sangoman.
/saŋˈɡəʊmə//saŋˈɡɔːmə/ In Southern Africa, a witchdoctor, usually a woman, claiming supernatural powers of divination and healing.
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the world > the supernatural > the occult > sorcery, witchcraft, or magic > non-European magic (miscellaneous) > [noun] > sorcerer or medicine man > African witch-doctor
witch doctor1817
witchfinder1833
witch doctress1834
ngaka1871
sangoma1893
1870 H. Callaway Relig. Syst. Amazulu iii. 281 The doctor is called Isanusi, or Ibuda, or Inyanga of divination, or Umungoma.]
1893 I. Forsyth Gold Concession 72 Slinking leopards, stately lions, and ravening wolves waited continually to do the bidding of the great sangome (prophetess, or witch).
1905 R. Plant Zulus 21 An Isanusi or Isangoma, that is a diviner, would be called in to discover the cause of this persistent illness.
1930 R. E. Phillips Bantu are Coming i. 16 They have been smelled out by the isangoma (witch-doctor) and punished.
1967 Drum (Johannesburg) 27 Aug. 12 I'm tough, tough, mighty tough. And its thanks to Soweto's so-sexy sangoma, Sarah Mashele, who gave me her full rejuvenating treatment the other day.
1979 J. Drummond Patriots xvi. 83 A sangoma is a witch doctor; not a dispenser of medicines, but a diagnostician, often a woman, who interprets dreams, casts fortunes.
1988 Personality (Durban) 4 July 79/3 You sing about your mother who was a healer, a sangoma.
2004 D. M. Cumes Africa in My Bones iii. 23 Sangomas are frequently women who work in a trance state channelling the ancestors from the spirit world... To become a sangoma requires arduous and difficult training.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1993; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.1893