DANIEL: Deep in South African Zululand traditional healers dance and sing to an ancient rhythm. They call themselves sangomas and inyangas, and their mission is to heal the sick using the methods of their forefathers, which are now being used to treat everything from HIV to afflictions of the mind.

DANIEL: Around two hundred thousand traditional healers are operating in South Africa. They collect mostly plants, roots, and herbs to treat three quarters of the nation’s population who consult them for health and family problems – or for luck. But sometimes they resort to other ingredients to increase the power of the medicine, known in Zulu as “muti”.

BENGHU: I like the bones of the rabbit because they are clever, even the monkey as well.

DANIEL: Mr Benghu is one of the Inyangas or senior healers in these parts, and he trains his sangomas in the delicate art of medicine.

DANIEL: What sort of person makes a good sangoma?
DANIEL: Is it a hard question? 01:43

BENGHU: It is a hard question.

DANIEL: He believes he has a calling to heal people – and specialises in treating the mentally ill.

NELLIE: It’s dry in my brain... I’m not sleeping… My brain is confused.

DANIEL: This process is said to drive away bad spirits, and it’s working for Nellie, who has been receiving treatment here deep in Kwa Zulu Natal for more than a year.

BENGHU: By doing that thing, it’s the way to chase away those bad spirits who are affecting them. So now we are sending those spirits back to where it belongs.

DANIEL: Nellie, the medicine, does it work? Do you feel better now?

NELLIE: Mr Benghu is very, very, very good. He says I’m right . If you go to a home, go to a shop, I'm right. My feelings are I’m happy.

Mr Benghu says congratulations.

DANIEL: But traditional medicine isn’t isolated to the deep reaches of rural South Africa.

DANIEL: Johannesburg is a modern symbol of the Rainbow Nation. In the townships of South Africa’s biggest cities, the remnants of traditional life persist.

WHINNIE: You know our great grandfathers and grandmothers
Whinnie they didn’t go to the medical doctors. There were no medical doctors by then. So they are they who are directing us. They are they who are telling us what to do, so that’s why I’m a Sangoma -- a traditional healer.

DANIEL: Ma Whinnie treats people at her home here in Johannesburg every day, and she can hardly keep up with demand.

This young mother has already taken her baby to a Western doctor, but she has more faith in the traditional healer.
WHINNIE: You can feel her stomach. Feel it. It’s hot. It’s very hot, yes, you see, you see?

DANIEL: So you can help?

WHINNIE: Yes I can help! I can help.

DANIEL: Day after day, people queue here for treatment for everything from the common cold to TB and AIDS. Others come for advice and to consult the ancestors.

WHINNIE: If it’s like this, it means your ancestors are going to give you money, but one day you’ll come back and tell me, I'm so lucky… I got a jackpot, or a lotto.

DANIEL: Soccer official Charles Challu and his colleague Moeketsi want some “muti” -- or medicine – to help them win tomorrow’s game.

WHINNIE: So I gave them this medicine. It’s a luck medicine. After washing with soap they will take this medicine then they speak “We are going to win today” and then they wash themselves. After that they’ll go and play. Then they'll come and tell me they have won.

DANIEL: What if they don’t win? What explains that?

WHINNIE: I am definitely sure of this medicine.
Ma Whinnie They are going to win this title and I’ll pray for them. I will ask my ancestors, they must give them luck, as I'm giving them this medicine. I am sure of it.
DANIEL: She seems pretty sure that you’re going to win?

CHARLES: Yes definitely sure, definitely sure.

DANIEL: What if the other team has also got muti - whose muti wins?

CHARLES: It will depend on which ancestors have the power. All of them have got ancestors but some muti can win, and another one can lose.

MOEKETSI: But we believe we are going to win.

DANIEL: Here, it’s mainly herbs and other plant materials that are used to cure, along with a few animal bones.

Goat sacrifice A sacrifice must be made to appease the ancestors who possess this woman’s body and mind.
It’s a confronting scene, but there’s an even darker side to African traditional medicine than this. Some slaughter not animals but people, to make the most powerful muti of all.

BENGHU: Those people who are using human fleshes we usually call them abatagat. Those are witches or witch doctors. If you can use
Benghu human flesh those people there, the owner of that dead somebody, those people are crying.

DANIEL: Up to three hundred people a year are killed in South Africa so that their body parts can be used in traditional medicine. Most of them are children. The human ingredients are said to increase the power of the muti because they’re taken from a live victim – for the life essence.

DANIEL: Salome Chokwe didn’t hear her son’s screams – and when she found him here it was too late.

DANIEL: He was missing his hand?

PETER: Yes.

PETER: You could see the brain but it shows as if someone has taken a bit of the brain.

DANIEL: Sello’s case has frustrated police. They arrested a local traditional healer and a businessman, but they couldn’t get a conviction for Sello’s death, so his killers walk free.

JONKER: Those inyangas who do that they’ve got no compassion it’s all about money, they’re bloodthirsty money-mad crazed guys I would say.

DANIEL: Understanding the nature of these bizarre crimes is difficult. They seek particular body parts for very specific purposes, and the aim is not to kill but to harvest. Hands are often buried palm up in the front yard of a business to bring in money for example, or human muti may be mixed with herbs to smear on products for sale.

JONKER: Here we have a child’s body. This was a six year old girl from Port Elizabeth in the eastern cape. Now, the sangoma believed by taking the private parts out and removing the skin there and this section of the face. And we found this in jam bottles inside the guy’s kitchen.

DANIEL: Such killings inspire superstition – even among black police who struggle with fear of retribution from powerful traditional healers.

JONKER: There’s not enough police officers that can do this job, because many police officers fear these people and many police officers will tell you straight out I don’t want to get involved with investigations where sangomas are involved.

DANIEL: In vast South Africa, tiny villages nestle in remote corners of the landscape, virtually cut off from the outside world. There are plenty of places for unscrupulous witchdoctors to hide from the law.

Cameraman Sipho Maseko arranges a consultation with the healer, who is accused of an act that’s reviled by many in Zulu culture.

SIPHO: But then you get crooks like this which are called witchcraft, they are really witchcraft, in Zulu you call them ntagat exactly. That’s the group there, those are killers. They do all these dirty things,

DANIEL: He carries a hidden camera to capture the exchange.

SIPHO: Hello, how are you?

DANIEL: In this footage he asks the healer for some muti to improve his business. He is purified with smoke and water mixed with herbs.. The inyanga then hands over what he says is a human bone.

INYANGA: Hold this bone -- hold it tight.

SIPHO: What is this bone from?

INYANGA: This human bone is for businessman. For your business not to fade.

DANIEL: But the healer isn’t keen to answer questions about his muti.

SIPHO: Are you saying this bone….?

INYANGA: Yes, this is the arm of a human being. It will make sure your business will not fade. Hold it tight.

SIPHO: How old was the person?

INYANGA: It’s from a young person. Stop asking so many questions.

DANIEL: Our cameraman is also given a ball of what the healer says is human fat.

SIPHO: What is this fat from?

INYANGA: These are fats from a human being.

SIPHO: This is human fat?

INYANGA: Yes.

DANIEL: He asks for money and our cameraman leaves, returning with three thousand rand, or about six hundred Australian dollars. He’s warned to keep the muti hidden.
INYANGA: Take it. Go well

DANIEL: We don’t know if the items we’ve just been sold are truly human.


DANIEL: This is the country’s largest muti market, and it’s full of strange and wonderful ingredients for all to see.
Ma Dlamini is the senior inyanga here. She explains that customers come for the animal and herbal cures offered by stallholders from all over Africa.

DLAMINI: Intelezi.
DANIEL: So you put it in a steam bath?

DLAMINI: Yes or if you've got a spook in your house.

DANIEL: Does it work to get rid of the spooks?

DLAMINI: Yes it does work, even the fat of the horse does work for the spook.

DANIEL: And even here, some are openly looking for more than what’s on the shelf.

DLAMINI: Yeah they do come and ask me about a bone of a person or a piece of the fat for a person. I say no I don’t use things like that. I use the roots of the medicines. Fat of that person or white person or Indian or pig, I don’t use.

DANIEL: Back at Wits University the experts in the anatomy department are closely analysing our purchase.

SCIENTIST: There’s no facet for the fibula, which is normally… there.

DANIEL: They’ve decided it’s animal rather than human.

SCIENTIST: Definitely not human.

DANIEL: But they’re concerned that the transaction indicates that there is still a strong market and demand for human body parts. And they’re not the only ones.


JONKER: You see these people are not fools.
Jonker If it’s a new man coming to him to get medicine he’s going to try to bluff him and say there’s these human parts, and it’s mixed with some sort of herbs, magical herbs or whatever. But that’s just to test him and if he comes back in two or three months time, they’re going to charge him a much bigger amount now, a few thousand rand, much more. And they might give him the same stuff again. And then of course a third time, fourth time, then he says now I can trust this guy, he’s not going to bring the police here, I can trust him. Then of course these magic medicines made out of human tissue will be given to him. That’s how they test most of these people in the beginning.

DANIEL: So we decide to return to the deep reaches of Kwa Zulu Natal to confront the vendor.

DANIEL: Sowabona. Are you Mr Szondy? We're here to ask you if you're selling human muti? Are you selling human muti, sir?

INYANGA: Go away! Go away!

DANIEL: The Inyanga is not pleased to see us.

DANIEL: Why did you sell our cameraman remains that you said were human?

INYANGA: Go away! Go away!

DANIEL: Do you admit that you did that?

DANIEL: He refuses to answer our questions. But through an intermediary he denies selling human parts.

DANIEL: Is he selling human muti?

INTERMEDIARY: I’m not quite sure, but he does give you things that look strange.

DANIEL: Like what?

INTERMEDIARY: Sometimes bones; things that are very scary. He says he doesn’t want to talk and he doesn’t sell any human muti.

INYANGA: Hey, I’m not selling human flesh here. I’m going to break the camera.

DANIEL: Did you try to sell our cameraman human muti? 18:30

INTERMEDIARY: He says he doesn’t want to speak to you, and he’s saying nothing.

DANIEL: We leave without really getting an answer. But that’s not the only one we were looking for.
Ma Whinnie treating baby

DANIEL: Back at Ma Whinnie’s place – for the moment at least -- a mother’s anxiety about her child has been relieved.

WHINNIE: Come and see the difference.

DANIEL: And she’s sure the traditional medicine has made her baby better.

DANIEL: On the soccer field, Ma Whinnie’s herbal muti is also getting the credit for results of a different kind. Charles Challu and his friends have won all their games since they bought it.


CHARLES: It works because each and every time I play, my club wins and my players perform very well.

DANIEL: But there’s another key question that hasn’t been answered. Salome sweeping Almost a year after her son’s death Salome Chokwe is still looking for the truth. She’s determined that someone will be caught. Because although her child has been buried, his body is not whole -- and nor is his spirit.
Salome at grave SALOME: I believe that Sello will never sleep in peace.

WHINNIE: The child’s spirit is roaming around. If you cut somebody’s days, her or his spirit doesn’t go straight to where it must go.
Ma Whinnie Those people they died a cruel death, it was not yet time for them to die.

DANIEL: Young Sello’s life is one of many cut short. But in modern South Africa, traditional life is alive and well -- and for that, some people die.

Credits Reporter: Zoe Daniel
Camera: Sipho Maseko
Research: Peter Ramatseba
Editor: Bryan Milliss
Producer: Mick O’Donnell