‘My Mother Thinks I Am Crazy’ : White S. African Becomes Witch Doctor

PRETORIA, South Africa —  Dressed neatly in white smock and trousers, Jan Groenewald receives his patients in a scruffy waiting room adorned with skins and tribal trophies.

The slight, blond man politely leads his clients to a tiny examination room where he pronounces on their health and future prospects in exchange for a $12 consultancy fee.

Any idea, however, that Groenewald is in the dental or medical profession rapidly disappears when he dons a Zulu headdress and produces a bag of animal bones.

Groenewald, 23, better known in the trade as Sangoma Masaka, is one of a handful of whites who have qualified as a sangoma , or African witch doctor.

“My mother thinks I am crazy, that the devils have got me, and some of my friends think it is very odd for a white man. But I have the talent, the gift,” he told a reporter during a visit to his office in a busy Pretoria suburb.

Masaka plies his ancient trade with a 20th-Century professional veneer. Telephones ring constantly as a witch doctor-trainee takes appointments from worried businessmen, impotent lovers and curious housewives.

“I set up practice a few months ago and since then business has been booming. About 35% of my clientele is white,” he said.

Masaka, the son of an Afrikaner farming family, grew up amid the strict Calvinist traditions of his people, descendents of early Dutch settlers.

He became fascinated from an early age by the ancient customs of the black farm workers with whom he came in contact and soon came to believe he had the gift of a sixth sense.

“I would see an aura around some people. In church I would see people with blood on their head. They were soon to die.”

Masaka trained as a sangoma after a black man he met offered to take him to Zululand for instruction in the ancient art.

After learning the Zulu language, the young Afrikaner was taught the secrets of the witch doctor, which have been handed from generation to generation for centuries.

“I look into people’s eyes. There I see what sort of character they have, if they have a medical problem.

“Telling the past and present, I use my eyes, but if I am asked to predict someone’s future, I use the bones,” he said, pointing to a skin bag holding the tools of his trade.

Masaka’s bag contains an exotic mixture of shells, playing dice, dominoes, a small bank-note, a fox’s leg bone, a piece of tortoise shell, and much more.

A throw of the bones gives Masaka information on his patient’s future and provides the answer to the customary questions--the number of children the patient will have or their likely success in a business venture.

Masaka also uses muti --a secret mixture of herbs and roots--to cure anything from impotence to arthritis, from a nagging spouse to a financial predicament.

Strings of roots, piles of leaves and mysterious powders lie heaped on the shelves of his “pharmacy,” which takes up a corner of his office.

“Already I have had dozens of successes. I have driven out spirits, cured epilepsy and solved many sex problems,” he said.

Masaka’s herbal cures include a business luck powder, guaranteed to rid the troubled executive of all financial problems, a love potion which brings bickering couples back into each other’s arms, and powders to drive out evil spirits.

“The recipes for my muti are secret,” Masaka said. “The important thing is that they work.”

The Pretoria medicine man now hopes to try his hand abroad. He thinks that the United States is ready for his type of business.

“I have already heard from Americans who would like to have a consultation. Maybe my future lies there,” he added.