Photos Celebrating Indigenous South African Spirituality

This article originally appeared on VICE Belgium.

South Africa is a multiethnic society made up of different cultures, languages, and religions. Over 80 percent of its population is Black and Indigenous, while about eight percent are descendants of the European colonists who gradually took control of the territory starting from the 1600s. 

Despite being only a small proportion of the population, Europeans have had an overwhelming impact on South Africa’s culture and history. Decades of land grabs, population displacement, institutionalised white supremacy and the imposition of European languages and religions have left local communities struggling to maintain their identities and survive the white man’s rule.

This forced cohabitation of beliefs is spotlighted in Giya Makondo-Wills’s photo book They Came From The Water While The World Watched. Both British and South African, Makondo-Wills decided to explore this topic in the Limpopo region, the northern part of the country, where part of her family comes from and still lives. Limpopo is a perfect example of South Africa’s diverse population, with its over five million inhabitants speaking English, Sepedi, Tsonga, Venda, Afrikaans, Tswana, Northern and Southern Ndebele, Sesotho and Zulu. 

Makondo-Wills, who now lives in the Netherlands, embarked on this project “to study not only the history of these religions in relation to colonisation and the activities of 19th-century missionaries, but also their existence in the 21st century, and the resilience of Indigenous practices”. She spoke to VICE about her project and what she’s learned while working on it.

VICE: Why did you decide to explore South African spiritual beliefs for your project?
Giya Makondo-Wills: The idea came to me while watching my grandmother pray before leaving the house. When she prays, she's not just praying to one God but to all Gods, who she calls her “ancestors”. 

This combination of beliefs made me think about how Christianity and ancestral practices coexist in South Africa – and the origins of this religious intermingling. I’m also personally invested in this work because my family is both South African and British. This duality is represented in my own origins and I was raised with an understanding of both beliefs.

Why is photography your medium of choice?
Photography can be a great equaliser – both accessible and complex. It can create conversations and challenge dominant narratives in a really special way.

I’d say my passions in life and my drive comes from a concern with the urgent matters of our time and how they relate to the history of marginalised communities. At the core of my practice, I encourage challenging the Western gaze. The camera has an important role in writing new narratives around identity, race, colonisation and systems of power.

Tell us more about the traditions seen in this project
All traditions depend on where you live in South Africa, and which tribe you belong to. Many Indigenous practices allow us to stay connected with our ancestors and lineage – as well as our land. They help us realign ourselves, find our place as a small part of a larger system where we live in harmony, not adversity, with other elements. These Indigenous practices aren’t Eurocentric or based on any capitalist Western framework, either, so it's a completely different way of viewing the world.

Who's this man in the photo above?
He's a sangoma, a traditional healer who lives in the village where my father grew up, in Limpopo. I often return to this village to stay with my family, and that's where I shot a lot of this work. This sangoma used to be my father's healer when he was a child. Because of Apartheid, sangomas were the most accessible source of medical knowledge for people in rural areas. [Apartheid laws allocated medical resources mainly to white South Africans, who were geographically segregated from Black areas.]

I met him through my uncle, and then we collaborated to create this image. He’s one of the most prominent traditional healers in South Africa. He also has a school for sangomas. I shot this image in his house, where he conducts most of his ceremonies. For the photo, he chose what he wanted to wear and how he wanted to pose. For me, this is the big upside of digital work: I could show him the result right away, and we adjusted it together until we got to an image we both liked.

What about the guy holding the giant snake?
The snake is a reference to multiple things, from the Garden of Eden and the serpent on the pole in the Bible; to the python dance (Domba), which is practised by my tribe, the Venda people; and to the use of python fat by certain sangomas.

I met this man while visiting a snake sanctuary in Johannesburg, and luckily, I was the only person who turned up that day. We spent a lot of time photographing these snakes until we came across the python. Then we collaborated until we got this image.

What did people think of the book? Did you send it to those you featured?
I created this book during the pandemic [the pictures were taken between 2016 and 2019] and haven't returned to South Africa since its publication in 2020. I'll be taking it with me next year. While I was still working on the project, I brought back a few small prints for the people in the photos who I could track down. But I can’t wait to go back now it’s finished – also to see my family. 

The reception has always been positive. I think that's why I love collaborating – I want everyone to be happy with how they're portrayed. I don't know if that makes me a people pleaser or a poor documentary photographer. I don't like being aggressive or too raw in how I depict people.

Do you get a sense that these traditions are being forgotten in South Africa?
I believe that traditional practices will always find a way to stay alive, in one form or another, because they’ve existed for hundreds of years. In my view, the younger generations need to become the custodians of these practices to make sure they don't fade away. I hope people worldwide will delve into the Indigenous traditions of their countries, because I think they can teach us a lot about human beings and the reasons why we are the way we are.

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