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Thwasa
''Ukuthwasa'' is a Southern African culture-bound syndrome associated with the calling and the initiation process to become a ''sangoma'', a type of traditional healer. In the cultural context of traditional healers in Southern Africa, the journey of ''ukuthwasa'' (or ''intwaso'') involves a spiritual process marked by rituals, teachings, and preparations. It begins with a calling, idlozi, from ancestors, often received through dreams or altered states of consciousness. Initiates, known as ''ithwasane'' ''or ithwasa'', undergo formal training under a mentor, ''gobela'', which can last months to years. ''Ukuthwasa'' process entails physical, psychological, and spiritual manifestations, which are believed to cleanse and prepare the initiate. The term ', meaning "come out" or "be reborn," signifies the transformative nature of the experience. Both men and women can become traditional healers through this calling. In the community of traditional healers, ''Ukuthwasa'' is perceived ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ithwasa Drinking Blood Of Goat
''Ukuthwasa'' is a Southern African culture-bound syndrome associated with the calling and the initiation process to become a Traditional healers of Southern Africa, ''sangoma'', a type of traditional healer. In the cultural context of Traditional healers of Southern Africa, traditional healers in Southern Africa, the journey of ''ukuthwasa'' (or ''intwaso'') involves a spiritual process marked by rituals, teachings, and preparations. It begins with a calling, idlozi, from ancestors, often received through dreams or altered states of consciousness. Initiates, known as ''ithwasane'' ''or ithwasa'', undergo formal training under a mentor, ''gobela'', which can last months to years. ''Ukuthwasa'' process entails physical, psychological, and spiritual manifestations, which are believed to cleanse and prepare the initiate. The term ', meaning "come out" or "be reborn," signifies the transformative nature of the experience. Both men and women can become traditional healers through this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igqirha
Traditional healers of Southern Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine in Southern Africa. They fulfil different social and political roles in the community like divination, healing physical, emotional, and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft and narrating the history, cosmology, and concepts of their tradition. There are two main types of traditional healers within the Nguni, Sotho, 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 traditional healers in South Africa compared to 25,000 doctors trained in bio-medical practice. Tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culture-bound Syndrome
In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture. There are no known objective biochemical or structural alterations of body organs or functions, and the disease is not recognized in other cultures. The term ''culture-bound syndrome'' was included in the fourth version of the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), which also includes a list of the most common culture-bound conditions (DSM-IV: Appendix I). Its counterpart in the framework of ICD-10 (Chapter V) is the ''culture-specific disorders'' defined in Annex 2 of the ''Diagnostic criteria for research''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of South Africa
The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. South Africa's first known inhabitants have been collectively referred to as the Khoisan, the Khoekhoe and the San people, San. Starting in about 400 AD, these groups were then joined by the Bantu ethnic groups who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion. These Bantu groups were mainly limited to the area north of the Soutpansberg and the northeastern part of South Africa until the later Middle Iron Age (AD 1000-1300), after which they started migrating south into the interior of the country. European exploration of the African coast began in the late 14th century when Portugal sought an alternative route to the Silk Road to China. During this time, Portuguese explorers traveled down the west African Coast, detailing and mapping the coastline and in 1488 they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch East India Company established a tradi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paganism
Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the Roman Empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not '' milites Christi'' (soldiers of Christ).J. J. O'Donnell (1977)''Paganus'': Evolution and Use, ''Classical Folia'', 31: 163–69. Alternative terms used in Christian texts were '' hellene'', '' gentile'', and '' heathen''. Ritual sacrifice was an integral part of ancient Greco-Roman religion and was regarded as an indication of whether a person was pagan or Christian. Paganism has broadly connoted the "religion of the peasantry". During and after the Middle Ages, the term ''paganism'' was applied to any non-Christian religion, and the term presumed a belief in fal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity In South Africa
Christianity is the dominant religion in South Africa, with almost 80% of the population in 2001 professing to be Christian. No single denomination predominates, with mainstream Protestant churches, Pentecostal churches, African initiated churches, and the Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ... all having significant numbers of adherents. Importantly, there is significant and sustained syncretism with African Traditional Religion among most self-professed Christians in South Africa. Christianity has played an important role in South African history. Some Christian denominations and Churches theologically supported inequality, subjugation and racial segregation (Apartheid), while other denominations and Churches others opposed segregation. History Christ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Christians
Christianity arrived to Africa in the 1st century AD; as of 2024, it is the largest religion on the continent. Several African Christians influenced the early development of Christianity and shaped its doctrines, including Tertullian, Perpetua, Felicity, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Cyprian, Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo. In the 4th century, the Aksumite empire in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea became one of the first regions in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, followed by the Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia and several Christian Berber kingdoms. The Islamic conquests into North Africa brought pressure on Christians to convert to Islam due to special taxation imposed on non-Muslims and other socio-economic pressures under Muslim rule, although Christians were widely allowed to continue practicing their religion. The Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (which separated fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on ''baasskap'' ( 'boss-ship' or 'boss-hood'), which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority White South Africans, white population. Under this minoritarianism, minoritarian system, white citizens held the highest status, followed by Indian South Africans, Indians, Coloureds and Ethnic groups in South Africa#Black South Africans, black Africans, in that order. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly Inequality in post-apartheid South Africa, inequality. Broadly speaking, apartheid was delineated into ''petty apartheid'', which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Divination
African divination is divination practiced by cultures of Africa. Divination is an attempt to form, and possess, an understanding of reality in the present and additionally, to predict events and reality of a future time. Cultures of Africa to the year circa C.E. 1991 were still performing and using divination, within the urban and rural environments. Diviners might also fulfill the role of herbalist. Divination might be thought of as a social phenomenon, and is thought of as central to the lives of people in societies of Africa (circa 2004 at least).''Issue 46 of Semeia studies'' Of the five regions of Africa,users.clas.ufl.edu/rserra/The%20Main%20Five%20Regions%20of%20Africa.doc The Main Five Regions of Africa, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences - The University of Florida. Retrieved January 12, 2017. of which there are 54 countries of Africa, the following countries are shown in this article: *North: Algeria, Egypt. *East: Djibouti Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
