Profile- Mrs Shama Chetty (herbalist)

Herbs and spice - South Africa’s Indian African Traditional Healer

                                           

Medicines have been around for many years yet today a simple ‘popping’ of a pill is regarded as medication, but where do these pain killing, illness curing blobs of pressed medicinal powder come from?

  Shama Chetty is a 68 year old Indian woman

who has been in the herbalist business as long as

she can remember. Learning about the different

roots and leaves at the tender age of 20, ‘it didn't

take me long to learn how to make all the

different mixtures, I guess its in my blood to

heal people.’ Mrs Chetty’s father was originally from Newcastle, he was the first Indian man to learn about African healing methods and it was he who introduced these medicines in the Transvaal.

 

Mrs Chetty has helped countless people with various illnesses, some who thought they wouldn't pull through but survived with the help of her medicines and as a form of thanks people would bring her gifts like pots and pans etc. Up until today, even the younger generation of African people are going back to their roots as they believe that the raw form of medicine is its most pure form.

 

When asked if one needs to study to become a traditional healer,Mrs Chetty proudly replied ‘yes indeed, you need to know every type of root, leaf and bulb that cures all different types of illnesses and what other raw plants should be mixed with it.’

 

   One thing among many others which was quite
   interesting, was when Mrs Chetty explained how  
   Gavascon (medicine for indigestion) is made. One of the
   key ingredients in this indigestion fighter is a root known as
 'Shongwe' it is ground into a powder and consumed in the raw    form in small heaps, off the palm of your hand, in order to cure
heart burn and indigestion

 
                                                

This year marks 48 years that Mrs Chetty has been in the business of helping people, ‘I refer to myself as a traditionalhealer as I have an undying passion to
help those who are in need whether they
have money or not, I give medicine on
credit!’ She strongly believes that people
who are skeptical about traditional
healers, should know that there is a vast difference between witchcraft and traditional healings. She assures all, that herbalists do not use body parts or any of the bogus things that people, who claim to be healers but are just plain down money grabbers use.

 

Mrs Chetty remembers her grandmother who only used the raw African medicines for her own illnesses, she lived till the ripe old age of 98. Reminiscing, Mrs Chetty talks about when she was a little girl, her father would ask her to fill small empty bottles with animal fat. In the African culture it is believed that the fat of an animal gives a person strength. She remembers helping a man whom the doctors said there was no other way but to amputate his leg due to the rotting of his calf. She gave him a ground powder to rub over the wound and in a matter of 2 weeks the man had returned to Mrs Chetty, thanking her and showing her how miraculously his leg had healed.

 

This business has been in Mrs Chetty's family for over 60 years and today it remains a family business with everyone owning their own branch. At the beautiful age of 68, when she should be retired, she chooses to continue helping people through her herbal healings. ‘I have a gift of healing people and I wont stop as this is my whole life.’ So in actual fact, the medicines we buy over the counter, are given to us by mother nature herself!