Juju and traditional healing in Uganda

Choose a healer whose real name, place of work and local reputation you can check, who tells you the price before starting, makes no guarantees, never asks for land titles or large sums, and never tells you to stop hospital medicine.

The most common scams promise money doubling, magic rings or instant wealth, ask for land titles or growing fees, or come from online spell casters you never meet. Uganda Police warned about fake pastors and healers in March 2025. If targeted, stop paying, keep evidence and report to police.

Uganda’s Witchcraft Act of 1957 punishes threatening people with death or harm by witchcraft, practising witchcraft, and possessing witchcraft articles, but says witchcraft does not include bona fide spirit worship or the honest making and sale of native medicines. As far as we can tell, it has not been repealed as of October 2026.

The Traditional and Complementary Medicine Act, passed by Parliament in 2019 and published as an Act in January 2022, sets up a national council to register and license traditional and complementary medicine practitioners. In 2023 the council was reported as not yet operating for lack of funds. As far as we can tell, it was not fully working in October 2026.

Uganda’s traditional doctors (in Luganda, basawo b’ekinnansi, “doctors of native medicine”) are mainly herbalists who work with plants, diviners and spirit mediums who work with spirits, bone setters, and traditional birth attendants. “Witch doctor” is a colonial-era English label that many healers find insulting.

Juju is a West African English word for a charm or amulet believed to have spiritual power, and for that power itself. It probably comes from French joujou (toy), possibly through Hausa. Today it is used loosely across Africa, including Uganda, for charms, traditional spiritual practice and sometimes witchcraft.

Many Ugandans believe some illness and misfortune can be caused by witchcraft (by abalogo, witches). Healing traditions exist to protect people from such harm. Colonial law criminalised witchcraft, and today the biggest dangers are violent accusations, especially against older people, and ritual killings, which are serious crimes.

The Lubaale (plural balubaale) are the gods and great spirits of the traditional Ganda religion, among them Mukasa (Lake Victoria, prosperity), Kibuuka and Nende (war), Kiwanuka (lightning), Musoke (rainbow or rain) and Walumbe (death). Below them are mizimu, the spirits of the dead, and misambwa. Mediums speak for the spirits.

The Bachwezi (Cwezi) are legendary rulers of the ancient kingdom of Kitara in western Uganda who, in tradition, vanished and became spirits. They are honoured through kubandwa, spirit mediumship involving emandwa spirits. Nyabingi is a separate female spirit of the south-west, whose mediums led resistance to colonial rule.

Packaged herbal medicines in Uganda should be notified or registered with the national drug authority before sale. Buy from licensed pharmacies or drug shops, look for the authority’s number on the label, and treat any claim to cure HIV, cancer or diabetes as a warning sign.

Ugandan surveys record many plants traditionally used as medicine, among them mululuuza (Vernonia amygdalina), Warburgia ugandensis, aloe, moringa and Prunus africana. Traditional use is not proof that a plant cures anything. Dosage, pregnancy, children and mixing herbs with medicines all carry real risks.

Go to a health facility immediately for danger signs: a child who cannot drink, vomits everything, has convulsions or is very drowsy, heavy bleeding in pregnancy, or difficulty breathing. Never stop HIV, TB or malaria treatment. Many Ugandans use both healers and health workers, and that is safest when each knows about the other.