Notwithstanding attempts from the Eastern Cape Department of Health and other organisations to regulate the process of initiation, each year initiates still die or are mutilated. The challenge is to keep the boys safe without interfering with the traditional customs. It appears that women's voices are rarely heard on this issue.
We investigate links between the practice of ilobolo [bridewealth] and marriage outcomes in contemporary Zulu society. We present quantitative data which describe very low marriage rates particularly among Zulu adults, and which suggest also that the majority of Zulu adults identify ilobolo as a constraint to marriage.
This paper presents the story of an isiXhosa traditional healer (igqirha), Nomzi Hlathi
(pseudonym), as told to the first author. Nomzi was asked about how she came to be an igqirha
and the narrative focuses on those aspects of her life story that she understood as relevant to that
The devastating influenza epidemic of 1918 ripped through southern Africa. In its aftermath, revivalist and millenarian movements sprouted. Prophets appeared bearing messages of resistance, redemption, and renewal. African Apocalypse: The Story of Nontetha Nkwenkwe, A Twentieth-Century Prophet is the remarkable story of one such prophet, a middle-aged Xhosa woman named Nontetha.
Ali Green (2009: 51) has observed that “[w]omen’s experiences of giving birth have historically been under-explored as a resource for theology, but this essentially female function, now bodily represented by the woman priest, clearly symbolizes aspects of the divine”.
Many older African American women perceive spirituality as an important resource in facilitating the self-management process of their chronic disease conditions. Research designs, which are congruent with theoretical frameworks of African American women, are important.