Salati Mukoti

Salati Mukoti of the Mbwa (Dog) clan was born in 1942 in the Lima region. He fell ill while still at primary school, and, after visiting all the clinics, was finally treated by a shing’anga, Cipepo, who unfortunately died while treating him. He then moved to shing’anga Nsakanya, whose name, along with those of the other spirits possessing him, Mbaita and Chongo, would later be found frequently in Chalebaila‘s songs. He concluded the period of treatment with a Cibombe ca cisungu. He was possessed by Maluba, a Mwami. Later, two other spirits followed, including the Bayambo spirit Chalebaila, the spirit of a Twa chief, from the nearby Lukanga swamps. He was not called bamukaMaluba or Maluba because Maluba would only descend upon him for serious cases. He worked for several years in the Copperbelt towns, where two of his patients became shing’anga.
Having married earlier in town to a woman from Chibale, he moved to Chibale to practice healing in 1976. At that time, there were only a few Mwami shing’anga in Chibale. He was immediately successful, attracting many patients with serious illnesses, and adepts, some of whom became shing’anga, such as bamukaKunda Mfwanti and Mbomba. Despite this, his life in Chibale was not without its troubles. His health was poor, and he often had to visit his shing’anga in the Lima region. He was preoccupied with the jealousy that his success caused. He played with his relatively foreign origin by accentuating it in his speech, songs, and dancing. This partly gave him power, as the Lima region was known for its powerful healers, but it also kept him an outsider, fuelling his suspicions based on jealousy.

Together with bamukaNdubeni he was generally seen as the most prominent shing’anga in Chibale in the 1980s. This lasted until well into the 1990s when the possession scene diminished and respect for him waned. The spirits left him in 2002, and shortly after that, he left Chibale to become a non-possessed herbalist working in Ndola.