Everson Luhanga
Many people are in denial that times have changed, but sangomas are moving with the times.
A group of young sangomas who were trained by the same gobela (trainer) in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, have said they will not be stuck in the old days.
Dipuo Chauke and her young sangoma friends call themselves Phahlarists.
The sangomas have turned the ancestral name phahla, which is a verb that means to be trained, into a noun. “We are modern and we want to look and sound so,” said Dipuo.
Dipuo said UkuPhahla is a ritual performed to ask for guidance, luck, and blessings from the ancestors.
Known by her ancestor name as Gogo Mahambanomoya, Dipuo said people in the old days looked at sangomas as those who had no lives. “Before we became sangomas, we had lives. We used to slay.
“The name Phahlarist is as good as saying. We are a new generation of sangomas blessed by our ancestors who can still heal and have our lives,” she said.
Cultural expert Refiloe Waga Khunou has warned the young generation not to play with their ancestral gifts.
He said they were unaware that they could be punished, even cursed, by their ancestors if they made jokes out of what they were given.
He said there are young sangomas who show photos of themselves half-naked in an indumba. Such things should be discouraged and it doesn’t represent African culture.
But Gogo Mahambanomoya’s friends Tinyiko Mtsenga, Ntsako Mtsenga, and Nkosazana Chauke said they all have respect for their ancestors and the gift given to them. “We are only moving with the times,” said Ntsako.
Earlier this year, Scrolla.Africa ran a story of a young sangoma calling herself Slaying Sangoma with people having mixed reactions to it.
The Phahlarists said they want more sangomas even those who phahla decades ago to move with the times.
