Blood Money: Biblical and economic interpretations of oral
narratives concerning wealth-giving snakes in the northern
Transkei/ Kokstad area, South Africa
The Tswana speaking peoples in southern Africa use the same word for money and
blood: madi, suggestive of the way in which money is the lifeblood of modern
existence, yet also carrying with it a sense of the dangerous, destructive effects that an
obsession with money can have on the lives of individuals and communities.
In the southern African context, associations between money and blood calls to
mind some particularly potent and dangerous occult beings: the so-called muti, or
magical, snakes, the ichanti and mamlambo. These creatures live in rivers, and have
powers of metamorphosis. They have the capacity to bestow great wealth on their
owners, but at a terrible price.
In analysing narratives dealing with wealth-giving snakes, I will focus on a group
of narratives concerning the life story of an individual who has perhaps been more
closely associated with these type of serpents than anyone else in South Africa, the
millionaire herbalist Khotso Sethuntsa, or Khotso, as he is commonly called. I am
currently writing his biography.
Khotso came from impoverished rural origins, a village deep in the Maloti
mountains in Lesotho, yet became fabulously rich. In 1957, a South African journalist
wrote of him: "So prodigious is his wealth and so strange are the stories told about
him that his name is spoken with awe throughout the territories" (Daily Dispatch: 5 6). Some of the strangest and most disturbing of the oral accounts concerning Khotso
deal with his ownership of magical snakes.
Khotso lived for most of his adult life in South Africa, first in Kokstad, in southern
KwaZulu-Natal, and then in the Transkei, in the Eastern Cape. Astonishingly wealthy,
he owned 38 properties by the mid 1960s. He had 18 houses, peculiar palatial
structures, with blue and white tiles, ornate columns and archways and statues of
lions. "At night," one of my students told me, "people believed that those lions would
come to life and roar" (Wood/ Sicwetsha, 2001: 11). Khotso drove around the
countryside in Cadillacs, flaunting his wealth and scattering largesse in his wake.
Khotso's career was characterised by tremendous ostentation and exhibitionism.
When he purchased his luxury cars, for example, he preferred to do so at events like
the annual Kokstad Agricultural show, where he would have a large audience. He
would arrive with attendants carrying suitcases full of banknotes, which they would
open and slowly count out before an astonished crowd. Journalists repeatedly wrote of
his lavish, seemingly casual displays of wealth. Laughing, he would send fistfuls of
banknotes cascading round him and sackfuls of money would lie, like overstuffed
cushions, in the corners of rooms. He would sometimes brandish big sparkling stones
which he boasted were diamonds, and polish them enthusiastically in front of
photographers.
This gleeful exhibitionism was coupled with extravagant displays of generosity.
Khotso would present gold coins to people he barely knew, and would casually give
cars away to individuals he liked. Alf Marsburg, who was the Lusikisiki magistrate in
the latter part of the 1960s, recalls how once, when he and his family were setting off
on a trip, Khotso presented them with a large tray of fried fish and fourteen roast
chickens, as food for the road - but it was far more than they could possibly eat
(Wood/ Marsburg: 2004: 6). Isaac Tuku, who works on a farm just outside Kokstad,
describes how once, when he and some friends were returning from a wedding party,
Khotso stopped them and said they must come to his house for another feast. He
pressed huge quantities of food and drink on them. It was quite overwhelming, Tuku
said (Wood/ Tuku, 2004: 3).
As far as many people were concerned, someone like Khotso, from a povertystricken background, illiterate, but fabulously rich, was clearly involved in uthwala,
the ownership of wealth-giving snakes. Part of the reason why Khotso was viewed
with awe and fear and perceived as somehow set apart from the communities around
him was because of the widespread belief that he controlled such serpents and could
sell them to others. In 1962, the anthropologist, W.D. Hammond-Tooke stated that the
Bhaca people, in the Transkei and southern KwaZulu-Natal, maintained that two men,
one in Durban and the other in Kokstad, were famous sellers of intlathu, wealth-giving
snakes (285). It is probable that Khotso was the second man in question. "[T]he
person who really wants wealth, he will contact Khotso," says Bongo Vika, from
Mount Frere in the Transkei. "If a man comes from Khotso, that means he has some
sort of snake" (Wood/ Kwinana and Vika, 2001: 1). Tsolwana Mpayipheli, from Lady
Frere in the Transkei, repeats a local tale: "When you go to him, he will make you
strong power. He will take a snake and the snake will swallow you. ... After some few
days ... the snake will spit you [out]. Then the people will fear you" (Wood/
Mpayipheli, 2001: 9).
There are two types of muti snakes, the ichanti and the mamlambo. The former
tends to be associated with indigenous kinds of wealth, such as animals and crops,
while the mamlambo, a hazardous, enticing figure, has become very closely associated
with the allure of Western materialism.1 This being is able to take on the form of a
beautiful woman. Appropriately enough, she generally wears Western clothes
(Wilson: 287). The heady, seductive nature of the desire for individual material gain is
suggested through the sexually alluring nature of the mamlambo. Often, she is
depicted as a Western mermaid: half curvaceous woman with long flowing hair, half
snake. She calls to mind the West African figure of the perilous, siren-like Mami
Wata. Like the mamlambo, the latter proffers great wealth and power, but has the
capacity to bring about terrifying ruin (Siegel, 2001: 1 - 2). 2
1
Anthropologist Monica Wilson's observation that some people in Pondoland said that the
mamlambo and the ichanti were the same but that the best informants distinguished between them
(1936: 286 - 287) held true in my own interviews.
2
Brian Siegel examines points of comparison between the Mami Wata figure and the mamlambo in
his study of African mermaid figures and water spirits (2000). Like the mamlambo, the Mami Wata is
described as having a Western appearance and she bestows modern capitalist commodities, particularly
money. In order to gain riches, success and power, a person must remain faithful to Mami Wata and
refrain from having sexual intercourse with any other people (Frank, 1995: 340).
2
The mamlambo's shape shifts and changes. As a serpent, it has shining, hypnotic
eyes and it sometimes has a brilliant jewel set in its forehead. It can also appear in the
form of bright, shiny objects. Anthropologist Isak Niehaus points out that the fact that
mamlambo is associated with things that shimmer and glisten, like water, lights and
the gleaming scales of a snake, links it more closely to symbols of wealth, such as
coins, which sparkle and shine. Money and water, Niehaus continues, share certain
similar attributes. Both are viewed as essential for survival in today's society, yet both
can be constructive and destructive (2001: 59, 58).
Khotso, who surrounded himself with Western-style trappings of wealth, was
particularly closely connected to the mamlambo (for instance, Wood/ Sigwili, 2001: 3
- 4). Mr Njongwe, from Matatiele, near Kokstad, knew Khotso as a young man. At
four o'clock every afternoon, Khotso would say: "My wife is expecting me under the
water, I must be going" (Lewis/ Njongwe, 1997). Was he, by hinting that he was
"married" to the mamlambo, merely having fun at Mr Njongwe's expense? Certainly,
by allowing stories of this nature to spread, Khotso was encouraging popular belief in
his power over wealth-giving snakes, thereby promoting himself as a seller of
uthwala. This helped boost other, related areas of his practice as a herbalist: of all
Khotso's medicines, his special muti for wealth and luck became his biggest money
spinner.
This latter type of medicine had temporary, short-term results, and it was far less
pricy - and dicey - than going through the full process of uthwala, through which one
could obtain fortune on a long-term basis. People who went to Khotso for uthwala
were required to go through various ordeals. These often involved confrontations with
snakes, although the test could take different forms: for instance, being chased by a
great black tyre (like a giant dark snake that had bent itself into a hoop), swallowing
needles or facing an oncoming train - a serpentine artefact of superhuman force.
"You'd see it coming at you and have to sit between the rails," says Roseberry Maloi,
who grew up in Kokstad (Wood/ Maloi, 2002: 3). "He was testing their courage,"
Anele Mabongo, from Lusikisiki, in the Transkei, reflects. "It is said that what you see
may be a figment of your imagination. [For instance], it might not be a train, but when
you see it, you think it is a train" (Wood/ Mabongo, 2002: 9 - 10).
James Lunika, who was very close to Khotso in the 1960s, took a pragmatic view.
He believed that Khotso's clients probably did experience something very frightening,
because such tests made good business sense. Khotso was testing his clients'
determination. If they could get through the test, quite possibly they would have what
it took to make money for themselves. So, if they passed the terrifying tests, they
might well find the resources within themselves to obtain the fortune they sought
(Tloti and Wood/ Lunika, 2004: 10). There is, also, the power of suggestion. If clients
were required to undergo various ordeals, this could help strengthen a belief that the
medicine they were finally granted was so potent and efficacious that it could not
simply be dished out lightly, to anyone who came asking for it.
3
No one knows exactly what went on in the whole test, though, because only those
that failed talked, maintains Lalo Yako, from Duncan Village, in East London. No-one
he has ever heard of, Yako states emphatically, will say he went through the full twala
(Lewis and Wood/ Yako: 12). An aura of secrecy hangs over the whole process. One
man in Kokstad, who ran a highly successful funeral parlour and was a good friend of
Khotso's, successfully passed the ordeal, locals insist. The man himself is dead, so I
went to speak to his family. They were adamant that no such thing had taken place.
"We are Christians," his sister said. "My brother would never have got involved in
anything like that" (Tloti and Wood/ Makana, 2004: 3).
The danger of owning a mamlambo is that it will eventually control its owner - just
as the desire for money can come to rule peoples' lives. Certainly, Khotso's life was
dominated by his adoration of money. All too often, his personal relationships seemed
to take second place. Mamlambos, it is believed, are notoriously jealous, and they do
not take kindly to competition from flesh and blood women. "If you want to get rich
quick, don't sleep with your wife," says Anthony Nkosana Faro, from Lesotho (Lewis/
Faro, 1997: 3). Ellen Jones, one of Khotso's wives, relates: "Money just had to flow
in, one way or another. He loved the smell and touch of it, coins and notes. No getting
out of it. There were pillows of money" (Lewis/ Jones, 1997: 5). We can bear in mind
that the word twala can also mean abduction. 3 Was Khotso so carried away by his
obsession with fame and wealth that he lost touch with certain basic realities? Were
the outrageous fictions he wove around himself, the risks he ran, certain of the
stranger, more shocking practices attributed to him and the shadowy, dubious
alliances he forged with some of the most-hated leading political figures of his day all
the result of the fact that he was a man possessed - either by the snake-like mamlambo
itself or the heady, treacherous dreams of economic prowess that it embodies?
In exchange for the wealth it provides, the mamlambo demands sacrifices: such as
the blood of animals and eventually even, it is maintained, the blood of those closest
to its owner, such as family members. The fact that the creature is said to feed on the
blood of such people suggests how material profit can take place at the cost of
personal relationships. For instance, Khanyisa Madyibi, from the Mount Frere area in
the Transkei, says of the mamlambo: "So they go like they want blood, and you must
slaughter and slaughter and slaughter, At some point, they will go like they want
human blood" (Wood/ Madyibi, 2001: 7). "It's like a motor car," remarks Fort Hare
student Bonga Vika. "You've got to service that motor car. If you don't, the motor car
will start [giving you problems]. If you don't keep it up properly, it will turn
dangerous" (Wood/ Kwinana and Vika, 2001: 4). Similarly, one of anthropologist Isak
Niehaus's informants in the Northern Province, in South Africa, observes: "Every
year, [the mamlambo] demands blood and sacrifice. If you don't feed it with a
sacrifice, it will kill you" (56). The sense of evil and menace associated with the
blood-sucking wealth-giving snakes which Khotso was rumoured to control
emphasises the damaging effects - on both the individual and society - of an unbridled
desire for material gain (Niehaus: 46 - 47).
3
"Twala" can also denote bearing a large load on one's head; a burden so heavy that it cannot be
carried in a normal fashion. In other words, it suggests carrying a huge weight that one is not properly
equipped to take on.
4
In part, many of the stories linking Khotso with uthwala provide a means of
levelling condemnation against him on the grounds of his wealth, which clearly
constituted a controlling force in his life and which he paraded ostentatiously in the
midst of poverty-stricken communities. Fanele Sicwetsha, who once lived in Mount
Frere, remarks: "[I]n a traditional set-up, people believe that you've got to earn what
you've got, work hard for it ... You know, [then] people were poorer, especially blacks
at that time" (Wood/ Sicwetsha, 2002: 1 - 2). This idea pervades many of the accounts
of Khotso's association with uthwala, reinforcing the notion that a fortune of the
magnitude of his, its origins shrouded in secrecy, could not possibly have been
honestly obtained.
When Khotso's oldest son, Mticki, died in 1938, some maintained that this was the
result of his father's involvement in uthwala. There is a certain ghoulish relish which
which some informants outline all the mysterious deaths and disasters that are
purported to have befallen Khotso's extended family, the implication of this being that
this was the result of the old man's dealing in dark magic. The unaccountable
disappearance of Khotso's fortune after his death would have, in many peoples' eyes,
have furnished further proof that he practised uthwala, since it is believed that when a
person who went through this process dies, their riches go to the grave with them.
Khotso's association with wealth-giving snakes reached such proportions that even
as mundane and innocuous a dwelling as the family's outside toilet in his Mount Frere
house became transformed into a site of fascination and potential menace. Mametsi
Sethuntsa, one of Khotso's daughters, complained that because the toilet door was
always kept closed, people assumed that the family's wealth-giving snake had to be
concealed inside the latrine (Wood/ Sethuntsa, 2003: 10).
Many have wondered why Khotso never trained a son to follow in his footsteps.
Granted, Khotso's life was blighted by misfortunes and difficulties with his sons, but it
is possible, Lunika posited, that Khotso did not want any of his children to carry on
after him because he had done a number of risky, even frightening things in his life such as his involvement in uthwala, and he did not want any child of his to follow the
same path (2002: 7).
As African society shifted from a traditional, communal economy to a modern
capitalist economy, with the emphasis on individual enterprise, giving rise to
increasingly marked economic inequalities, this affected not only the material world,
but also the indigenous spirit world. It has been argued by, among others, the
anthropologist Penny Bernard, that the negative aspects of the image of the snake,
specifically in the form of the muti snakes, developed in the face of modern economic
forces, specifically the pressure to accumulate individual wealth (2000: 13). This ties
in with the way in which the notion of the mamlambo was spread among southern
African peoples through the migrant labour system, the latter indicative of the fact that
individuals had lost the capacity to support themselves through their traditional
lifestyle and had become dependent on white-owned commercial operations, such as
mining and farming, in order to support themselves and their families (Niehaus: 46,
5
56). 4 The link between the mamlambo and outside representatives of the capitalist
system was reinforced by the widely held belief that the mamlambo could be
purchased by migrant workers at the mines from whites or Indians who, because of
their relatively well-off, priviledged positions, were viewed as having access to
particularly strong magic. 5 Moreover, in a range of interviews I conducted in 2001
and 2002, a number of my informants stated that the mamlambo could be obtained
from Indian or white shopkeepers in Durban or Johannesburg.
Christianity also played its part in shaping the modern image of the mamlambo.
The Biblical connection between the snake and the devil no doubt intensified the
sense of evil associated with the creature. There is something Biblical about the way
in which the mamlambo is sometimes referred to as inyoka amadoda, the snake of
men, emphasising its deadly seductiveness; and the sense in which the ownership of
such a creature is perceived as amounting to a moral fall. With their emphasis on pacts
with seemingly enticing representatives of the forces of darkness, in alliance with the
material world, stories of the mamlambo call to mind Christian narratives about the
nature and consequences of diabolical pacts.
In accounts of the mamlambo, a man's pact with the creature condemns him to a
life of solitariness, cut off from those around him by his secret and by the fact that the
creature requires that its owner sacrifice those closest to him. In a study of wealthowning spirits and the Mami Wata figure in West Africa, Frank observes that in
traditional African economies, possessions were communal. Material possessions
were the property of an extended family or some other type of sizable economic unit.
In contrast, she continues, a solitary, wealthy individual would appear somehow
isolated, cut off from the body of the family or the community (339). Certainly, this
ties in with peoples' perceptions of Khotso - despite his numerous wives and
concubines and his multitude of followers and hangers-on, he comes across at times as
a lonely figure, separated from the surrounding community by his wealth and power,
as Tuku recalls. "There were a lot of people around Khotso most of the time, but they
were mostly people working for him. He didn't seem to have a great many friends
from the community" (4).
Darlington Nkanyuza, who owned a garage in Flagstaff, near Lusikisiki, was
struck by this too. Khotso, he remembers, did not have that many friends around
Lusikisiki. In a way, Darlington continues, he kept himself separate from people. He
would see Khotso at his garage, sitting in his luxury car, often a black Cadillac, just
with his driver. In front and behind him, there would be cars with bodyguards but,
despite his entourage, Khotso seemed a solitary figure (Lewis and Wood/ Darlington,
2004: 6).
4
Similarly, Frank examines the way in which the belief that individual wealth is gained through a
dangerous pact with the spirit world, requiring human sacrifice, became more widespread in West
Africa after western, capitalist economic practises resulted in marked economic inequalities (1995:
331).
5
Wilson oberved this in Pondoland in the 1930s (1936: 287). Today, similar beliefs still prevail.
6
People feared Khotso, particularly in the Kokstad days. There were many stories
about his ability to control frightening supernatural forces and all the dark and
dangerous occult dealings that he was reputedly involved in. Khotso's extravagant
generosity and his famed hospitality and entertainment of guests certainly sprang, in
part from his own largeness of spirit. But it might also have been an attempt to win
people over, so that he could loved, not just feared, and to compensate for his inner
loneliness. Tuku thinks that Khotso's open-handedness was linked to a desire to make
people happy, so that they would like him (8).
But, paradoxically, there was also the fact that it seemed that Khotso wished to
keep himself and his family separate from the surrounding community. Perhaps he
feared that outsiders would uncover his secrets or attempt to steal his wealth? For
instance, one of Khotso's daughters talks about how she and her siblings were not
allowed to visit other peoples' houses in Pondoland, in case they were offered pork to
eat. Pondo people ate pork, a practice that Khotso believed caused bad luck (Wood/
Sethuntsa: 5). Khotso's mansions were on the outskirts of town, symbolic of the
extent to which he moved on the edges of the society he inhabited.
Frank observes that according to the social expectations prevalent among the West
African peoples she studied, the way wealth was enjoyed - either individually or
communally - was indicative of whether or not it had been obtained legitemately. In
the eyes of the society, wealth should not be privately and selfishly utilised, but rather
shared (333 - 334). Such an assumption is, of course, particularly widespread. There
is, for instance, the way in which capitalist corporations pour money into community
upliftment, at least partly in an attempt to bestow an aura of morality on the wealth
they have accumulated for themselves at the cost of others. It is possible that Khotso's
generosity may have been partly motivated by a similar instinct. Might he have been
attempting to show that his wealth existed for the benefit of the broader community and was, thus, essentially "good"?
He battled to convince people of this, however. The unaccountable disappearance
of Khotso's fortune after his death would, in some people's eyes, have furnished final
proof of its morally shady origins. It is said that wealth accumulated obtained without
the blessing of the ancestors is morally dubious and does not survive the accumulator.
Thus, when a person who went through uthwala dies, their riches go to the grave with
them (Wood/ Mabongo, 2002, 17; Wood/ Tloti, 2003: 5).
The notion that Khotso had to be involved in diabolical practices of some kind fed
into and reinforced tales of his acts of blasphemy. From the 1940s onwards, Khotso
began announcing: "I am God and will live forever." He would gather his clients and
followers together and tell them to declare this. "Khotso is bigger than God!" they
would cry. Had Khotso, as a number of people felt, been "carried away by his own
powers" (Wood/ Mabongo, 2003: 26)?
Khotso, however, was no fool and it was likely that there were a number of very
practical reasons behind this public parading of his ability to outdo the very greatest
spiritual presence of them all. If there were people out there who were really prepared
to believe that he was greater than God, so much the better for his business. But,
others maintained, these acts of shocking impiety had dire consequences. Although,
7
according to official records, Khotso eventually died of heart failure in hospital, many
prefer to believe other versions of events. God eventually struck Khotso down by
lightning, the story goes, as punishment for his sacrilegious ways. Doubtless, his all
too public vaunting of his wealth, which, like blasphemy, can be viewed as springing
from a sense of overweening pride, ultimately amounted to a kind of profanity in the
eyes of many.
This moralising dimension extends to encompass those who obtained wealth
through Khotso, the implication being that they were compromising themselves
morally and spiritually, and would eventually have to pay the price. When Khotso
died and his empire collapsed, it is said that people whose fortunes were based on his
magic suffered calamities and financial ruin, their wealth vanishing off the earth along
with Khotso himself (Wood/ Tloti: 3). It was as if they were being punished for their
association with the man. One such example was James Pitso, from Lesotho, who
went to Khotso for uthwala and became very prosperous.6 Within three months after
passing the ordeal, his shop was fully stocked and the following year he bought two
buses. However, both his sons died, from sudden, surprising sicknesses. Pitso himself
died in 1950 in great pain. His business crumbled and his woman had to start again
from nothing (Lewis/ Faro, 1997). Then, there are also a number of people in the
Herschel – Sterkspruit area, who became wealthy through uthwala. Many of them
purchased buses. But after Khotso’s death, they lost everything. One of them is now a
beggar at the Sterkspruit taxi rank. In general, members of the families concerned do
not like to talk about the sudden, startling rise and decline in their family fortunes
(Wood/ Tloti, 2004: 2).
So how did Khotso's relationship with the mamlambo end? Many people who
knew him maintain that it is possible that the rise and decline of his powers can be
traced to his relationship with this key female presence in his life. As far as Lunika is
concerned, when Khotso's powers began to wane in the 1960s, it was because his
"marriage" to Nkosasana (as the mamlambo is sometimes termed) was breaking down.
Under the Group Areas Act, Khotso was forced to move away from Kokstad, a white
area, into the Transkei, a Black area, in 1960. In leaving Kokstad, Lunika maintains,
Khotso had to distance himself from his special pool, where his wealth-giving snake
lived, and where he carried out regular rituals to keep it content.7 Also, Khotso was
notoriously promiscuous, which would not have pleased his mamlambo. "Nkosasana
didn't like Khotso's constant meddling with women," said Lunika. "He was changing
them left and right all the time and she eventually got tired and left him" (7).
But as is often the case with stories concerning Khotso, there are several different
versions of events. Over 30 years after Khotso left Kokstad, in 1997, various South
African newspapers carried reports that a strange serpentine monster was lurking in
the Mzintlava river, killing lifestock and people. A number of individuals I spoke to
felt that the river monster could have been one of Khotso's snakes, which has had no
6
Not the real name of the individual in question.
7
Khotso and his servants would periodically go to a pool on the Mzintlava river, near his house in
Kokstad, where they would throw in bread and banknotes as offerings to Khotso's snake. Lunika says
that sometimes he would briefly glimpse a head - possibly that of a snake - appearing to take the bread
(Wood/ Kokstad Advertiser, 2001: 4; Lunika: 12).
8
one to maintain it since its death. "And it's hungry now," says Bonga Vika (4). And,
there are stories of how Khotso's magical snakes, enraged that they are no longer cared
for, have returned to two of his houses, in Kokstad and King Williamstown, to wreak
havoc. The man currently residing in the former house showed us a broken wall,
which he said was caused by Khotso's snake, which it came up from the river
(Kukard, 2004: 2; Tloti and Wood/ Ngodudlu, 2004: 3)
In such accounts, the mamlambo is perceived as a dangerous presence lurking long
after Khotso's demise. This embodies the sense that a desire for excessive individual
material gain has consequences that can cast a long shadow into the future; outlasting
the lifespan of the individual concerned. Khotso's family, certainly, was riven by bitter
battles for what remained of his estate. These continued for decades after his death.
Likewise, the mamlambo is such a potent presence in modern day oral accounts of the
indigenous supernatural that, once invoked, the creature cannot simply be written out
of the story, just as it is no straightforward matter to do away with the social and
economic tensions and inbalances it symbolises.
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10
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Mike Lewis, who is collaborating on the biography of Khotso
Sethuntsa with me, for all the assistance and information he has provided.
My thanks to the National Research Foundation for funding my research into
Khotso Sethuntsa.
This paper was initially presented at the 17th Triennial Congress of the International
Comparative Literature Association, August 8 – 15, 2004, in Hong Kong.
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