A SANGOMA hired by the University of KZN to assist students has called on parents to tell their kids who their real fathers are.
The SunTeam visited sangoma Philile Mkhize at her offices on the Durban campus yesterday.
The 39-year-old, known as Makhosi on campus, said a common problem among students was that they didn’t know who they really were.
She said she saw between 15 and 20 students a day and most told her their mothers wouldn’t say who their real fathers were or what their surnames were.
She said the issue was so serious that students could end up dropping out and living on the streets.
“Since I came to the university more than 10 years ago, I’ve helped many students find their real fathers and surnames,” she said.
Makhosi said she threw the bones and they often told her a student experiencing problems was using the wrong surname. She said other students couldn’t focus because they were ignoring their ancestral calling to become sangomas.
SRC leader Xoliswa Mavuso said traditional healing services were an important thing missing at most African universities.
The sangoma said a dean from the university came to train with her in 2008 and later told her the university was looking for an in-house sangoma.
“There were six of us in the interview and we had to answer questions from six panel members,” she said.
Professor Sihawu Ngubane, who is the head of indigenous matters at the university, said not all the problems needed a psychologist and said a sangoma was able to tell you even the kind of sickness and its cause before you could tell him or her. “A psychologist wouldn’t be able to pick up the ancestral calling which the sangoma does.”
