Credo Mutwa

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa was a South African Zulu sangoma, or traditional healer, born in 1921, who trained in the healing practice known as thwasa under his grandfather and an aunt named Mynah after his grandfather nursed him back to health from a severe childhood illness his Christian father's church had declined to treat in the traditional way. He became widely known as an author whose books, most notably his 1964 work Indaba My Children, documented Zulu mythology, folklore and healing tradition for a wide audience, alongside his own claimed prophetic and cosmological insights. In 1974 he established the Kwa-Khaya Lendaba cultural village in Soweto, building traditional structures and sculptures representing a range of African cultural and healing traditions, and in 2018 he received a USIBA award from South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture in recognition of his contribution to indigenous knowledge; he died in 2020.