Writer and poet Wally Serote believes that the late renowned traditional healer Credo Mutwa has left the country with the tools on how to survive the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mutwa died in March following a period of ill-health, just a few days before South Africa’s nationwide lockdown began.

“At the eve of the entry of the Covid-19 pandemic, Credo Mutwa passed. It is not a coincidence that he did so. I think it was a moment of reckoning, especially for indigenous leaders of our country,” said Serote.

“To say here goes the sanusi when we most need the sanusi. When we are invaded by something that is intangible; a merciless killer invades our country, invades the world, and we see coffin after coffin after coffin. Credo is not here to see that,” he said.

Serote was speaking at the Sol Plaatje University’s inaugural Credo Mutwa virtual colloquium on Tuesday, honouring the late sage who would have turned 99 on the day.

“But we cannot say Credo did not leave us with a belief that we can learn from this adversity; with a faith that we can learn from this adversity. He left all the tools for us. He ensured that he sculptured, painted, sung and entered all the art forms to leave a whole legacy for us so that we don’t forget what he knew and to explore and examine what he knew and what it is we can use from what he knew.

“At the eve of the coronavirus entry, he goes, and we are left wondering about him and also about the invasion of this virus. Credo Mutwa left us and for the first time some healers got together and said ‘what is it that we should do?’ It was correct for that to happen,” said Serote.