African muti used to help South Africa at WCup

By MIA SNYMAN (AP)

JOHANNESBURG — With vuvuzelas so far failing to give a winning boost to South Africa at the World Cup, some locals are looking for other ways to help the national team.

In an effort to help Bafana Bafana make good on their slim chance of advancing past the opening round of the tournament — the first to be played on the African continent — people are burning, brewing and smoking.

They are practitioners of muti, or traditional medicine.

Traditionalists believe a mixture of herbs, plants and animal parts, such as vulture brains and aloe, can be used to change luck, heal sickness or enhance performance.

"Muti works," said Miriam Lethaba, a 62-year-old domestic worker from Ratanda, a township west of Johannesburg. "It can make Bafana strong."

South Africa's national team lost to Uruguay last week and needs to beat France on Tuesday to have any chance of reaching the tournament's knockout phase. If it fails to advance, South Africa would become the first host team to be eliminated from the tournament in the first round.

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FILE - Traditional healers conduct a cleansing ceremony in Soweto, South Africa,  Wednesday, June 16, 2010. With the vuvuzelas so far falling short of providing a winning boost to South Africa at the World Cup, some locals are turning to other, far more imaginative means of help.  In order to increase Bafana Bafana's chances of making it through the first round of the tournament, the first to be played on the African continent, people are burning, brewing and smoking some strange things. 
(AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

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In order to avoid that embarrassment, traditional healers — called sangomas — are doing their best to give the team an edge, convinced that burning muti at soccer matches can change the team's luck.

"I believe that muti can improve Bafana's performance," said Abel Zwane, a 50-year-old merchant who sells traditional medicine in Heidelberg, outside Johannesburg.

Jaco Lushaba, a 40-year-old traditional Zulu dancer from Ratanda, said he also has faith in the power of muti, but thinks he may have previously been a victim of someone else's burning concoction.

"I once lost in a competition where the smell of muti was everywhere," Lushaba said. "It made me confused and I could not perform at my best."

Muti developed among the indigenous people of Africa over centuries. The name comes from the Zulu word for tree. Some traditionalists burn or brew muti to ensure good fortune and others use it to predict forthcoming events.

"People go to sangomas to make muti for good luck and to see into the future," said Ibrahim Hoosen, a 66-year-old Heidelberg man who owns a muti shop.

Sangomas are found in the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele cultures of southern Africa.

Some white South Africans, like Ben van der Merwe, have studied with sangomas and also make muti.

Van der Merwe, however, isn't convinced that his potions would be of any use to the national soccer team.

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 FILE - A traditional healer spits a medicinal liquid to please ancestors as they perform a cleansing ceremony in Soweto, South Africa,  Wednesday, June 16, 2010. With the vuvuzelas so far falling short of providing a winning boost to South Africa at the World Cup, some locals are turning to other, far more imaginative means of help.  In order to increase Bafana Bafana's chances of making it through the first round of the tournament, the first to be played on the African continent, people are burning, brewing and smoking some strange things. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

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"The only sport-related muti treatment that I know of is called 'flesh builders,' but I have not heard of anyone who uses muti to influence Bafana's performance," said Van der Merwe, an Afrikaner from Heidelberg.

Indeed, muti treatments are well outside the mainstream, both in terms of medical practice and religious practice in a nation that is about 80 percent Christian. At its extreme, muti has been associated with killings for the use of human organs in its rituals, but that has not been associated with the World Cup.

"These practices are more spiritual than scientific, therefore we cannot justify its active ingredients and we cannot comment on the effectiveness of its methods as our members specialize in conventional methods," said Dr. Norman Mabasa, the chair of the South African Medical Association. "But we understand that people have the freedom of belief."

Angunsto Honwano, a 22-year-old street vendor from Balfour, south of Johannesburg, is among those skeptical about muti's ability to help Bafana Bafana.

"Muti works for good luck," Honwano said. "But for Bafana, they will have to play hard to get through the first round."

Lushaba said the players just have to have faith.

"The problem is that there are many different cultures in the Bafana team and I don't think that they all believe in the power of muti," Lushaba said. "The only way muti can work for Bafana Bafana is if every member of the team believes that it can work.

"Muti is about believing. If you do not truly believe that it can work, then it won't."

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

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FILE - A child huddles round a fire from the biting cold in Soweto, South Africa, Wednesday, June 16, 2010. With the vuvuzelas so far falling short of providing a winning boost to South Africa at the World Cup, some locals are turning to other, far more imaginative means of help. In order to increase Bafana Bafana's chances of making it through the first round of the tournament, the first to be played on the African continent, people are burning, brewing and smoking some strange things. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

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South African muti culture being used to help national team at World Cup

By Mia Snyman (CP) 

JOHANNESBURG — With the vuvuzelas so far falling short of providing a winning boost to South Africa at the World Cup, some locals are turning to other, far more imaginative means of help.

In order to increase Bafana Bafana's chances of making it through the first round of the tournament, the first to be played on the African continent, people are burning, brewing and smoking.

Muti, or traditional medicine, is very much in use in modern-day South Africa. Traditionalists believe a mixture of herbs, plants and animal parts, such as vulture brains and aloe, can be used to change luck, heal sickness or enhance performance. Sometimes, muti can contain human body parts.

"Muti works," said Miriam Lethaba, a 62-year-old domestic worker from Ratanda, a township west of Johannesburg. "It can make Bafana strong."

South Africa's national team lost to Uruguay on Wednesday and needs to beat France on Tuesday to have any chance of reaching the knockout rounds. If it fails to advance, South Africa would become the first host team to be eliminated from the tournament in the first round.

In order to avoid that embarrassment, traditional healers — called sangomas — are doing their best to give the team an edge, believing that burning muti at football matches can change the team's luck.

"I believe that muti can improve Bafana's performance," said Abel Zwane, a 50-year-old merchant who sells traditional medicine in Heidelberg, outside Johannesburg.

Jaco Lushaba, a 40-year-old traditional Zulu dancer from Ratanda, said he also believes in muti, but thinks he may have previously been a victim of someone else's burning concoction.

"I once lost in a competition were the smell of muti was everywhere," Lushaba said. "It made me confused and I could not perform at my best."

Muti developed among the indigenous people of Africa over centuries. The name comes from the Zulu word for tree. Some traditionalists burn or brew muti to ensure good fortune and others use it to predict forthcoming events.

"People go to sangomas to make muti for good luck and to see into the future," said Ibrahim Hoosen, a 66-year-old Heidelberg man who owns a muti shop.

Sangomas are found in the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele cultures of southern Africa. Some white South Africans, like Ben van der Merwe, have studied with sangomas and also make muti.

Van der Merwe, however, isn't convinced that his potions would be of any use to the national football team.

"The only sport-related muti treatment that I know of is called 'flesh builders,' but I have not heard of anyone who uses muti to influence Bafana's performance," said Van der Merwe, an Afrikaner from Heidelberg.

Angunsto Honwano, a 22-year-old street vendor from Belfour, south of Johannesburg, is also skeptical about muti's ability to help Bafana Bafana.

"Muti works for good luck," Honwano said. "But for Bafana, they will have to play hard to get through the first round."

Muti also has a dark side, however. Muti killings, in which a person's body parts are used to supposedly make the medicine stronger, are still all too common on the continent.

Some estimates say there are about 300 muti killings each year in South Africa, and very few of them get reported.

In 2001, the body of a young African boy was found in the Thames near London's Tower Bridge, and experts identified it to be a muti-related killing.

But the dark side aside, Lushaba said muti can help South Africa beat France and reach the next round of the World Cup — as long as the players believe in it.

"The problem is that there are many different cultures in the Bafana team and I don't think that they all believe in the power of muti," Lushaba said. "The only way muti can work for Bafana Bafana is if every member of the team believes that it can work.

"Muti is about believing. If you do not truly believe that it can work, then it won't."

Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Vuvuzela: SA football's beautiful noise

What's plastic, a metre long, brightly coloured and sounds like an elephant? It's the vuvuzela, the noise-making trumpet of South African football fans, and it's come to symbolise the sport in the country.

It's an instrument, but not always a musical one. Describing the atmosphere in a stadium packed with thousands of fans blowing their vuvuzelas is difficult. Up close it's an elephant, sure, but en masse the sound is more like a massive swarm of very angry bees.

And when there's action near the goal mouth, those bees go really crazy.

To get that sound out requires lip flexibility and lung strength - in short, a fair amount of technique. So be sure to get in some practice before attending a South African football match, or you the sound you produce may cause some amusement in the seats around you!

Vuvuzela supplier Boogieblast offers this advice: "Put your lips inside the mouthpiece and almost make a 'farting' sound. Relax your cheeks and let your lips vibrate inside the mouthpiece. As soon as you get that trumpeting sound, blow harder until you reach a ridiculously loud 'boogying blast'.

Descendant of the kudu horn?

The ancestor of the vuvuzela is said to be the kudu horn - ixilongo in isiXhosa, mhalamhala in Tshivenda - blown to summon African villagers to meetings. Later versions were made of tin.

The trumpet became so popular at football matches in the late 1990s that a company, Masincedane Sport, was formed in 2001 to mass-produce it. Made of plastic, they come in a variety of colours - black or white for fans of Orlando Pirates, yellow for Kaizer Chiefs, and so on - with little drawings on the side warning against blowing in the ear!

There's uncertainty on the origin of the word "vuvuzela". Some say it comes from the isiZulu for - wait for it - "making noise". Others say it's from township slang related to the word "shower", because it "showers people with music" - or, more prosaically, looks a little like a shower head.

The announcement, on 15 May 2004, that South Africa would host the 2010 Fifa World Cup gave the vuvuzela a huge boost, to say the least - some 20000 were sold on the day by enterprising street vendors.

It's a noisy thing, so there's no surprise some don't like it. Journalist Jon Qwelane once quipped that he had taken to watching football matches at home - with the volume turned low - because of what he described as "an instrument of hell".

A magical World Cup team? It just might be the magic powder.

Many soccer players turn to traditional healers for good luck or inspiration before they take the field.

SOWETO, South Africa -- Deep in the heart of this dusty township of three million people, not far from Nelson Mandela's former house, around the corner from an arts and crafts market, behind a modest but well-kept brick house, sits what looks like just another corrugated tin shanty.
Turns out it is a ``Ndumba,'' a sacred hut.

Take a peek inside, and you find Kenneth Nephawe, a 63-year-old electrician-turned-Sangoma (traditional/holistic healer). He has removed his shoes and is seated on the floor on a reed mat, elephant tusk chunks in his hands, 40 jars of herbal powders and concoctions by his side. The remedies, called ``Muti,'' are made of African bushes, and are housed in old Nescafe and mayonnaise jars.

Nephawe is a huge fan of the Orlando Pirates, Soweto's soccer club, and is paying close attention to the World Cup. Over the years, he has gotten to know many soccer players because they have come to him seeking good luck and inspiration before big games. Forwards tend to be the most loyal customers, ``because they want good luck to score goals.'' He has been an ``advisor'' to three or four teams, he said, but cannot name them because it is confidential.

Traditional healers -- don't call them ``witch doctors'' -- have been known to sprinkle special powders over fields and have teams swim in crocodile-infested waters to ward off evil spirits. But what they mainly do, Nephawe said, is act as holistic healers and counselors.
Their practice is based on the belief that the spirits of dead ancestors guide and protect the living. Patients are asked to blow onto eight pieces of elephant tusks and throw them on the mat. The Sangoma interprets how the pieces lie. Each ``bone'' represents a family member.

He will tell an athlete that he is uptight, so he should call on the spirit of his deceased grandparent to relax him. Or, he'll tell him that his ancestors are happy with him, and therefore, he will have a good game. He will sometimes offer powdered remedies to put the athlete in a good frame of mind.
``But the powders don't work if the person doesn't believe,'' he said. ``This is not magic. It works only with belief and faith that it will work.''

The Confederation of African Football, eager to be taken more seriously around the world, recently banned traditional healers from associating with teams, and will fine a team if it sprinkles playing fields or dressing rooms with powders. But the use of medicine men has been part of African sport culture for a long time, and is still widespread.

`A SPELL'
Samuel Eto'o, the Cameroonian World Cup star, has been quoted saying that when they played Nigeria in a recent game, the Nigerian players would not enter the locker room before the match. ``They said they weren't going in because we'd put a spell on their dressing room,'' he said.
It is not much different from Boston Red Sox fans who believed in the Curse of the Bambino, NBA players who put one sneaker on before the other for good luck, and the victorious French World Cup players of 1998, who always sat in the same seats on the bus and listened to the same songs in the same order because they felt anything else would curse their chances.
Bongani Mngomezulu, the coach of a local soccer team, the Black Mambas, outside Durban, told the Inter Press Service News Agency: ''Many soccer coaches have mixed feelings about the `ancestors,' but the truth is we will use traditional healers to `straighten' our players because of the psychological boost it gives them. If you believe you have the ancestral spirits on your side, you can play like you are inspired.''

ON THE FIELD
Among the most legendary examples of occult mixing with African soccer:
In 1992, the Ivory Coast team won the African Cup of Nations after an 11-10 penalty shootout. Fans credited the Sangomas, who had been hired by the Ministry of Sport but never paid. The Shamans got mad and reportedly put a curse on the team for 12 years. Eventually, the government caved and paid the advisors $2,000 each. Soon thereafter, Ivory Coast qualified for its first World Cup.

In 2003, magic was blamed for a melee after Rwanda upset Uganda 1-0. Uganda had narrowly missed five easy shots, and started to believe the goal was jinxed. Turned out there was a pair of ``lucky'' goalie gloves tied to the net. ``Witchcraft! Cheaters!'' the Ugandan fans yelled, and then they spilled onto the field starting a riot.

Taxi driver Gift Ndou recalled a tale of a local club team that won a big game after the goalkeeper on one of the teams swore he saw a cooking pot coming toward him when the ball was shot. He jumped out of the way, the ball went in, and his team lost.

``There are a lot of people, maybe most people here, who still believe the magic works,'' Ndou said. ``It helps inspire people, including famous athletes. They figure it can't hurt to go to a Sangoma, and maybe it will help, give them a little dose of good luck.''

Perhaps England goalkeeper Robert Green ought to pay Nephawe a visit after his blunder against the United States. Couldn't hurt, right?

Traditional Healers officially performing the World Cup opening ceremony by means of Ukuphahla.

PRESS STATEMENT

TRADITIONAL HEALERS OFFICIALLY PERFOMING THE WORLD CUP OPENINIG CEREMONY BY MEANS OF UKUPHAHLA

The Traditional Healers officially opens the world cup today in their own way [ukuphahla]. Ukuphahla is a process which involves burning of Impepho, pouring Unqomboti on the ground, ritual killings of a goat and chickens, offering prayers to the Ancestors, singing traditional songs, biting drums and dancing the traditional way.

The President of the Traditional Healers Organisaton Dr. N. Maseko commits all the players in the hands of the Ancestors through prayer to provide guidance, protection and to win the games.

Young children are dancing showing their appreciation of the world cup and the ceremony.

Yours Faithfully

Phephsile Maseko
THO National Co-ordinator

THO warns Healers just a day before the World Cup take off

Note that this is not a THO member and the organisation warns its members from conducting such predictions to the media. However,we do encourage healers to diagnose individual patients and also a specific team that comes to them with good intentions, not  media doctoring as this may create uncertainty to our potential clients. We want communities to know and respect us as capable and most reliable diviners in our life time. Once this is done well and professional, Africa and South Africa will gain all the respect and its image will be retained and Afrika will be SAVED. THO believes that the media should not be allowed a space to ridicule traditional healing and reduce it to nothing. "They should maintain the same respect for us as they have for their friends in western healing", Phephsile Maseko of the THO says. Can a journalist tell a western medical practitioner to diagnose a patient in an open field with every person hearing and looking on, surely not and why allow them to do a mockery of our profession this time?. Let us only give as much relevant information to the media as possible on what we plan to do to retain the cup but should desist from discussing the specifics as that becomes a private matter of a doctor and patient.

Thokozani and wishing all of you a beautiful time of football.
Viva Bafana Bafana, Viva AFRIKA!!!

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Witch doctor predicts South Africa win
Globe and Mail

Soccer teams often have foreign coaches, who don't believe in traditional medicine. Traditional healers are also facing criticism for their practice of ... 

read more here

Traditional healers call for the regulation of herbal medical practice.

Wa, June 7, GNA - The Won Waana Traditional Healers Association based at Wa in the Upper West Region has called on the Ministry of Health to regulate herbal medical practice in the country and to organise workshops on the administration of drugs for the practitioners. Mr Mahama Topie, Chairman of the Association, noted that the unemployment situation in the country has propelled all manner of people to veer into the preparation of herbal concoctions and dispensing them to innocent people without any consideration of the harm they could cause to patients.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Wa at the weekend after a general meeting of the Association, he observed that the absence of a regulatory body to check the activities of quacks in the system was undermining the development of herbal medicine.

He said innocent victims ran to hospitals and clinics when they develop complications arising out of the administration of herbal preparations by quacks thereby putting great strain on the national economy. The Health Ministry must, therefore, do more to arrest the situation to prevent innocent patients from falling victims to this unbridled desire by people, who are bent on making money at all cost no matter the consequences to their fellow human beings.

Touching on the planting of trees and other herbal plants to support their work, he said the Association has acquired land at Busa in the Wa Municipality and at the outskirts of Dokpong, in Wa Township but due to lack of technical support and money to cater for people engaged to take care of the plants against bush fires, the project failed to materialize. He, therefore, appealed to the Forestry Commission to support them to realise their ambition of cultivating raw materials for their medicine. 

Health News 7 June 10

Traditional medicine and healers

Absence of screening centers for medicinal and nutritional plants used locally has propelled Dr Daniel Motlhanka, a senior lecturer at the Botswana College of Agriculture to channel his research knowledge towards establishing a screening centre for such plants as well as nutritional food plants by 2014.
    
Motlhanka is a pharmacognosist by training and it was this research topic that secured him a place at the Leadership Development Fellowship, a World Health Organisation (WHO) programme.
He received a grant of $41,100 (approximately P246,600) aimed at enhancing his leadership skills for better research in this field.

"The three-year Leadership Development Programme is part of the WHO Tropical Disease Research's (TDR) empowerment strategy to build leadership capacity at individual, institutional and national levels.

The aim is to help disease endemic countries take more of a lead in national and international health research activities which have a direct impact on the infectious diseases of poverty," reads the TDR website.

"Presently our traditional medicinal plants are consumed without extraction of active ingredients that can achieve a desired impact," Motlhanka said.

This, he said is not good as every composition of the medicinal plant is consumed which could lead to some ingredients having side effects or suppressing the active ingredient from achieving the desired impact.

Another critical issue that the proposed centre aims to address is the quantification of traditional medicinal plants, through the use of standard protocols. The centre will also look at the effects of incorporating traditional medicine in the formal health care sector.

Motlhanka expressed concern that in Botswana people resort to taking clinical and traditional medicines simultaneously, a practice he said presents two possibilities; either the former makes the clinical medicine work better or it inhabits the activity of the clinical drug.
He revealed that at present, an approximate 80% of the country's population uses traditional medicinal plants; which are not screened and even quantified.
The proposed screening centre will look into screening of traditional medicines and food plants so as to extract the active ingredients (for medicinal plants) and the required nutritional amount from food plants.

Asked about the prospects of the centre packaging the medicines and food plants, he said the plan is to work towards this with already existing packaging companies such as Kgetsi ya Tsie and National Food Technology Research Centre (NFTRC).
"It will be a bank of traditional medicinal plants, we will ultimately do packaging," he said.
Motlhanka, an avid researcher in the field of local traditional medicinal plants and foods said it takes a collaborative effort with most importantly traditional healers themselves, various ministries like health science technology, the department of forestry and range management as well as a solid legal framework to ensure that these untapped natural resources benefit the country as well as Africa as a whole.

"It is an eyesore that Western researchers have benefited from our indigenous knowledge and our people didn't get anything in return," he said.
He stresses the importance of reinforcing community rights and intellectual property rights through the right legal channels.

Motlhanka is a member of the African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI) and the Society of Economic Botany of the USA. The Botswana College of Agriculture Research Publication Committee has extensively supported his research work in this particular field.
Traditional herbal medicines, many of which have been used for centuries, are emerging now into the focus of modern medical treatment.

Hoodia, devil's claw and many more are examples of medicinal plants found in Africa whose medicinal benefits were uncovered ages ago by the forefathers of this continent.
Take for instance hoodia; a succulent plant that was traditionally used by the San peoples of Southern Africa as an appetite suppressant, thirst quencher and cure for abdominal cramps, haemorrhoids, tuberculosis, indigestion, hypertension and diabetes among other uses.
Today, the active ingredient is used in diet pills for purposes of slimming.

The World Cup prayer ritual performed at the Soccer City on May 24, Africa Day.

The Secretary General of CONTRALESA, Mr. Setlamorago Thobejane, THO President, TDr. Nhlavana Maseko and Inkhosi Phathekile Holomisa attending the World cup prayer ritual which was organized by all African Religious sectors that took place at the Soccer City on May24, Africa Day. Healers, Traditional Leaders, Cultural activists, Commission for Religion and Culture, youth and women associations participated at the ritual. This event started from 09h00 am to 14h30 pm after which healers were told to continue perform rituals in their respective provinces and districts to both welcome and ensure that Africa conquers. This blessing was performed to clear all evil spirits and invite the new, request for peace and harmony, end xenophobia, end religious wars, request for Afrika's blessings to finally win the World cup. The prayer was led by TDr. Nhlavana Maseko a well known practitioner and Elderly.

World cup preparation.

THO breaking news!

this picture is a picture of two members of the THO, next to the THO World cup welcome banner is Stanford Jwara of Mzimkhulu, KwaZulu-Natal together with gogo Dorah Maluleke of Majakaneng in the North-West operating the THO Head office reception area. As we gear up to welcome the millions of people who are descending into both our country and continent the THO is this week goging to be busy with organising lots of rituals with about 24 elderly specialists from all Nine provinces of the country reviewing how the entire event will go. We will be diagnosing the entire event using our bones and using certain special herbs for wars and for luck to ensure that the continent conquers.Our specialist team will be working day in and out ensuring that South Africa gains and maintains respect and dignity. the first activity will be taking place at Natalspruit, Nhlapho Section in Gauteng, Members of the media have already been invited with some already requesting that we include them in our media list.

This however, will not offer the media an opportunity to ask healers to diagnose openly on the scores but rather will offer the media the opportunity to observe some of the public activities that will be performed in preparation for the country and continent to play better.

We promise to keep visitors to this site informed of developments in this regard. However, it is important for everyone to note that not all healers have been invited to this ritual but only the elderly which is from sixty years of age, unless for a few younger ones who will be working as assistants until the very last days of the world cup.

sinifisela inhlanhla nenjabulo nonkhe amadlozi eAfrika anisikelele.