South Africa's Health: Traditional healers in South Africa: a parallel health care system

Abstract

The theory underlying traditional medicine in the several black ethnic groups of South Africa is essentially similar.2 Disease is a supernatural phenomenon governed by a hierarchy of vital powers beginning with a most powerful deity followed by lesser spiritual entities, ancestral spirits, living persons, animals, plants, and other objects. These powers can interact, and they can reduce or enhance the power of a person. Disharmony in these vital powers can cause illness. Thus, ancestral spirits can make a person ill. Ingredients obtained from animals, plants, and other objects can restore the decreased power in a sick person and therefore have medicinal properties.