Esoteric Studies: this section explores ideas outside mainstream scholarship. Each claim is labeled so you can judge it for yourself.

Esoteric Studies · The Anunnaki and Africa

Credo Mutwa and the star beings

Modern interpretation

The claim

African tradition, as taught by the Zulu sangoma Credo Mutwa, remembers beings from the sky who shaped humankind.

Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (1921–2020) was a famous South African healer, storyteller and artist. In his later years he spoke of reptile-like beings from beyond Earth who helped create humankind, ideas that echo Anunnaki writing. Scholars question how much of this is Zulu tradition and how much is his own vision.

Carved wooden zoomorphic headrest, Nguni peoples of southern Africa, mid–late 19th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art — Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Open Access). License: Public domain (CC0).

What the evidence shows

Credo Mutwa was born on 21 July 1921 in Zululand (now KwaZulu-Natal) and died on 25 March 2020, aged 98 (Cawood; Brittle Paper). He was a sangoma (traditional healer), author, painter and sculptor. His book Indaba, My Children (1964), a large collection of African myths and legends, sold more than 250,000 copies in South Africa alone (Barron). His later book, Zulu Shaman (first published as Song of the Stars), introduces Zulu cosmology and, in its publisher's words, Zulu relations with "fiery visitors whom he likens to extraterrestrials".

His life was hard and contested. During the 1976 Soweto uprising, his cultural village and his home were burned, his eldest son was killed, and he fled. Some saw his views on tradition as supporting apartheid, a charge he rejected, saying he was a healer and not a politician (Barron). He received a South African Literary Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 (Brittle Paper).

Who says more, and why

In films and interviews, Mutwa spoke of aliens living on Earth that look like large reptiles, and of their help in creating humankind (Podolecka). The British conspiracy writer David Icke built on these talks and released them as DVDs titled The Reptilian Agenda. For Mutwa's admirers, he was a guardian of secret knowledge that Western science could not see. His account of sky beings who shaped humanity is why he is often read alongside Anunnaki writing.

What critics say

Academic opinion of Mutwa is largely negative. The scholar of religion David Chidester (2002) studied how Mutwa's "indigenous authenticity" was invented and then taken up by foreign audiences. Agnieszka Podolecka (2018) compares Mutwa's claims with what is known of Zulu culture and reports that, for his critics, his version of Zulu religion "has ventured so far from Zulu religion that they are hardly recognisable". She places him within New Age thinking.

Our assessment: a modern interpretation. Mutwa was a real and important cultural figure; his star-being teachings are his own and are not supported as Zulu tradition or as history.