Healers bless stadium
26 May 2010, 07:26
By Alex Campbell
South Africa's World Cup centrepiece has received an official blessing inside and out from the Traditional Healers' Organisation.
Dozens of healers, some of them wearing red THO T-shirts and others in traditional animal-skin garb, slaughtered a cow and performed an uKuphahla ceremony in front of Soccer City in Soweto yesterday.
A group of chiefs and traditional leaders also went inside the stadium to perform a ceremony.
The chiefs had come from all around Gauteng, THO member Mandla Qeleqele pointed out.
The purpose of the ceremony was "to say to the ancestors that the world is coming to South Africa", he said.
The group had also called upon the ancestors to protect World Cup visitors and welcome them with South African hospitality "so that everything that happens there is in harmony," Qeleqele said.
South Africa's World Cup centrepiece has received an official blessing inside and out from the Traditional Healers' Organisation.
Dozens of healers, some of them wearing red THO T-shirts and others in traditional animal-skin garb, slaughtered a cow and performed an uKuphahla ceremony in front of Soccer City in Soweto yesterday.
A group of chiefs and traditional leaders also went inside the stadium to perform a ceremony.
The chiefs had come from all around Gauteng, THO member Mandla Qeleqele pointed out.
The purpose of the ceremony was "to say to the ancestors that the world is coming to South Africa", he said.
The group had also called upon the ancestors to protect World Cup visitors and welcome them with South African hospitality "so that everything that happens there is in harmony," Qeleqele said.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on May 26, 2010
Cape Town
