S Afr Med J. 1982 May; 61(21): 795-7.

[Observations on the opinions of black matriculants on the medical capabilities of different types of medical practitioners]

Booyens JH.

As a minor part of a more comprehensive anthropological research project in a Black township in the Western Transvaal, special attention was paid to the regard senior high-school students have for the curing abilities of different categories of medical practitioners. These categories include traditional practitioners (so called witchdoctors). Black "prophets' who belong to the independent churches, and the Western type of medical practitioner. The results of the study showed that although most of the respondents have a high regard for contemporary Western medicine, a high percentage (more than 80%) of the respondents consider the curing abilities of both "prophets' and traditional practitioners as being moderately to very effective. If the fact that traditional medicine still exists is regarded as a problem, it will simply have to be accepted or at least tolerated. It wil most probably play a more or less important role among Blacks in South Africa for some time to come. Traditional medicine does not exist as a separate entity, it is entrenched in a complex network of norms, cultural values and social circumstances and cannot be willed away overnight.