About Linos Wengara

My name is Linos Wengara Magaya and I am a Zimbabwean traditional healer / Svikiro and natural remedies specialist in herbalism. Following Zimbabwean customs, my clients call me Sekuru Ngara, which connects to my lineage totem, Nungu, meaning porcupine.

I was born in 1975 in Kadoma, Zimbabwe, and grew up in a spiritual family. I learned my craft in Mhondoro from my uncle Daveson Wellington Magunje, who was a highly skilled traditional healer / Svikiro and traditional medicine practitioner in herbalism. Daveson was the most skilled traditional healer from Mizha Shava / Negombhwe lineage. I absorbed his understanding and expertise, learning by his side, and also with many other respected Zimbabwean healers. It is this understanding and expertise that I would like to share with you through this website.

I have been living and working as a Zimbabwean traditional healer / Svikiro and herbalist in Brighton, UK, since 1998. I am also a singer songwriter, with my band, Zimbaremabwe Mbira Vibes, and am well known as an Mbira player. I graduated, from BIMM (British and Irish Modern Music) University in Brighton, UK. Zimbabwean traditional music and healing go hand in hand and it is my sincere wish that Zimbabweans make the most of both of these valuable facets of our culture.

Over 25 years of practice, I have gained the patience to learn and study which plants and herbal preparations are best suited to address specific physiological and spiritual conditions. I believe that a skilled herbalist, should be able to cure a pauper and a king, with the same level of dedication. I consider my work to be a true calling. I believe in being able to listen and tune in to the root of someone’s issues to offer them advice and solutions tailored to their needs.

I take considerable responsibility in carefully studying Shona healing culture and in the medicinal properties of the plants that I use and share with Zimbabweans and the public. I understand all the aspects of Zimbabwean traditional healing including how to cultivate, harvest and protect herbs or medicinal plants. This was the main content of the oral knowledge, which was passed from forefathers down the generations, by the keepers of the science of medicinal plants, in traditional culture of Zimbabwe and throughout Africa. However, I also put considerable time into research using all the tools we have at our disposal, books, articles, documentaries. Modern methods of learning can compliment traditional oral practices very well.

Traditional spiritual life was, and still is, a culturally binding belief system, which couldn’t be taken for granted. Living in symbiosis with nature and the spirit, requires a great deal of physical exertion, plus moral and spiritual discipline. The power of spiritual and herbal healing was venerated and held in the highest esteem by our ancestors, and I consider myself to be a vessel for that heritage, so it can continue to be expressed and passed on to Zimbabweans, whole Africa and to the modern world.