[3] The direct translation of the term amafufunyana is nerves and is a part of a much more complex cultural ideology connecting varying types of psychosis with religious, social, and recently psychiatric beliefs and activities.
In a 1998 interview with Xhosa people with schizophrenia by Lund et al., it was determined that through interaction with scientists and psychological services, the preferred treatment for the cultural condition had shifted from relation to traditional healers to active psychiatric assessment.
[4] People who claim to have amafufunyana state that their symptoms include hearing "voices from their stomachs", speaking in another language or in a disturbing tone, and general agitation and possible violence.
[2] Recorded incidents of amafufunyana appear to have begun in the early 20th century and researchers such as Ngubane et al have suggested that its cultural formation may have had something to do with colonialism and migration of indigenous peoples away from their homes.
There have also been widespread outbreaks of the condition, similar to events involving contagious spread of hysteria, recorded in the 1980s at a rural girls' boarding school.