Opposing systems of belief: is ubungoma at odds with Christianity?

Believe it or not, many Sangomas today share deep Christian roots and heritage.

And no, as iZangoma we are not “lambs that strayed away from the shepherd path”, as one of my staunch Christian friends once so eloquently insinuated. In response, I said “ingxaki chomi asingawo amatakane egusha singatbantu. Igusha ayizicingeli, ihamba apho ikhonjwa khona ngumalusi” which,  loosely translated, references our thinking capacity beyond that of a sheep. I went on to further say: “Inqqondo zethu zidalelwe ucinga," (loosely translated: to use your brain for its true intention).

I said this not to be dismissive or to de-legitimise her Christian stance. Rather I was bringing salience to the underlying unquestionable dogma that informs her beliefs. I said this because it is dangerous to accept anything without applying a single ounce of critical thought.

Many of us, iZangoma, were nurtured in Christian value-driven homes. For some, this entailed weekly participation in organised religion – some coerced, some voluntarily. Throughout my teens into the dawn of my 20s, the Seventh-Day Adventist church had consumed most of my time on Saturdays.

Fortunately, I forged meaningful friendships, enough to mediate my weekly suffering. Let me be clear, my problem has never been characterised by opposition to praise and worship. It was “why is my participation mandatory and why have I no agency”.

Then, I’d often pose these questions to my dad, especially because I‘d witnessed his church attendance a handful of times throughout my life. He never gave me an answer that satisfied me. If my memory serves me well, he often attributed my mandatory church attendance to an acquisition of values, morals and personal ethics.

This left a bitter taste in my mouth because I felt like that was just one side of the coin. The other was the mind numbingly tedious exercise of witnessing the over-performance of the Christian identity – especially from the holier-than-thou disposition.

I later consolidated my dad’s stance as a function of nostalgia related to his own upbringing as an altar boy. My grandmother was a devout Anglican woman. I am not being reductionist or dismissive of the value of the lesson in anyway. I simply had to make that attribution for my own sanity – at the time.

The reality of my family  ties to Christianity, including my maternal side, made it all the more difficult for me to wrap my head around my reality as someone who was then going through the symptomatic stages of realising that I have a calling, and it is in my best interests to do something about it.

By symptomatic stages I mean vivid and instructional dreams, visions, intense headaches and an incredibly irritated bowel. I didn’t really struggle with what this would mean for my Christian identity – I didn’t have one. Christianity had previously aided in my personal repression, so really, I didn’t care for it. The idea that it would further ostracise me for my ‘choice’ in needing to ukuthwasa (undergo initiation) was simply a whole load of nonsense. I did, however, care about what God would think of me.

I was quite troubled by what my calling would mean for my relationship with God, whom I had learned to separate from the institution of church. I still, for a while, couldn’t break free from the shackles of my Christian teachings, which would have me believe that God would reject me if ‘I went against him’. I was troubled, I was sick and I was dreaming vividly.

I went on a journey of unlearning all I had known, because if God could be of Abraham, he could also be a God of amaBhele or amaZizi or even Ba Tau for that matter. Quickly, I discerned that using God as a defence mechanism against exploring the unknown terrain of spirituality wouldn’t cut it. I aligned my thinking around my calling. I started realising it as a function of me taking my position in my clan.

I could never have been a healer without a strong Christian foundation. When I say healer I mean a person who works in light and in prayer. I counsel my clients based by affirming the importance of faith as well as allowing your ancestors to co-exist in spiritual practice. I emphasise trust in God and light and I explain that ancestors were people who existed on this earth like us. They too had cognitions, personas and motivations – some which could be cunning, dark and driven by the pursuit of personal gain.

This is why when engaging in spiritual practice one must pursue God and the light that follows. Mathiyane [my Shaman] always started with prayer, praise and worship. She talked of the importance of engaging God and activating your light so as to navigate the realm of ancestors in light. In order to fight for light – always. It was from her that I first heard “makudede ubumnyama, kungene ukukhanya”.

Pursuing light doesn’t mean that when people come for you spiritually you don’t defend yourself. Of course, you can cleanse and rid of those energies. The problem is when we want to retaliate and cause harm to others. And lately, we have people offering all kinds of bogus ‘healing’ services and solutions which are often thinly veiled solicitations for the performance of dark magic.

These services are seen in popular posters as opportunists claim to be able to bring back a lost lover. What does that even mean? The idea of bewitching and manufacturing ill fate for others is beyond my scope of understanding, I don’t consider it as healing.

To you, Gogo, struggling to accept yourself as a Christian who is battling a calling, be kinder to yourself and trust your God as you know him. Your Christian identity isn’t an obstacle to your realising the healer that you are, rather it is a tool for you to establish and live in your ethics of practise as a healer. And for the love of God, question and probe every aspect of your spirituality. Never blindly accept anything. It’s dangerous.