President Cyril Ramaphosa has expressed sorrow at the passing of renowned traditional healer, prophet, author and cultural historian, Credo Mutwa.
Mutwa, the ‘High
Sanusi of the Zulu’ people, died on
Wednesday morning at the age of 98 after being admitted at the Kuruman Hospital
earlier.
“On behalf of the government and the people of South Africa I offer our deepest
condolences to the family, friends and supporters of Bab’ Credo,” said Ramaphosa.
“We have lost one of our most ardent champions of African cultural heritage
preservation, who dedicated his life to fighting ignorance of our African customs.”
“Our country is the poorer at his passing, but he leaves behind a vast body of work and a wealth of knowledge that we will continue to study and learn from in years to come.”
Mutwa, a renowned traditional healer and diviner, was known for his sculpture work, as well as his accurate predictions, including the Marikana massacre in2012.
He was born on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal on 21 July 1921.
He was born to a Christian mother but his father believed in African tradition and culture, which embraced the ancestors.
In his book, Indaba, My Children, Mutwa detailed how he fell ill in his teenage years and when western medicine failed to heal him his paternal family took him and introduced him to the use of herbs, known as imithi.
He claimed he was then awakened to his path of becoming a sangoma.
It’s believed that during his lifetime, Mutwa had predicted the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers, Chris Hani‘s assassination, and the ousting of former President Thabo Mbeki.
After being exiled from Soweto, he settled in the then Bophuthatswana homeland, in the region of the Lotlamoreng Dam in Mahikeng, where he built one of his typical Credo Mutwa villages.
At the time of his death, Mutwa was living with his third wife, Virginia, in Kuruman, Northern Cape.
(Compiled by Inside Politics staff)
