Lesbian Sangoma Tells Her Story

by Russell on Jul 15th, 2008

Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde dances like a woman and slaughters like a man.

Her urge to live and draw others into her sense of interconnectedness emerges as a consistent theme in her story, Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma.

As a sangoma (traditional healer), Nkunzi is able to explore dimensions of her sexual identity because of her relationship with both male and female ancestors. “In Zulu culture a man must be a man and do male things and a woman must be a woman and do female things but with sangomas it is more flexible. I can dance like a woman and wear a woman’s clothes and dance like a man and wear a man’s clothes. I can do the work of a man, like slaughtering a goat or a cow although in traditional Zulu culture a woman cannot slaughter…”

Conscious of her constitutional rights as an urban young lesbian in a time of a relentless spate of hate crimes against gay people in townships, Nkunzi is simultaneously sensitive to the demands of the guiding ancestral voice of the traditional, rural Zulu patriarch whose name she bears. Her quest is for a middle path of balance and integration between the living and the dead, the traditional and the modern.

Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde was born on 7 December 1975. She comes from a family of six children of which she is the third child. Her given name is Zandile. She says that she was born a lesbian. She had just started to study journalism when she received her calling to become a sangoma. During that time she was also named for her ancestor Nkunzi (Black Bull), who gives her her healing powers.

She is proud of being a lesbian and a sangoma. After completing her training, she practiced in Soweto where she lived until 2004 when she got a job as a tour guide at Constitution Hill. She still practises as a sangoma. All her life she has dreamt of becoming a writer and hopes that this book is her first step.

Black Bull, Ancestors and Me is published by Fanele – Necessary, an imprint of Jacana Media.

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