SOME GOBELAS just left the child to play with her dolls
and watch cartoons.
Other gobelas tried to bring out her ancestral
voice.
BUT THE ANCESTORS JUST WOULD NOT TALK THROUGH HER!
The six-year-old girl has been moving around from one gobela to
another for months, apparently because her mother wanted her to be a sangoma.
Her first destination was three weeks spent with a gobela in Dobsonville, Soweto.
Angry residents threatened to report the matter to the police and
the child was moved. This carried on until the child landed in Braamfischer,
near Dobsonville.
This is where the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Community
members who had been trying to locate the girl for months finally found
her.
Mntimande Ngwenya of the Cultural, Religious and Linguistic
Community and the SunTeam were able to approach and rescue the child after weeks
of investigation.
“At this point the child is supposed to be in grade 1 playing with
other kids and toys,” said Mntimande.
He said if the child was faced with danger she would not be able to
defend herself.
“Traditionally when a child has a calling at this early age there
is usually an amagobongo ceremony to ask the ancestors to be patient until the
child is old enough.”
Gobela Bhozabhoza from Braamfischer, however, said she saw no harm
in taking the child in for ancestral initiation. “My own child went to
initiation school when she was only seven years. I did not want this, but not
even amagobongo could appease the ancestors,” she said.
“Instead I tried to delay taking my child to initiation school, but
she was hit by a car. So I had to honour the ancestors and let her fulfil her
calling.”
The little girl from Turffontein, Joburg, had apparently forgotten
her own name.
She said some gobelas treated her like a baby and she would spend
days watching cartoons and playing with dolls.
She also complained that while she was with a gobela in
Braamfischer her fellow thwasas, who were all under 20, would pour cold water
over her to force the ancestors to speak through her.
She said the ancestors had never spoken through her and she could
not remember the things she had been taught.
When the SunTeam spoke to the child she seemed to have no
understanding of why she had been sent to thwasa and she said she wanted to be
reunited with her family. She was taken to a place of safety.
Attempts to find the girl’s mum were unsuccessful as her phone was
off, and there was no one at the gobela’s address.