Blood money: An examination of oral narratives concerning wealth‐giving snakes in the career of Khotso Sethuntsa, with particular focus on their socioeconomic implications*

Abstract

Summary This article examines the oral narratives concerning the millionaire herbalist Khotso Sethuntsa's purported ownership of wealth‐giving snakes and his career as a seller of these magical serpents, a practice known as uthwala. It is argued that the uthwala narratives featuring Khotso Sethuntsa (hereafter referred to as the Khotso narratives) are shaped by the specific milieu from which they spring. Particular attention is paid to socioeconomic factors in this regard. The Khotso narratives provide a striking illustration of the way in which socioeconomic changes in South African society affected not only the material world but also perceptions of the indigenous spirit world. A number of other significant contextual aspects are taken into consideration, including the effect of Western religion on African belief systems and consequently, on indigenous oral narratives. This study also pays attention to the moral dimension of the Khotso narratives, examining the way in which these accounts can provide a way of passing moral judgement on one particularly wealthy individual who flaunted his wealth in a poverty‐stricken community. The moralising dimension of the Khotso narratives is related to the way in which these stories express some of their narrators’ needs, preoccupations and desires, while serving as a means of realising some of these desires, albeit purely at an imaginative level. Finally, the Khotso narratives offer insights into the nature and function of oral narrative in the South African context.