Muti

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This article is about South African traditional medicine. For the conductor, please see Riccardo Muti.

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Muti is a term for traditional medicine in Southern Africa. The word Muti is derived from the Zulu word for tree, of which the root is -thi. African Traditional Medicine makes use of various natural products, many of which are derived from trees. For this reason, medicine generally is known as Muti. In Southern Africa, the word Muti is in widespread use in most indigenous African languages, as well as in South African English and Afrikaans where it is sometimes used as a slang word for medicine in general.

This noun is of the umu / imi class, consequently the singular (tree) is rendered Umuthi and plural (trees) is Imithi. Since the pronunciation of the initial vowel of this umu / imi class of Zulu noun, is unstressed, the singular Umuthi is sometimes heard as 'Muthi'. The word is rendered as Muti due to the historical effects of British Colonial spelling.

In colloquial English and Afrikaans the word may be used as per the following example:

  • "My doctor gave me some muti for my sore throat"
  • "My doktor het vir my muti verskaf vir my seer keel"

Occasions of murder and mutilation associated with some traditional cultural practices, in Southern Africa are also termed Muti killings. Muti killings, more correctly known as medicine murder are not human sacrifice in a religious sense, but rather involve the murder of someone in order to excise body parts for incorporation as ingredients into medicine.

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