Medicine Beliefs Traditional Doctors Healers Other Practitioners

© 2023 Dr Margaret Sheppard

Cases

Visiting a Traditional Doctor

This should be done openly with the full knowledge of family members. If it is a matter concerning the Kgotla, the head of the household is the one who consults the Kgotla’s traditional doctor. If a husband or wife need to go they always go with their spouse or at least with their knowledge. If it is a straightforward sickness such as tlhowana or venereal disease, the individual is treated according to the instructions of the ditaola thrown for the individual. If the individual is looking for help in obtaining a job, luck, marriage etc. again he is treated as an individual.

In the case of a bewitchment, even if it has only manifested itself in the individual, usually the whole family will need to be protected.

sulting the traditional doctor before she returned to her work in Rhodesia  (now called Zimbabwe). She was asking if she would have a safe and successful return to work. The doctor took the divination bones out of their special skin bag and gave them to the woman. She was instructed to shake them in her hands  addressing her question to the bones.Then she  breathed on he her hands saying “Khu!” Before she cast the bones on sacking on the floor in front of them.

This traditional doctor seats his patients on the floor in front of him with the right leg under the left.

The traditional doctor then examined the “fall” of the bones. He praised the bones addressing each one individually in a “secret” Setswana that was very difficult to translate. He then asked the woman to cast the bones twice more. Each time he repeated his praises to the bones.

Then he gave his analysis.  He indicated the direction from which the bones foresaw trouble for her and described someone who was causing this trouble. She agreed to this analysis .

He  “saw” from the bones that sorcery was buried  by this jealous person in the entrance to her home and that was the cause of her trouble and  was giving her a pain under one arm.

The traditional doctor suggested that she should come in the evening when there were shadows to be “washed”  to strengthen her shadow before she returned to work in Rhodesia and so afford her protection from occult attack. (This would not only protect her but reflect the sorcery back onto the troublemaker.)

Case 3

This lady was consulting the traditional doctor before she returned to her work in Rhodesia  (now called Zimbabwe). She was asking if she would have a safe and successful return to work. The doctor took the divination bones out of their special skin bag and gave them to the woman. She was instructed to shake them in her hands  addressing her question to the bones.Then she  breathed on he her hands saying “Khu!” Before she cast the bones on the sacking  mat on the floor in front of them.

Case 1

One family were attacked by a whirlwind which blew straight through their yard, loosening the thatch on one of the houses. The traditional doctor found that a neighbour was bewitching the mother of the home who was at that time at the Lands as it was the ploughing season. He instructed that she should not come to Kanye until he had “washed” her, or the attackers might kill her, which was their aim. He then collected his medicines and all the family had to go together to the Lands to be “washed”. This washing not only protected the woman and the family but also neutralised the sorcery that one of the attackers had buried in the entrance to their home in  Kanye and this  had attracted the whirlwind.

Case 2

A further example illustrates not only a typical case brought to a traditional doctor, but also how a traditional doctor should be consulted by the family as a unit and the family is also treated by the traditional doctor as a unit.

The family had recently built a new zinc-roofed house in their kgotla, and had become aware that other people were very jealous. Fearing how this jealousy might manifest itself, they had decided to consult a traditional doctor to obtain protection.

The husband was called to throw the bones first. This particular traditional doctor tells his clients to sit on a mat with the right leg crossed under the left leg. The medicated water that was to be used to protect and cleanse the family was in a near-by tortoise shell container. The husband was instructed to take the bones into his hands, touch the water, and recite the following words before breathing onto the bones and throwing them onto the ground:-

"I'm cleansing with this medicine. Is it correct to do so? Khu!"

The traditional doctor then spoke in his special Setswana to the bones. He compared the case to traditional beer that had not separated properly from its dregs:-

“The only beer that can be sieved is Mma (Mma - roughly equivalent to Mrs. in the sense of "mother") Polo's  beer. What have you been sieving? We saw the animals that live in the water. They separate themselves from the rest. Their mother, Mma Polo (a species of iguana living in water )  is really taking care of them, putting them in special places. Mma Polo said to her children: ‘Do wait, my children. Don't go around. You'll eat what remains, after I have sieved it’."

The doctor then gave the bones to the man to throw again, which he did in the same way as before. The traditional doctor then continued in his special Setswana:-

“People are always telling lies about moraro ( moraro is a type of fencing, sometimes used for the walls of houses, but more commonly used for making cooking areas or boundary fences. Thin branches are pushed into the ground close together and others may be woven in and out), that the servants have burned the fence, although the fence was burnt by the owner of the home. The owner of the home, who is a sorcerer, burns the old house.”

The man was again told to throw the bones as before. The traditional doctor continued talking in his special language, and then concluded by telling the man that the medicated water was correct for this case of protection. He further told him that he would have arguments with other people and have problems, but that the medicated water would protect him from everything that could harm him. He added that anyone who dared to challenge him would end up having problems themselves. He further warned the man that he would have problems with either his  Rrakgadi (father's sister) or his mother. They would argue with him over the things he had inherited from his father. There would also be arguments over his fields at the Lands. Even if he did not argue with his mother or grandmother, there was someone else who would try to argue with him over his fields.

On hearing this, the man immediately agreed that there had been trouble at his Lands. There was a dispute over one of his fields that another man wanted. This other man had even ploughed that field for himself that year without asking the owner's permission.

The wife was then told to take her husband's place. She threw the bones in the same way as her husband. Then the doctor talked to the bones in his special language (which in this case was impossible to translate). Then the doctor told the woman that there was a certain woman who lived near her home, (he emphasized that he meant her real home, not the home where she was married). This woman had T.B. He asked her if she knew such a woman, and when she replied that she did not he indicated the direction where that woman lived. He told her that that woman did not actually come from her own Kgotla, but lived very close to it. The woman continued to reply that she did not know such a woman, but eventually, as the traditional doctor continued to point in the direction that that woman's house was, she agreed that she knew such a woman.

Then she was told to throw the bones again. This time she was told to say:-

“Khu: I'm washing with these herbs. I don't care about problems like trials. Khu!”

The traditional doctor again spoke to his bones in his special language, while he examined the way they had fallen. Then he told the woman that he had seen that the woman who coughed (i.e. the one with T.B.) Would give her poison, and therefore she should take care of herself. If she ate food cooked by that woman she should make sure she drank a protective drink afterwards.  (On certain ritual occasions such as Botsetsi, weddings and funerals, it is easy to poison people, as it is difficult to refuse food offered on these occasions as food can be served to a large number of people,but would only poison a designated individual.)  The doctor further told her that the “T.B. woman" was annoyed because she had wanted that woman's husband to marry a woman she liked, although the husband was not her son, she did not like that woman and was annoyed by her marriage.

The family were then told to prepare themselves to be washed.

It is perhaps useful to comment on one or two points mentioned in this divination. The doctor mentioned quarrels over inheritance and over fields at the Lands. These are very common causes of disagreement, and often result in an aggrieved party resorting to sorcery in order to obtain revenge. Jealousy over a marriage, such as that of the "T.B. woman" over the husband's choice of a wife, is also another very common cause of bad-feeling that can lead to sorcery.

In conclusion, the main thing is that when a person visits a traditional doctor, they should not go alone or in secret. To do so can lead to suspicion that they are trying to obtain  medicines to be used in sorcery to harm others.

Other examples of cases treated by a traditional doctor

A doctor protects a couple at their wedding when their "bloods" are joined, he protects the pots used to cook the food for wedding and other feasts. A fully trained doctor is thus able to divine, heal and protect. These three broad categories are, of course, very interlinked as often in divining he will see that he needs not only to heal but also to protect; or in healing, for example, a sick baby or a fractured leg, he will first divine the cause and the cure and then also protect the person in the future.

One traditional doctor gave  the following list of the tasks he performs:

I. Checking whether someone's job is alright.

2. Checking the whereabouts of an individual's missing money or property. He can "see" whether it has been stolen or misplaced and where to look for it.

3. Assisting an individual to be successful in finding a job, promotion, luck, entry to school/university, marriage, etc.

4. Protecting the individual in the cases of  (3.) above when they obtain what they sought, from accidents. (N.B. It should be remembered that many people go from Kanye to work in the mines in South Africa. In the late 1970s South Africa had been cutting recruitment in Botswana. As a result the doctor found even more people came to obtain "luck" and protection. It should also be noted that there  is a very high accident rate in South African mines, therefore these protections were believed to be very important precautions for miners).

5. General protection against being given poisons, being struck by lightning, accidents, dikgaba (jealousy) etc.

6. General protection against sorcery. This may be manifested by for example, blood found in the house or yard, or a dead animal such as a cat in a cupboard. Or Sefofo, i.e. a small whirlwind may blow through a yard destroying roofs, and possessions etc., or Thobo (crop failure) when fields are bewitched.

7. Helping in cases of misfortune, for example, barren women, unsuccessful farming, cattle not breeding, misfortunes in the home etc.

8. Bringing luck to an individual, for example in raffles, horse racing, gambling, marriage, etc.

9. Antidotes to sorcery attacks, for example, stop bewitched cattle dying etc.

10. Curing illnesses, for example, Tlhowana (fontanelles - see later), fractures, stomach trouble, venereal diseases etc.

11. Finding missing livestock, for example, when gone astray.(N.B. livestock can be bewitched to go astray.)

12. Doctoring new houses, yards, Lands, Cattle Posts etc.

13. Protecting new property such as cars, lorries, beds, radios, bicycles, from sorcery, accidents etc.

14. To make a business successful, for example, a bottle store, shop, garage, dressmakers, beer brewing in a shebeen etc.

15. Ascertain cause of a misfortune, for example, neglected by a boyfriend, disliked at school, work etc.