Sitting on a couch and speaking into her phone camera, Gogo Shumba carefully outlined step-by-step instructions: “Take a 10-rand note — the green one — and a handful of salt. Dip it in water for three days. Then, dry out the note and keep it in your wallet.”
“Your money problems will be taken care of,” she concluded.
Shumba (36) was addressing viewers who had joined her TikTok livestream to learn how to get rich.
The Zimbabwean traditional healer, or sangoma in the local dialect, has been giving spiritual advice on TikTok for nearly two years, and has around 31 000 followers on the Chinese social media platform.
“Traditional healer from Zimbabwe makes people rich” has become a popular content category on TikTok, and Shumba is one of the many sangomas offering spiritual guidance and special prayers to their followers.
While such services have been part of Zimbabwe’s culture for centuries, TikTok has helped traditional healers find a global audience.
Some of their most active followers are from other African countries, as well as the US and the UK.
As they advise people on TikTok about how to get rich, the platform has helped the sangomas improve their financial conditions.
- Soulfulness and harmonizing the whole is the essence of art
- Bogus n’angas con bereaving widow
- Traditional healers selling wealth on TikTok
Keep Reading
In their community, however, TikTok sangomas are often looked down upon and face opposition from more orthodox peers.
“We have seen that with Pentecostal church leaders and their use of radio and television. We have seen people flocking to those churches seeking fortune,” Oswelled Ureke, a senior lecturer of television studies and digital media production at the University of Johannesburg, told Rest of World.
“There could be a connection between the difficulties that people face in life and their consultations of sangomas. But it might also be that it’s just for entertainment purposes.”
Traditional healer Shumba has been giving spiritual advice on TikTok for nearly two years. @sty2lis
The southern African country has been dealing with an economic crisis marked by hyperinflation, high unemployment, and rising poverty.
Lesley Chihera, a 29-year-old Harare-based hairdresser, started consulting sangomas on TikTok in 2020.
She had lost her livelihood due to the pandemic lockdowns, and was unable to visit the prophets she had regularly consulted.
Now, she follows a network of TikTok sangomas and is convinced that their counseling will help her overcome financial distress.
“Right now, I really need money and that is why I am on TikTok sessions,” Chihera told Rest of World.
“God-willing and your vadzimu [family spirits] permitting, things can change for the better with help of TikTok sangomas.”
Following the sangomas’ advice, she has dumped eggs and old currency notes in the middle of the road to ward off evil spirits, among other things.
For the healers, TikTok has been a financial boon.
A sangoma charges anywhere between US$80 and US$300 for a consultation, depending on the service and the location of the client.
But the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association does not recognise the work of sangomas who offer services through TikTok, spokesperson Prince Mutandi told Rest of World.
“Most of these TikTok and social media sangomas are thieves masquerading as traditional healers,” Mutandi said.
“Spirituality and technology do not mix. They are like water and oil.”
—Rest of World
