiety related to jobs, in view of the pass laws and a 42 percent illegal worker presence. There is extensive tuberculosis in the black population; frequently an outbreak of TB accompanies joblessness and malnutrition. The incidence of broken or fragmented families is very high, as is the rate of single mothers and working women living alone.

A Case Study In Initiation To Ngoma

This was Ntete's second initiation-therapy undertaken after a two-year lapse and much suffering since the first attempt to come to terms with his twasa (call) and affliction. He had gone to the north Sotho homeland Qwaqwa to "accept his illness" (invuma kufa ) and to take over his grandmother's beads (i.e., the family line as healer). He had done the initial steps, the goat sacrifice, but he continued feeling bad; it had not worked out. So he had returned to Cape Town, to his wife and children, and his job with a stainless-steel pots-and-pans company, and—accordingly—a house permit. But sickness had followed him; he could not continue the instructions and therapies. Headaches, nose-bleeding, and most recently what he had feared was a heart attack had brought him into the hospital.

Yet he continued dreaming of a particular woman with beads. After two years of this, he decided to take up his case anew. He had gone to Elsie, an igqira (healer), whose judgment was that the figure in his dreams was really igqira Adelheid Ndika. So he came to her, and a week later they were holding the goat sacrifice and the nthlombe celebration that inaugurated his novitiate with her.

Adelheid, his sponsoring igqira, was accompanied by several other fully qualified healers. In characteristic Western Cape manner, they represented a cross section of Southern African societies. Of the seven fully qualified healers present, four were Zulu, three Xhosa. Their training had been with Swazi, Sotho, Xhosa, and Zulu healers. Ntete was Sotho. Present also were the dozen or so novices of the head healer of this event; they would participate in ngoma therapy sessions and in the welcoming of Ntete to their cell group. This event, like most ngoma activity in South Africa, had to be fitted into the work schedules of the participants. Whereas custom called for those entering their apprenticeship to be in continuous seclusion, this was not possible in urban South Africa. Thus the fragmentation of life extended to this area as well. Ritual mat-

ters had to be dealt with on weekends when others could get free from their jobs and when the principal figures themselves had the time to deal with their personal conditions. Of the women present, some were domestic workers in whites' homes, nurses, and teachers. The men were factory workers, drivers, or in one case, the owner of a fleet of vehicles.

This initiation nthlombe was held in one of those standard South African government houses for blacks with four cramped rooms and a small backyard (see fig. 6). This rectangular space was transformed, according to some informants, into ritual space corresponding to the Nguni homestead: the street became the courtyard, the front room the rondevaal house, and the backyard the cattle kraal. The ritual spaces also corresponded to Central and Southern African categories dividing the human or domestic from the ancestral spaces. Throughout the weekend event, next-door neighbors ignored the nthlombe, attended at times by up to 150 people.

The first stage of the event on Saturday morning, calling on the ancestors and preparing the novice for "entering the white," was held in the "living room" with the presiding igqira and two colleagues. Several signs of whiteness were prepared. Ntete was dressed in a white toga over his white undershirt. His face was smeared with white kaolin. Medicine (ubulau ) in a bucket, made from several plants, was stirred into a froth and smeared on his face and body. This was done during a series of songs that invited the ancestors to come and be with the initiate (plate 16).

Now thoroughly "white," the novice, led by his sponsoring igqira and his father, and followed by the amagqira and others present, proceeded to the backyard to construct the ceremonial kraal out of old boards and some twigs, both substitute materials, since the appropriate plants were not at hand. The goat was brought into the kraal beside the kneeling novice. The pails of medicine and beer were placed before the goat. It was made to kneel and also drink from the liquids. The animal about to be sacrificed was taking the same substance, taking the sufferer's old person upon itself, to die vicariously. As the goat was held down it bellowed loudly, and the singing increased in volume and tempo. The goat's bellow was a good sign, indicating its consent to die for the novice's life and health. The goat's jugular vein was cut and the blood spilled out onto the ground. When the goat was still, the drumming and singing stopped, and the skinning of the carcass began. A fire was lit nearby within the enclosure. A strip of meat was cut from the

[Full Size]

Figure 6. 
Plan of house, compound, and street in Cape Town township setting
where Ntete's therapeutic initiation was held, as described in text: (a) living
room and intermediate ritual space where all ngoma sessions are held, as
well as "calling down ancestors"; (b) kitchen; (c) bedroom; (d) storage
room; (e) backyard and transformed "cattle kraal" for most sacred site
where sacrifice is performed; (f) secular public space where "coming out"
is held and where darkness of pollution is "thrown away."

right side of the animal and roasted, representing the umshwamu , the last place to twitch near the heart, indicating the life of the goat. Ntete ate bits of this meat in a solemn communion with the sacrificed life.

I had to leave shortly after this because dusk was failing and it was illegal for me, a white person, to remain in a black township overnight. My hosts did not want an incident and urged me to drive to my home without stopping or opening my car window or door in the township.

Later the other novices would begin to "do ngoma" together, the short presentations followed by singing in rapid sequences (discussed at greater length in chapter 4). When I returned late morning of the following day, it was apparent that they had gone on most of the night, for there were novices asleep in chairs. One was slumped back with feet

on the drum and head against the wall. In the kitchen three pots of goat meat and potatoes and cabbage were cooking over a gas fire, preparing the sacrifice of yesterday for today's feast.

At noon the presentation of novices and the dancing continued for a time, as others came: family of the novice, some neighbors, other diviner-healers and their novices. Novice Ntete's family spoke in gratitude and encouragement for the session. Again, the medicine and beer pails were put before the novice, who was still dressed in a white blanket with white face, hands, and feet. The entire group moved in procession to the "kraal" for the first donning of the novice's beads and bits of the goat's hair. He would also now receive his new ngoma name.

The first string of white beads went around his head. The goat's gallbladder was attached to the string at the front of the forehead. Just as the gall is bitter, so this bladder would ward off danger. A second string of beads around the head would "hold his head," for that is where his sickness was. A string of beads and goat hair around his neck represented his acceptance of his "called" (ntwasa ) condition. Other strings with goat hair were put on his wrists and ankles. These were the beginnings of his igqira costume, which would grow and become elaborate over time as he dreamed and developed his own identity. His stark, plain white robe and beads contrasted markedly with the colorful beadwork of the full amagqira and their elaborate wild animal skin dresses.

Mid-afternoon, Sunday, the entire group moved through the house onto the street to present the new novice to the public. The crowd of onlookers grew around the assembled full amagqira and novices, and the family and friends of Ntete. In a speaking and song-dance pattern reminiscent of that used in earlier sessions by the novices, here the full amagqira and sangoma took their turns exhorting Ntete, then breaking into song-dance, which was joined by everyone around (plate 17). After thirty minutes for this presentation, novices gathered inside and continued with self-presentation and song-dancing. For the first time Ntete joined them, one of a dozen white-clad amakwetha (novices) under Adelheid's supervision.

This event, typical of the ngoma networking in the townships of the Western Cape, combined several key features of the ngoma institution: the entry of a troubled individual into a cell under the supervision of a senior healer; participation in what we might call an ngoma working session in which novices present their thoughts, dreams, and anxieties

and join the other novices with singing; commemorating critical passages in this career of an ngoma participant with a sacrifice and a communal meal. Moments in these careers, and constellations in the networks, bring together fully qualified healers and their novices to listen, counsel, console, share, sing, dance, and commune.

The Western Cape extension of this widespread African institution offers both some apparently basic features of the historic institution, as well as some unprecedented changes having to do with the uniqueness of the South African urban setting. Many of the ngoma participants are "illegals"; others are legal residents and can host events such as this. The migratory labor situation requires working residents in the townships to collapse their ritual status into weekend moments in order to meet the expectations of their jobs. The strains of pass laws and residence restrictions in South Africa make the dominant distresses those of families breaking up, of being paid meager wages for difficult work, of chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, and of being told by whites and by the system that they are worthless. Against this, the sodalities of ngoma and the longings for family ancestors are a haven and a coping resource.

Conclusion

The foregoing cases and resumes of problems typify those brought to ngoma diviners and therapists. Most cases of this kind are dealt with on an individual or family basis and are referred to a range of other therapists as well. Only a few of the cases are diagnosed as appropriate for full therapeutic initiation by ngoma dance and song. In both Nguni and Sotho-Tswana societies the diagnosis ukutwasa characterizes these latter, meaning they have been singled out by the spirits or ancestors, and afflicted. As in the Central African examples cited above, so the Southern African "twasa" cases demonstrate very little symptom-sign specificity. The question of who is singled out or called in this manner needs to be answered in connection with a more general study of contextual issues. It is not appropriate to assume that the twasa diagnosis, or call, corresponds to Western psychoanalytic or therapeutic labels. In fact, there may be better reason to suspect that this diagnosis singles out individuals for recruitment to ritual leadership roles on the basis of characteristics of greater sensitivity, ego strength, and cultural receptivity in a time or situation of stress.

Affliction cults in Central and Southern Africa have thus expressed the classic theme of identifying and utilizing marginality, adversity, risk, or suffering for the ever-necessary task of renewing society in the face of profound economic and social change.