Presentation of Dona Mariana Mphande
Visit to the United States of America
November 16 - December 3, 1998
Introduction
I am Mariana Mphande, traditional healer from the village of Bawa on the
middle Zambezi in Mozambique. I represent the future of the "Tchuma
Tchato" program, as we spirit mediums play a leading role in securing the
natural resources of our area, so the wild animals can live close with us.
I am well known as a healer, not just in Mozambique, but also in
neighboring Malawi and Zimbabwe. I can use mwavi to protect homes
and business from witchcraft, and koma to protect the fields, and I
can treat many ailments with herbal medicines, especially male infertility.
I think that if customs has let me bring my medicines, you Americans would
stop talking about viagra.
Before I even had breasts I was taken ill with strange wounds on my skin;
my elders then gave me beads as they saw I had inherited "kolo" from
my grandfather. Kolo is the spirit of the baboon, an animal who
thrives through intelligence in the bush, and kolo gives me powers to see
behind things, and to identify herbal medicines with my grandfather who
comes in my dreams.
Kolo is a healing spirit, but he is also a spirit deeply concerned
about the histories and futures of people and natural resources in our
area. Kolo is one of the real staff people of "Tchuma Tchato."
The "Tchuma Tchato" Program
This is my second visit here to America to talk about "Tchuma Tchato," with
this strange husband of mine, Ken Wilson, and this time I am with Oswell
Camposse who is President of the community council of Mamwira. Translating
for me is Matias, one of our young men who has found his vocation in life
through "Tchuma Tchato." The communities of "Tchuma Tchato" send you their
warm greetings.
"Tchuma Tchato"- which means "our wealth" in our language chi Kunda - is a
program started in 1994 by a few dedicated government officials to help us
get the rights and organizational skills to manage and develop the abundant
wildlife, fishery and forest resources along the middle Zambezi and the
Cahora Bassa basin.
"Tchuma Tchato" is based on elected village councils who, in collaboration
with the community scouts and project staff, manage their environment and
take community development decisions. Through "Tchuma Tchato" we secure
the natural resources we need for our own livelihoods, and create jobs and
community income through joint ventures with safari hunters. and we hope
soon fishing and ecotourism companies. With the revenues our communities
have been able to establish community services like grinding mills.
My village - Bawa - elected me onto their committee three years ago. I am
especially involved in dealing with people who set uncontrolled fires and
clear cut trees. They also like me to talk to people who won't stop
snaring animals. Normally when I talk to people they come to understand
why the future of our community requires each person to sacrifice something
to care for the environment. Nowadays I am found anywhere in "Tchuma
Tchato" changing the way that people feel about the life our area.
Spirits, Place and Program
"Tchuma Tchato" is doing very well. Even though peace and development
means that the population of our area has doubled, many animal species have
reappeared that I have not seen since we hunted them ruthlessly in my youth
with spiked pits and a line of bush beaters. But it is working not only
because it earns us more money every year. We are poor and need money but
we do not do things only because of money. We are doing "Tchuma Tchato"
because we feel that this land is ours: that its health depends on the
balance of human natural and spiritual forces: and that as humans we need
to respect our land and the natural world. "Tchuma Tchato" can't work if
people are only thinking about the benefits. They have to care. They have
to FEEL that when they set a bush fire the animals will suffer from a lack
of shade and no food to eat. And they can care. Men from Capessa and
Mamwira walked to us in Bawa to hand over their precious home made muzzle
loaders saying that they no longer wanted to hunt.
Our ancestral spirits ties us to our land. WE bury our relatives in forest
graveyards where we never allow the environment to be damaged. But later
we bring their spirits back to our villages, and they show us that they
have come home by bringing life to a branch of the mutunbwi
(Commiphora spp.) tree which we plant at their spirit hut. WE
venerate these family spirits at beautiful big trees in our villages such
as mutowa (Ficus spp.), muska (Tamarindus indicus) and
mutarara (Gardenia spp.).
But it is not only our ancestors who tie us to our land. We have many
sacred places. There is one at Chiabvu, where a dense forest surrounds a
soft chiteketeke sponge of strange white mud. Here elephants sing,
and animals even say hello. There are special stones and a baboon who
carries beads and a bag of snuff. And in this dry hot valley there is a
spring at which only birds can drink. The place is sacred to the Makombe -
a former emperor of central Africa - and is still protected by the medium
and village council. These sacred places are important for rain making
ceremonies - the kukomba mvura- and all of the different people in
this region, even though they belong to different tribes with their own
languages, unite at these places such as Chikombe's Big Mutowe Tree,
or the cave in Hurungwe, when rain is needed.
If a sacred place is destroyed - like when Zambian migrant fishermen burnt
the sacred forest at Kamkunguru - the community's heath is threatened. In
that example the crocodiles began to eat villagers in Nhanchenje in
1995-1996. One of the reasons why people suffered so much when the
Portuguese built the Cahora Bassa Dam and flooded the valley was that
sacred places were flooded forever, cutting people off from their link to
the land. In other cases though, the sacred places were saved by making
muwangato marks that prevented the rising waters from reaching the
sites. Mediums like Chibvule in Fole village are now indicating new sacred
places that can enable once more people to make those links.
We have four spirits which link our communities to their lands. They are
the guardians of our land.
The lion spirit, the mpondolo, is the most important, ensuring the
rains, the wildlife, the smooth working of the environment without
epidemics and plagues and the appropriate behavior of our headmen and
chiefs. Nobody can join our community or stay in our community without the
agreement of the mpondolo: it is only he who can give you fire for
your hearth. When thing are going wrong, the mpondolo can visits us
as a lion, as well as speak through the medium.
Second we have the tsunguni, which are the guardians of the great
Zambezi river and its fish and hippos. A fishermen drinks and spits back
water into the river before setting his net to acknowledge the
tsunguni. It was the tsunguni that opened the channels for
the tributaries to flow into the Zambezi in order that they could move, and
we hold ceremonies in November for the tsunguni to give us smooth
annual floods to bring life to our lands, protecting us from huge swiftly
rising floods that wash away our homes and crops. Our rivers don't flood
properly nowadays because the giant dams of Cahora Bassa and Karibva have
divided the male and female tsuguni, and also no everyone in the
community now participates in the rituals. Tsunguni often take
young people into the river to live with them, and then they come back as
healers in far away places.
Kolo, the spirit of the baboon, provides healing powers, access to
herbal medicines, and knowledge of the environment and its conservation.
Nyarugwe, the leopard spirit, on the other hand, is typically
leopard - hostile to everything and everyone, and only offers meat for
itself. The community only unites around the leopard spirit to placate it
when it is angry. If you try to brew beer for a leopard spirit you find
the pots break!
There are also hunting spirits, passed down families, which come out in a
person making them sick until read beads and a gun are provided. The
spirit calls the hunter through their dreams, and the hunter then drums for
the spirit to provide the animal, often in collaboration with the
mpondolo. These spirits give the hunter amazing powers to sense and
transcend nature in the forest.
It is thus that the spirits make our community feel the ties to the land,
the river, the forests and the wildlife, and its seasonal changes, which
enable us to proper.
Our spirits are involved every day in making "Tchuma Tchato" work . When
the Zungunukeyi camp was opened, it was our mediums who provided the ritual
and the charms that empower and protect it. Lions and elephants can enter
that camp, but no one ever gets hurt. Our professional hunter knows from
hard experience that his clients will not shoot good trophies if they do
not make offerings to the lion spirit. So they come. When we take key
decisions like erecting a solar-powered electric fence to protect our
fields from elephants, it is our mediums who explain to the spirits of the
land that we are not trying to make a barrier between the human world and
the bush, but only securing the crops for their grandchildren, since
elephants no longer fear our guns. And whenever there is any disruption of
relations between the people, the land and the spirits, our spirits work on
the issue.
My own spirit, kolo, is ever reminding people that it is they who
are responsible for the wildlife and natural resources. The lion spirit
ends to come and make trouble after things have gone wrong and problems
only get solved after quite a procedure. Kolo is very practical and
more direct. During the night I dreamt that so -and so set a snare and
caught an impala, and in the morning I go straight to that place in the
bush and arrest him. Sometimes people get carries away by the pomp and
importance of lion spirits, and forget that there are other spirits doing
the actual work.
Social Change, Spiritual Forces and "Tchuma Tchato"
"Tchuma Tchato" has changed completely Bawa and the neighboring villages.
WE now feel citizens of Mozambique, we feel the respect of our government
our and our neighbors. We feel that this is OUR area, and that our area
has a future of development if we can respect and manage our resources. We
became united as a community around looking after the natural resources God
had us find here.
But "Tchuma Tchato" is not the only thing changing our society. Another
big issue is Christianity, especially the Protestant, Apostolic and Zionist
churches that spread a lot during the war when we were running up and down
in and out of refugee camps in the neighboring countries. Unlike the
Catholic Church that was here before some of our ancestors died, these new
churches attract many converts and argue that our spirits are demons. This
can make it difficult to unite as a community to propitiate properly for
rains, or to have a smooth flood, and to respect the sacred places. But
even though Christians can't agree with us why and how we have to work with
land spirits, I know that Christians can respect and honor the natural
environment, and feel spiritual ties to it. We work well with them in
"Tchuma Tchato," which is a program for everyone, whatever political party,
tribe or faith they have. Christians are also practical and rational
people. My friend here, Oswell, who schooled in a Catholic Mission and now belongs to the Apostolic church, tell how even though lion spirits are notable f
or their absence the bible, in order to start water flowing again for
people and game alike in their spring, his village successfully propitiated
their lion spirit to bring the water bubbling up again.
It is important to say something about the village councils. When it comes
to democracy our tradition as Chikunda is a bit complex. We were created
as the armies of powerful and cruel ware lords who traded in gold, ivory
and slaves. The Portuguese and Mozambican government local officials never
had to follow the law in this isolated place, and were usually cruel
rulers, who had no reason to listen to us. Anyone from our community who
got a position with the BIG PEOPLE,, usually became a problem in the
village because of abusing power.
Within our own society, however, we have tries to respect each other,
meeting under the giant fig trees at the center of every village. The
headman, and the mediums of the different spirits always had their say,
alongside the different villagers. We are not like some of our neighbors
where chiefs hold all the power. This idea of elected councils we have
with "Tchuma Tchato" is therefore easy for us, and even though we keep
sacking and re-electing people because they let us down, we respect the
people elected, and their decisions. We don't make the leaders of our
political parties, our headman and our lion spirits compete in elections
for the council. WE as a council instead call on all of them to advise and
support us in our decision making. This means that all the wisdom and
authority in the village can be drawn into the council decisions.
One of the things that is now a big challenge is how the councils work with
the government appointed local officials, many of which don't really
understand "Tchuma Tchato," and feel their loss of power caused by local
democracy. They are settling immigrants right in the middle of the animal
migration routes, for example, but when I return from America I shall go
there and sweep those places clean with the new power in my words.
Ken WIlson advised me to say something about the empowerment of women in
Bawa and in "Tchuma Tchato." You know I don't think we women really need
empowerment in our village. We already have more power that the men!
Look, when it came to how to distribute the first revenues many of the men
wanted cash in hand, as their own needs and beer drinking in mind, not the
development of their families and communities. But we women insisted on
establishing grinding mills to free us from pounding grain by hand, and
because of our strength this was what we did. WE taught them a beg lesson:
this year you hear the men sounding very dignified as they suggest that we
build a clinic to look after the health of mothers and children. Seriously
though, "Tchuma Tchato" has strengthened women's voices in this area: we
play leading roles in all of the councils, and nowadays we have the right
to arrest men for hunting and snaring animals.
For our men hunting is a way of being masculine and not just a way of
getting meat and money. Furthermore, many men have the hunting spirits I
told you about earlier. With "Tchuma Tchato" we demand a change in our
men, but we do it in a way that values and respects them. As a village
council, we will help a man who is driven to hunt by his spirit to hold a
ritual to propitiate the spirit and channel the man's energies into other
activities. Many of our greatest hunters have now become community scouts,
and they now dedicate themselves to managing and protecting wildlife,
rather that slaughtering it: and we respect them for it. Men in Bawa now
show who they are by earning money and building nice houses for their
families, rather than by swaggering up and down boasting about their
killing of animals.
The Universality of Spiritual Forces
I am here in America to share what I know and to learn likewise from each
of you. It seem to me that the spiritual forces I experience are going to
be the same ones that you do also, even though we feel them differently.
Ken Wilson has shown me some books about the First Nations of America.
When he showed me a picture of a Big Horn medicine wheel I could feel how
each spoke drew power from a distant sacred place towards the center, and
when he showed me photographs of Crow healers I could see their spirit
possession and the healing powers.
It is obvious to me that the spiritual relationship of the First Nations to
the land has been strong, and that the immigrant peoples in America can
best establish their own spiritual ties to their new home thorough
acknowledging and celebrating those ancient relationships. But you
immigrant Americans also need to come to know your own ancestors, left
behind when you came here. Kolo tell me that you even go out into
space, looking for where the sun comes from, thinking you are driven by
science. Make contact with your ancestors and you will learn more about
what drives your society. If you decide you need Mariana to stay here, I
can help you do this because spirits are not divided by skin colors.
I am told that Americans are now quite divided about the power of spiritual
forces and the power of science. That you conquered space with your
rockets, but that many of you now believe in aliens. I ma not against
books or against science, but anyone who thinks that science means that
there are not spiritual forces should bring their books to Bawa and come
with me into the bush. When it get dark, they can sleep with their books ,
and I will sleep with my charms, and We'll see who gets bitten by a snake.
And by the way, if I do meet any aliens I'll be sure to ask them for herbal
remedies, because in this trade we always believe that the further away
someone is from, the more powerful are their treatments.