AINVESTIGATING THE GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING ROLE OF
FEMALE SPIRIT MEDIUMS IN THE FIRST AND SECOND CHIMURENGA
WARS IN ZIMBABWE, 1896-1980

AINVESTIGATING THE GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING ROLE OF
FEMALE SPIRIT MEDIUMS IN THE FIRST AND SECOND CHIMURENGA
WARS IN ZIMBABWE, 1896-1980

LILIAN CHAMINUKA

This study sought to appreciate the guidance and counselling roles played by the
agency of female spirit mediumship during Zimbabwe’s liberation wars, 1896-1980,
in order to describe African worldview’s link to contemporary guidance and
counselling theory and practice. In so doing, the study offers gendered perspective
research to the study of spirit mediumship in Zimbabwe. The study’s objectives
included exploring the guidance and counselling offered by spirit mediums during the
liberation wars in Zimbabwe contextualizing it to mainstream guidance and
counselling theory and practice; examining the connection of this guidance and
counselling to African cosmology; explicating factors causing the marginalisation of
female spirit mediums in the Chimurenga meta-narrative and lastly to contribute a
home grown theory of guidance and counselling. The role of guidance and counseling
by female spirit mediums is seldom mentioned in the works of other scholars.
Existential phenomenology was employed as a research design to investigate the
phenomena of spirit mediumship. Purposive sampling and snowballing were utilized
to select the research participants and was determined by data saturation. Data were
gathered through in-depth interviews guided by interview guides and observation
schedules. Research findings revealed that female spirit mediums’ guidance and
counselling role has not been contextualized within the mainstream Western oriented
guidance and counselling theory and practice. The study concluded that the important
female spirit mediumship guidance and counselling paradigm has remained outside
the purview of mainstream guidance and counselling theory in Zimbabwe. It is
recommended that the guidance and counselling services provided by the female
spirit mediums should be recognized within conventional guidance and counselling
practice.

Zimbabwe Open University