White Shaman draws healing powers from tribal culture

Lifestyle – White Shaman draws healing powers from tribal culture Loughrea-based Janine Schuller is a South African native, and she tells  BERNIE NÍ FHLATHARTA how she worked among the Zulu and Xhosa people before making Galway her home.

One woman travelled all the way from South Africa to Galway to be awakened by her African ancestors who told her in a dream to return home.

So she did, and today Loughrea-based Janine Schuller is the first and only white shaman belonging to two African tribes in the country – an even more unique accomplishment in her native Cape Town with its apartheid past.

The South African is full of bubbly energy which is contagious — even at a Covid-19 safe two metre distance in a Loughrea car park by the lake on a sunny Friday afternoon.

But that meeting and two phone calls possibly didn’t cover the amazing life that the fortysomething year old has already packed into her life.

She was four years into her journey into becoming a sangoma — a highly respected healer among the Zulu and Xhosa people — when Janine uncovered a family secret a few months ago. The fair-skinned blonde South African was of mixed race.

It was then she understood why tribal ancestors had come to her in her dreams prompting her to go home. And without knowing why, she listened to her dreams and booked a ticket to Cape Town, even though she could hardly afford it. But now with the exposure of the family secret, it all makes sense.

Janine now works as a healer but also as a sangoma trainer to certify people to become intuitive healers, though the pandemic earlier this year put paid to that.

However, after weeks of lockdown, she turned her focus to going online by developing a website and getting creative on how best to share her skills and knowledge to others.

The Gentle Warrior, as she goes by, is thrilled with her progress though she is still tweaking the finishing touches to bringing her classes and sessions completely online.

“And you know what,” she says in her strong SA accent, “the ancestors have been telling me for a while to do this, but I wasn’t really listening, or I was resisting it. It took a pandemic to make me do it.”

She lives in Loughrea with her Irish fiancé William, and she does have a Galway city base above the Amber Shop in Mary Street – but now that she is going online, the world is her oyster and she’s very excited about that.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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