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SOAS Blog - Xabumbada Revisitada, Episode 2: Actors and Echoes

My project’s key words emerged from discussions with Kaleidoscópio’s director,

Euclides Gonçalves. They were “Actores” and “Écos”. We identified “actores” of two kinds:

first, the students and teachers of the People’s History Group and their interviewees; second,

these “originais” plus current “responsáveis” (people responsible) for cultural heritage work.

The “écos” are the People’s History Group’s all-but forty-year legacy. In terms of music as a

development factor – and by analogy culture in general – the research’s timescale adds

special interest.

Of my forty-two contributors, the final dissertation focuses on four: Cipriano Vilhena,

Beatriz Muhorro, Ricardo Limôa and Marílio Wane. The first two are “originais”, the second

two “responsáveis”. Their testimony is supplemented by the others.

Research took place in Maputo and Nampula. In Maputo, participants of both

categories, while contributing whole-heartedly, prepared me for disappointment. Eráti, my

priority district in Nampula, would be much changed. The Aldeia Comunal Samora Machel

(Samora Machel Communal Village), visited three times by the People’s History Group, was

unlikely to be still there. Communal villages were a policy-disaster of the socialist era and

that one was a target in the civil war. The inhabitants were probably casualties of or refugees

from the fighting in the 1980s. Many would also have been affected by the poor overall life

expectancy of the Mozambican population (estimated by the current CIA World Factbook as

in the low 50s for both men and women).

However, when I visited, I found the “Aldeia Samora Machel” relatively flourishing.

Twenty-seven of the original hundred residents survive. The majority of them are

descendants of the “originais”. They have a reputation for “trabalho em conjunto” (joint

work). Other people in Eráti say “Aí, não passa fome” (“there, you don’t go hungry”). They

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talk as if the residents of Samora Machel have a secret. The words “comunal” and “trabalho

colectivo” (collective work) have dropped out of use, but it doesn’t take an “akulukana”

(sorcerer) to work out where the magic comes from.

Altogether it was possible to revisit four of the originally researched six Nampula

districts: Eráti, Ilha de Moçambique, Mossuril and Ribáuè (the others being Mogovolas and

Angoche). The following photos give a taste of the actors and echoes I encountered.

Eráti

Nampula Secondary School’s People’s History Group en route to the Aldeia Comunal Samora Machel, Eráti (1978). Beatriz Muhorro, principal interviewee, is 3rd from left.

Performance of the dance “Etahurra” at Aldeia Comunal Samora Machel flanked by

Cipriano Vilhena, principal interviewee, in 1978 & 2017

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With a dancer of Etahurra from 1978 on Cipriano’s porch, 15/06/2017. Fernando Vatela, 1978 drummer and the first person to recognise me in 2017(in a local shop), explains the

contents of the CD.

Fernando Vatela in 1978, playing “m’lapa”.

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People’s History Group students dancing at the Aldeia Comunal Samora Machel, in 1978. Beatriz is in the left hand photo, 4th from left, I am in the right hand one, 4th from right. The girls of the school and women of the village often took the lead, via music and dance, in creating a rapport between researchers and interviewees.

Interview with 1978 Etahurra dancer on Cipriano’s porch, 15/06/2017. Younger villagers listen. Fernado Vatela keeps an eye.

Approaching Monte Eráti, burial place of Mpewe (King) Comala, pre-colonial ruler still revered by the residents of Aldeia Samora Machel. I was allowed access to the mountain, regarded as sacred, to place a CD on his grave.

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Mpewe Comala’s Shrine, Monte Eráti. Left: blue-bottomed monkey, regarded as spirit guardian, and, right, human guardians, L to R: Mahandu Ntikiya, (RG), Mayasa Hasane, Anselmo Mahando, Régulo (Chief) Muhula. On end at right of picture, Dr Artur Muloliwa, my fieldwork partner, whose superb practical, professional and personal support made possible the entire Nampula leg of the project, holds our Zoom recorder. Note sacred cloths and housing of royal grave behind Régulo Muhula. Thanks to Piamwene (Queen) Mayasa Hasane, gatekeeper of the shrine, not only for allowing us access, but letting Artur film my progress up the mountain’s “stations” as a pilgrim and record the accompanying prayers and invocations.

People’s History Group interview in 1978 with the shrine’s previous gatekeeper. This photo, on the cover of my CD, convinced Piamwene Mayasa Hasane to allow us up. She recognised the interviewee as her maternal uncle, Artur, (a senior figure in matrilineal Makua society), who was killed in a crossfire between Frelimo and Renamo during the civil war.

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Mossuril

Students, teachers and interviewees of the People’s History Group, 1979, at the grave of Mucuto-Muno, late C19 leader of resistance to colonial occupation in Mossuril, then known as Namarral, the area of mainland opposite Mozambique Island (the Portuguese colonial capital till 1898). Before the 1978-82 cultural preservation campaign Mucuto-Muno was a little known figure (outside Portuguese military histories).

Left: Artur (Muloliwa) at roadside monument commemorating Mucuto-Muno’s victory over Mouzinho de Albuquerque, Portuguese commander, at the Battle of Mugenga, Namarral, 1896. Right: Mucuto-Muno Primary School, Mossuril Sede, financed by the European Community and set up by German NGO Acção Agrária Alemão.

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The beach at Mossuril, used till early C20 as a primary embarkation point for hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans (latterly called “indentured labour”) en route to Indian Ocean destinations and across the Atlantic, mainly Brazil and Cuba. The traders were Swahili, Portuguese, French and North Americans, with whose ships Britain’s Royal Navy Anti-Slavery Squadron played cat and mouse after British abolition of the trade in 1807.

A mother and children in today’s Mossuril, beside the Portuguese mission church

Memorial info sign beside the ramp to the slave traders’ embarkation quay, Mossuril Sede, close to Mucuto-Muno School. The ramp itself is much changed by recent restoration work.

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Ilha de Moçambique

The colonial Governor-General’s Palace, bandstand and pier. In 1979 the People’s History Group took part in an initial survey in line with Samora Machel’s declaration that the Ilha and its colonial monuments were part of the new Mozambique’s history. This meant that the deposed statue of Vasco da Gama, Portuguese adventurer and founder of the colony (see below,left) had to be saved from destruction. It has been replaced by a copy (below, right).

Below: ramparts of the C16 Fortaleza São Sebastião, featuring probably the oldest Christian church on the African continent, though some point out that it stands on an offshore island.

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People’s History group students interviewing at the site of the Battle of Mugenga (1896), where a Portuguese column from the Ilha was defeated. Beatriz (right) with Emília Bastos and Rafael da Conceição, 19 year-old director of Nampula Secondary School and founder of the group. Rafael, aka Raafkambala, became one of Mozambique’s first anthropologists. Ill health prevented his returning with me to Nampula in 2017, but I interviewed him in Maputo.

Grupo Estrela Vermelha de Mossuril,1979. This Tufo dance group developed a rapport with the People’s History Group which greatly facilitated our work in Mossuril and the Ilha.

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Sailing from the Ilha to revisit a well at Cabaçeira Pequena (= “Small Peninsula”) named after Vasco da Gama, but probably used by Arab sailors as many as 700 years before his late C15 arrival. Note: fellow passengers included Ellen Danger-Hebden, SOAS PhD student of Tufo.

Marílio Wane (left), principal interviewee. Ethnomusicologist at (right) ARPAC headquarters in downtown Maputo, Marílio tells how work on Mozambique’s “património cultural” has re-emerged since the civil war ended in 1994. Following the government’s ratification in 2008 of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage, ARPAC employees have been trained in UNESCO’s definition of good conservation practice. They have learned how to fill in model forms for surveying historical and cultural sites, making inventories of objects and conducting enquiries with “local communities”. The “fichas” were first used at the Ilha de Moçambique in 2008. In my dissertation I contend that these methods transform what was a people’s campaign into a professionalised operation, switching the role assigned to “the people” from active to passive. Instead of partners in producing cultural and historical knowledge, the Mozambican masses are now regarded as consumers of conservation, ie expected to digest a dominant narrative about national history and comply with the commodification and marketing of their culture’s “richness and diversity”. The latter are seen as “assets”- sources of profit for government and (usually linked) private investment in the tourist industry. An example of the new thinking was Frelimo’s creation in 2009 of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, removing “Culture” from the remit of the Ministry of Education. Currently, the ministry’s information about northern Mozambique under “Opportunities by Sector” on Mozambican Embassy websites says: “With appropriate marketing, its cultural heritage has immense possibilities for economic success...” The article singles out the potential for“high end tourism”. (http://embassyofmozambique.be/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=204&lang=en, accessed 10/08/2017)

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Ribáuè

Above: Ribáuè Secondary School in 1978, when it was the Frelimo Party School. Below: the same view in 2017.The school is now an ordinary state secondary. In 1978 Rafael de Conceiçâo and I stayed at the Frelimo School while investigating the, principal dances of the area, Mussitorro and N’siripuiti. We were a two-person “Brigada de Dança Popular”(People’s Dance Brigade), charged with providing background data for the official programme of the First National Dance Festival (see Episode 1). Our visit gave rise to the People’s History Group.

Xabumba, the band formed by the People’s History Group at Nampula Secondary School. We are rehearsing for a 1979 performance at the Frelimo School. L to R: Emília, Raafkambala, Luís Vasconçelos, me, Beatriz. Stage outfits by Amama Júlia.

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Ricardo Limôa, principal interviewee and Chefe do Serviço Distrital de Cultura, Juventude e Desporto (District Head of Service for Culture, Youth and Sport). Ricardo (“call me Limuwa”) explains that the operations room-style lists on the walls of his office are registered dance groups and choirs. One was a winner at the 2016 IX National Festival of Dance and Culture, held in Sofala. Dedicated and resilient “responsáveis” like Limuwa sustain the echoes of 1978-82. Photo credits 1978-80 photos: RG 2017 photos: RG & Dr Artur Muloliwa