South African diviner-healer traditions are replete with narratives and myths regarding certain chosen people who are called under water by fish-tailed and serpent deities, where they are taught the skills of healing and given great divinatory powers. For Zulu diviners this complex consists of the great ancestral spirits (that manifest as a large snake or python) and a singular feminine mermaid deity called Inkosazana or Nomkhubulwana. While both are responsible for the calling of diviners (usually through dreams) Inkosazana is also regarded as the source of all fertility and water and may occasionally manifest to those who are ‘pure of heart’. This chapter explores my own personal journey that led me to her pool following a series of dreams I had during my training with a group of Zulu diviners (izangoma). This account is accompanied by a critique of the literature in the field, which has focused on positivistic and psychological reductionist efforts to explain the phenomenon.

‘This is for real!’, I thought to myself as I knelt on the wet rock by the edge of a deep turbulent pool at the base of a small waterfall, which then flowed over a precipitous drop to another pool below. The lower pool was hardly visible beneath the dense overhanging trees that crowded in on the steep narrow river gorge.