Traditional healers of South Africa are practitioners of
traditional African medicine in
Southern Africa. They fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including
divination,
healing physical, emotional and
spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death
rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting
witches, and narrating the history, cosmology, and myths of their tradition. There are two main types of traditional healers within the
Nguni,
Sotho-Tswana and
Tsonga societies of Southern Africa: the
diviner (
sangoma), and the
herbalist (
inyanga). These healers are effectively
South African shamans who are highly revered and respected in a society where illness is thought to be caused by
witchcraft, pollution (contact with impure objects or occurrences) or through neglect of the ancestors. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 indigenous traditional healers in South Africa compared to 25,000 Western-trained doctors. Traditional healers are consulted by approximately 60% of the South African population, usually in conjunction with modern biomedical services.