Pricing for traditional healing must be accessible to all people

Every quarter or so, the conversation on the cost of "river cleansings" re-emerges on social media platforms, more so on X.

Sometimes the conversation extends, touching on overall services rendered by traditional healers or izangoma. The exchange of money remains a contentious matter among traditional healthcare seekers and the public.

A few months ago, I read an academic paper which broadly spoke about traditional medicine, specifically in the African context. I remember being incredibly shocked at the claims of the authors of the paper who held the position that African traditional medicine was inaccessible to the average black person due to its high pricing.

I will admit my scrutiny of the claims laid dormant in my brain until this very moment. I remember at face value thinking, ‘Hmmm, that can’t be true’, but with no real base to support my stance.

In retrospect, my apprehension towards accepting the claims as true at face value was likely rooted in my earlier reading which made claim that over 70% of black South Africans use western allopathic medicine alongside traditional medicine.

However, with the conversation on cleansing suddenly gaining salience again on social media, I cannot help but admit the validity of the claims of inaccessibility.

My technical producer Demi Buzo shared the earlier mentioned tweet with me, which read “Nah, but why are river cleansings so expensive. R3,500?” by user @LiseboMofokeng. We decided to build an episode of Gogo, Have I Been Scammed?, available on the SowetanLIVE website, under podcasts.

Since the conclusion of the discussion, I have been thinking profusely about the circumstances under which people seek the help of traditional healers. I have asserted in earlier writings that it is my view that people often turn to and seek the intervention of traditional healers – usually at the 11th hour – out of sheer desperation.

Desperation often has financial bearings, and I can imagine how treatment that requires R3,500 in cash could be rendered inaccessible. In the same breath, when one is desperate enough, one can truly sink into the depths of shallow decision-making.

One might consider begging, borrowing or even stealing the funds needed to relieve their situation.

Even outside a spiritual context, think of the times that you have been down and out and some of the decisions that consequentially came from you. I am certain that, in hindsight, you think about the ways that you could have acted differently and all the avenues that you failed to see because of the tunnel vision associated with desperation.   

Visiting a sangoma who claims all your problems can be unsullied by a simple river cleansing offering the chance for an overall panacea, is tempting.

Very few people would shy away from the ritual of cleansing – after the rationale that it restores purity of one aura such that they attract all the good meant for them and repel all the bad formed against them.

You are probably wondering what I am saying. Am I saying that R3,500 is too much? Or is it appropriate? Is there a right amount? Why do different sangomas charge differently? Is there a pricing model attached to cleanings?

I suppose, to answer these questions I need to borrow from the language of pricing models. I vehemently state that no self-respecting or tradition observing sangoma decides on what to charge clients at their own whim.

Each of us are initiated by a Shaman who was also initiated by a Shaman and so on. Why is this important?  Well, because lineage connects us not only to our spiritual families but to the ways that we practice and perform ubuNgoma in real time.

Simply put, our pricing model takes that of a top-down approach where the seniors provide guidelines for pricing.

Naturally, because we are not all initiated in the same school, prices vary. Also, the pricing guideline – or at least how it was explained to me – ensures that as a healer you acknowledge that these gifts are not your own and you must “pay for them”.

This would mean that the money exchanged between healer and clients must strictly be used by the healer to furnish their prayer rooms with adornments that play an integral part of healing.

As one of my Shamans (Mathiyane) used to say to me, “Imali yase Ndumbeni, eyasendumbeni. Ungaxakekeli kuyo” [Money given to you by your clients in exchange for spiritual services, should be used to fulfil other spiritual endeavours and for personal use. No matter the emergency.].

Yes, naturally there are izangoma whose livelihoods depend on the money that clients pay . These are izangoma who are not able to hold professions outside ubuNgoma – which can be a good and bad thing.

Good in the sense that one is always fully engaged in African medicine, honing their healing skills and possibly other supernatural skills. It can also be bad because if a healer has no other money coming in, it becomes a slippery slope in that they charge clients, not according to custom and tradition, but based on the amount of money needed to relieve their situations.

With that said, how much do you think is too much for a cleansing?