Local singer goes back to her igqirha roots

For the last 10 years, local artist Mercy Pakela has been denying her true calling – to be an igqirha (traditional doctor). Today the former disco star is relishing in her chosen profession saying:

“Now it has caught up with me, I cannot escape any more. I have been in denial for too many a time and this had impacted badly on my musical career and social life”.

Pakela is most famous for her recording of Ayashisa Amateki. But now the singer hopes to change her life and put her wayward past behind her. She has spent three weeks at Thantseka village, a stone’s throw away from AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo’s Bumbane Great Place, undergoing several Thembu rituals and cleansing ceremonies as part of the process of becoming an igqirha. These included imbeleko and intonjane, a young woman’s initiation.

Pakela says the reason for her finally adhering to her destiny came to her in a dream. “The dream instructed me to go to a Transkei village near Mthatha where I must undergo certain rituals and start the process of ukuvuma intwaso (accepting the ancestral call of becoming igqirha),” she said.

“These are rituals that I was supposed to have undergone in my teens,” said the 44-year-singer.

The rituals will culminate in her official acceptance of ubugqirha – a three- day ceremony.

“This is a turning point in my life and I hope many good things will happen for me,” she said.

:daily dispatch