I know that y’all have heard about how SOME sangomas are drop dead corrupt in everyway possible. So, I’m going to share a story about how my cousin underwent intwaso even though she had no ancestral calling.

A thread
#Threadist

It didn’t come as a surprise when we got a call from my cousin saying that she had enrolled into ephehlweni to undergo sangoma training. You see, it is an open secrete that almost everyone in my family has some kind of a spiritual gift.

And no, being spiritually gifted doesn’t mean that one has to be a sangoma in a sense of working with herbs and divinations. Healing can be done in many ways. Some people heal through music and dance, some through prayer and prophecies, and some through storytelling...

Some people heal through teaching and counseling, while others heal through divinations and herbal remedies.

Even when it comes to the conventional way of healing, there are different ways to which one can heal or be healed.

We have abathandazi, who pray for water without adding any other element to it,while others would add ash to that holy water, and some would put seven burning matchsticks in that holy water. So you see..even when it comes to healing through prayer,there are many ways of doing it.

Even when it comes to sangomas, they all have different ways of healing. The muti/traditional medicine they use is also different. Some sangomas will only use iziwasho,these are the simple homemade remedies e.g Cow urine for blood pressure and Intuma for toothaches.

Some sangoma’s administer muti for acute illnesses only, while some will use muti that would require incantations and special spells too. Some sangomas specialize in performing rituals to banish evil spirits or cleanse cursed people and spaces.

Other sangomas don’t even do divinations but will help you by aiding communication between you & your ancestors. While others only do dream interpretations and informational counseling.

Common denominator: IT ALL HEALS.

So, coming from a family that has people using almost all these forms of healing, I was already curious on what Nomkhosi was about to bring to the table.

I lowkey wished she came close to fakazi, an ancestor of ours who was a bad ass sangoma!

Legend has it that even Shaka’s sangoma came from our clan. We were a renowned clan of rain makers, and we earned great praises for it.

So when she told us about heeding her calling, We were happy for her even though her calling was a new thing to us.

We had never heard or seen her showing signs of being a vessel to our forefathers. We come from a long line of traditional healers and abathandazi, prophets...so we thought someone in the family would’ve noticed that she had an ancestral calling. Nevertheless, we supported her.

Two months later, my uncle called my cousin’s Gobela to ask if we could visit Nomkhosi, my cousin.

Gobela-A person(sangoma)chosen by the ancestors to guide you on your way to becoming a sangoma yourself.

The Gobela was a bit hesitant at first but he was no match for my uncles slippery tongue. A date was set and I was allowed to tag along. You bet I was excited! Aside from the fact that I am a story-collector by nature, My soul always finds peace when I’m in those kind of spaces..

Who would miss out on an opportunity to visit the place where healers are moulded?!

The funny thing is that on the day we were supposed to visit Nomkhosi, I didn’t want to go anymore. My spirit was just down... I guess you could say I woke on the wrong side of the bed that day.

I told my uncle I didn’t feel like going anymore but he reminded me of how Nomkhosi also supported me when I was going throughout a rough patch. Shit!
He got me!
I yielded defeat and went with them.

Before we left, my uncle burnt some incense to let the ancestors know that we were going to see Nomkhosi, where they had sent her to be trained. According to our understanding, ancestors are the ones who would show you the exact location of where you are to be trained.

Sometimes they show you your Gobela, way before you formally meet him/her. In most cases, they even eshow you what essentials you should take along with you to ephehlweni. They do all of this through a series of vivid dreams and visions that are honestly hard to ignore.

He.e mahn, on our way to Gobela’s house, my teeth started to chatter even though I wasn’t feeling cold. I held a grin to stop myself from annoying everyone on the car. My knees also started trembling & I was all of a sudden nervous... yup, I kept all of this to myself.

We pull over outside Gobela’s fancy aluminum gate. Hhay cha, judging from these nicely grey-painted extra high walls enveloping this place... this Gobela is monied! The neighbor’s houses aren’t bad neither. This is one of those 5-to-suburbs Townships. The streets are not busy...

There are no kids playing scotch or marbles outside.There are no Kota tuckshops and salons at every corner of the street. It’s quiet nje.

Sigh.

The gate opens up & my heartdrops when I see a peer crawling all the way from the gate, leading us to the backyard, where Gobela was.

Bathi initiates are not allowed to walk on their feet when inside this Gobela’s premises. Yimbi!

At the back, there are 3 other initiates who are painfully busking on the sun while lying on bare ground. Their eyes are wide opened but I see no life in them.

Their melanin bodies glisten in the sun, but not in a way that shows glory. Flies are crawling on their dusty legs. No one could’ve prepared me for this.

Anxiety embraced me.

My uncle decided to knock on the backdoor to the main house even though its wide opened...

A little girl in a hello kitty pink dress comes to the door and just looks at us as if she wanted to say “ ...and then nina? What do you want here?”

“Ngane, call the elders for us.” My impatient aunt says. She also looks nervous.
The girl drags her feet back inside...

..wuuuh lengane, you can just tell she’s going to grow a nasty attitude when she’s old.

A few seconds later, a giant man wearing brown chino shorts & a leopard print vest walks to the door. His belly resembles that of a 4 months pregnant woman, he dyed his six dreadlocks brown.

“Makhosi” My uncle greets him.

He welcomes us inside the house and it’s even fancier on the inside. I mean,you can tell it used to be an RDP house, then was extended to be the stunner that it is now. He leads us to the lounge.These leather couches look expensive.That TV. Hhmmm.

My uncle introduces us one-by-one and explains why he really wanted to see his daughter.

He continued to make small talk with Gobela and the entire time they were taking, Mina I was a sweaty-palmed-nervous-wreck who was struggling to even look at the Gobela in the eye.

*He has amakhosi, an ancestral lineage from royalty... it’s usual for such people to be a bit heavy on the eye* I say to myself.

My aunt asked where Nomkhosi was since she wasn’t with the other initiates outside. The room went silent for a moment..then Gobela answered saying...

... “I sent her to get cold drinks from the shop. I knew that y’all were coming and I can’t let my guest leave while they’re thirsty now, can I?”

My uncle fake laughed and they continued with heir small talk while we waited for Nomkhosi.

The Gobela brought up the issue of money that he was owed by our family for taking Nomkhosi in
“We thought she was handling it since she has a great job and hasn’t even asked us for help” My aunt replied

“Not at all, I haven’t received any payment from her since she got here.”

My uncles quickly shut down the conversation because he could see just how defensive Gobela and my aunt were being.

We could all sense the hostility between them.

Haibo 40 minutes passed and there was still no sign of Nomkhosi.The small talk was also going dry.

“Did she atleast take her cellphone with her?” My aunt asks

“Laph’ ekhaya we don’t allow initiates to use phones. We only allow them to contact families when they need something”

Silence hovers over the room.

“How far is this shop kahle kahle?” My aunt shoots again.

“Not very far.” -Gobela

Hhay, the atmosphere in the room was changing rapidly. My aunt then asked to see where Nomkhosi sleeps. She also asked about Nomkhosi’s progress edlozini.

Apparently my cousin was a top student here. “She’s doing really well,at the rate she is going, she will be out in just 6 months.Nedlozi lakhe liseduze”He said

He was a bit hesitant on showing us around,but my aunt persisted
“Okay, I’ll come get you just now.” He excused himself

Now it was just the four of us in the lounge.
“Baba, uyaythemba kodwa lendoda?” -aunt

“Haw, why wouldn’t I trust him? If Nomkhosi came here, the ancestors must’ve willed it” -uncle

“Hhay, My spirit is just not right with him..” -aunt

When she said this, I got even more nervous because usually, if my aunt says something is off, she’s usually right. This one time she became hysterical when a thunderstorm was approaching. She called us all into one hut and DEMANDED that we pray. We reluctantly prayed....

Next thing we knew, lighting struck our meter box then the veranda.
“Kusekhaya!! Hamba mthakathi!!” She screamed as it struck.

So now that she felt somewhat suspicious of this Gobela, chances were,she was on to something.

“You can come now” the Gobela came back as promised

We followed him to the back rooms outside.The initiates who were lying down on the ground when we came in here are now kneeling in formation on the veranda of the backrooms.
Hhayi,he only shows us this one room that had a nicely pillowed bed saying “This is where the girls sleep”

“They sleep on beds?” My uncle couldn’t believe it.
“...Hhayi..things have changed huh?”He added.

I think this was the moment when that the Gobela realized my uncle & aunt knew more about ukuthwasa then they were telling.

To tell the truth, I was glad things didn’t seem to be as tough as people usually say.

yey! I spoke too soon.

We went out back outside and that’s when we saw Nomkhosi, all frail and bald. She was as thin as a twig,with pimples all over her face. We couldn’t believe our eyes!

She got teary when she saw us then quickly knelt down when Gobela came out behind us.

“Ntanzi! Come closer.” He orders. She crawls on the bare ground & kneels infront of me. Sadness demolishes my walls and I find myself with soaked cheeks.

I’ve seen a lot of people in my family go through sangoma training & coming out better than ever! Those who suffered from acne would come back with glowing skin.Those who didn’t have an appetite would come back much thicker.Those who were aggressive would became peace advocates.

The Gobela then asked one of the initiates to bring us chairs so we could sit down. She did. Hhay mahn, I still couldn’t believe Nomkhosi was so physically drained.

He then told us that we can speak to Nomkhosi but she’s not allowed to respond to us. Hehake!

“So we cant even ask her how she is coping here?” My uncle asks.

“Kunjalo Mntomdala, people have different practices & this is mine. Please have faith in me. All that I’m doing is what was instructed to me by my ancestors”

“Makhosi, I understand.” My uncle says.

My aunt then told Nomkhosi to be strong & to listen to her ancestors. She emphasized that she should always listen to her instincts because they will never be wrong. My uncle told her to just give us a call if she needed anything.

A joke!

Also, we saw the wheelbarrow filled three cases of beers that Nomkhosi had gone to buy.This was the ‘cold drink’ that the Gobela was talking about. When I saw those beers I figured they were either going to sell them or that they were preparing for umsebenzi or something

Wrong!

Me and Nomkhosi’s younger sister went to the car to fetch the groceries & toiletries we had brought for her. Did we not see the same little girl sending one of the initiates to go buy her snacks from the shop. What bothered me the most was the fact that she was rude about it!

We took the groceries into the main house and bid Nomkhosi good bye. The good sis kept her head to the floor from the moment the Gobela came out until we left

The drive back home was a haze. My aunt was still complaining about uNomkhosi having utwayi(scabies)& being that thin.

“...and why are their heads shaved? I’ve never heard of bald initiates in my life! Hhayi baba, we must go check on her again soon.” My aunt exploded.

My uncle kept reminding her that different sangomas have different ways of training their initiates...

...and this was the sour truth that my aunt didn’t want to swallow.

She didn’t eat that night, she called all our relatives asking if they’ve ever heard of amathwasa who shave their heads while at ephehlweni.They all said no. This was the fuel to the fire that made her paranoid.

A few weeks later following our visit to see Nomkhosi, my uncle started acting strange. He went into a fast and avoided everyone in the yard.
“He will tell us what’s eating him up when he’s ready, angeke singcenge indoda endala” my grandma said. A bad bitch that one!

On that same week, my great-aunt from Ladysmith called my grandma, telling her about a bad dream that she had. The dream was about Nomkhosi. In the dream, my aunt says Nomkhosi was trapped inside a room with beasts roaring from the inside.

She says that she wanted to open the door for her but there were snakes guarding that door. My grandma told my uncle about what his sister had dreamt. Y’all should’ve seen his reaction! We was distraught.

He said that he had gotten the same dream but didn’t want to worry anyone,so she chose to keep it to himself.This is why he was fasting. He was praying for clarity, & my great-aunt’s dream was his answer. This was surely a warning from the ancestral realm.Nomkhosi was in trouble.

When Nomkhosi’s mom heard about this, she dropped everything she was doing & exclaimed she was going to fetch her daughter, with or without my uncle’s help. We got into the car & drove to Gobela’s house. This time, my grandma joined us.

The tension in the car on our way there,hun! My aunt was making all sorts of threats! . It felt like we were going to war! This time I didn’t feel nervous or anything though. I was just happy that I was going to see some action... and that we were going to bring couzzy home.

Haibo sana! When we pulled over by the gate we heard cries & drumming coming from inside the yard. My aunt dashed out the car,tried to open the gate but it was locked. She banged the gate hoping someone would come but no one came. The cries & drumming continued from the inside.

“They probably can’t hear us” my grandma said.

My aunt is now pacing up and down the pavement like a headless chicken. We can tell that she slowly stepping into her hysterical self, and that scares me. She’s still spewing out threats directed at Gobela.
“Vulani lana mahn!!”

My grandma called upon isthunywa sakhe to plead with our ancestors so they could guide us as we were now at Gobela’s house, taking note of the warnings we got from them.

Isithunywa-A prophetic spirit or sometimes an ancestor that was heavily devoted to Christianity or the Church

The gate soon opens & the little rude girl comes out. She doesn’t even greet us, she just walks away. I figured she was probably going to the shop or something.
My aunt wasted no time, in a blink of an eye she was inside.
Then in a loud voice we heard her cry....

.... My body was immediately filled with goosebumps as we stormed out the car and ran inside. My uncle is leading us.
Yey! It’s mayhem in here! My aunt has a rock and an empty bottle in her hands and she’s threatening to throw them at the Gobela.
The drumming has stopped.

On the floor lies Nomkhosi & another female initiate.Their backs are red with severe sjambok slashes,& the two male initiates were beating the drums so loud that it almost over-masks the cries from Nomkhosi & her friend-in-horsewhipping.

Yey! Uyayazi I-chaos?! My uncle went mad

My uncle was serving the Gobela with punches all over while shouting “ngzokbonisa amabele enyoka wena!”

The Gobela was also fighting back.

“I wanted to leave mah! He wouldn’t let me go. He wouldn’t let us go!” Nomkhosi weeped. Now everyone was crying including myself.

My aunt is on the phone with the police and she’s definitely not calm. She swearing at them even!

I’m at a standstill. I don’t know what to do.

My grandma is shouting at all the initiates to use this opportunity to escape if they were also being forced to stay here.

“We can’t leave, he has our hair and nails. He said if we tried to escape he’d curse us with madness that no one can undo. We’ve seen him do it with one of his initiates” one of the male initiates says. He’s also crying now.

“Sindi, fetch my gun from the car ngibulale lenja!”

I didn’t even know my uncle had a gun until that day. Gobela was
shouting at my uncle saying that beating a sangoma is a way of asking for generational curses.

“Well good thing ngethwasa nami! I’m also a sangoma!” My uncle responded to him while beating him to the ground.

My aunt is back with the gun,before we even blink twice.

That’s when the Gobela pleaded for mercy.We got him to give back all the hair & nails of his initiates but,we couldn’t be sure that he’s given us everything so,my aunt decided we chop out one of his dreadlocks as insurance

“If anything bad happens to our daughter & we suspect it’s you, We will also deal with you!” My aunt threatened.

The initiates quickly packed whatever that was close and ran off to wait outside the gate.

My grandma is now begging her son to let the bloody Gobela go so we could take Nomkhosi to the hospital. The police arrived just when we were about to leave. The Gobela insisted that we were trespassing & that we asaulted him. All of us.

The nerve!! Tryna get me arrested too.

The police took him and my uncle to the police station whilevwe took Nomkhosi to the hospital but we had promised to come by the station to give our statements.
The drive to Prince Mshiyeni Hospital was a lightning strike. My aunt was hooting & swearing at everyone on the road

I guess that’s what trauma does to you. It turns you into a swearing-psycho that could whip anyone’s ass at anytime!

I honestly don’t know what happened to the other initiates because one minute they were standing with us outside the gate & the next,they were gone. All 3 of them

All I know is that both the Gobela and my uncle were advised not to lay charges against one another because they were both in the wrong. Nomkhosi was caught between a rock & a hard place when the gun found in her father’s possession was without a license.

So Nomkhosi had to either drop the
charges against Gobela or let his father go to court for assault & having an illegal arm. Gobela promised not to lay any charges against my uncle, provided that Nomkhosi does the same to him. Nx!

This honestly broke her.

She spent the following week weeping and scourging herself with regret. We were all just waiting for her to feel better before asking her how she even ended up with that abusive Gobela. She proved to be her mother’s daughter by pulling herself back together by second week.

“Sisi, awustshele kahle, how did you even end up there?” My aunt asked her one evening after our family rosary prayer.

I need y’all to always hold on to what I am about to tell y’all now. Never ever allow strangers to do a reading for you/divination for you in public spaces.

You can listen to what they have to say but don’t follow up with them! If what they are telling you is giving you sleepless nights, then consult with someone else to see if both divinations will match.

Nomkhosi didn’t cross reference and that is how she was hooked...

She was in town,watching one of those sangomas who ‘perform’ magic tricks and conduct open divinations for the crowds of people they attract. Nomkhosi was in that crowd when she was told she had an ancestral calling and that she needed to thwasa or face the angel of death.

Just like that,she believed it. The Gobela even said that he had been shown in a dream that She was meant to be trained by him. As confirmation to what he was telling her, he told her that she would soon dream of him, and that this would be a ‘go ahead’ from her ancestors.

He’s very smart isn’t he? I mean, obviously if a random sangoma came up to you & told you to accept your calling of face death, that would be the only thing on your mind when you go to bed. Which then increases the chances of you dreaming of him.

If you don’t dream of him, it’s not a trainsmash because he’s telling the same lie to other people and one of them is bound to fall for it.

So please, don’t fall for the same trap!

Anyway... she said he had instructed her not to tell anyone about this because her idlozi wanted this to be a secret. After she had dreamt of him like he said, she phoned the number from a brocher she got from him and that was her entry way into a torture house.

On the first night of her arrival, she was woken up by the Gobela around 3am, along with all the other initiates. The drumming began and then she was taught how to gida. She already knew how to... we all know how tobut she pretended to be clueless because...

Gobela had told her that for her to grow edlozini,she has to lose her egotistic self & be obedient to his authority.He went as far as explaining where the word Gobela came from.“Gobela umthetho!” He said.Meaning that he is the law because only he knew what ancestors want from her

So she pretended to be completely clueless. Her long grown hair was shaved off & her nails were cut. All of this was put inside a clay pot that was said to be a covenant pot. At first she didn’t know what that meant, but she soon found out.

She then did some oral purging & the drumming continued till sunrise.The first week felt like she was working towards being a better version of herself until she was instructed do whatever that Gobela’s kids want.The other initiates were already used to slaving away.

”Don’t mind their age, remember,you are the child here and you have to be humble so that your ancestors may show themselves to you” He said to her infront of his ill-mannered kids.

They also ate only once a day and that was only in the morning.

“We’re running out of food,Make a plan my kids. uBaba wenu is thirsty, buy me something to drink!Wash my feet!Run to the shop. Iron my laundry!Why haven’t y’all cooked?!” This are all the things that filled up her daily schedule.
She wanted to call her parents, but he denied her.

On the second month of her stay there, she felt like a failure because unlike the other initiates, she wasn’t getting any instructional dreams from her ancestors. In fact,she wasn’t dreaming at all! She blamed it on sleeping on the concrete with only a 1-ply blanket covering her.

She started to drastically lose weight and she grew weak. She fell into depression when she found out from one of the male initiates that Gobela sleeps with all of them and that she had to also prepare herself because her fateful night was coming.

She felt a huge lump in her throat that never went away as long as she was trapped inside those walls. She was all alone, in a mess that she got herself into. Every night, she’d stay awake, fearful that Caesar would come to collect his midnight taxes.

She knew this was wrong because she learnt from home that initiates are not even supposed to engage in any form of sexual activity while undergoing training. So when he came to her one night, she pretended to enter a trance state, and that’s when he backed off.

After that night, the slaving became worse. He became more strict and began to use a sjambok to enforce his laws. They were not suppose to bath, unless he told them too. They were not supposed to drink water, unless they were told to. Sometimes he’d beat them just for fun.

He pursued her many times and each time, she’d pretend roar, pray outloud or pretend to have fits. He finally allowed her to call her parents when she lied to him saying she was from a rich family and that we would give him anything he demanded in her name.

From then onwards, she just prayed for us to receive a sign of what she was going through in that house, and we did.

Thokozani.

The end.

The purpose of this story is to raise awareness about the different forms of abuse that exist in SOME of these spaces.This is a call to all sangomas to report any other sangomas that violate other people’s human rights.

This is a call to all future initiates,to leave when they feel abused and violated. We’ve all heard of aboGobela who use their power to carryout their evil and sometimes immoral deeds.

Let us be snitches!

A s/o to all the good Gogos naboMkhulu reading this. We love y’all.