Maryangela's Venture to Mozambique: Started as a Boring Friday Evening

Started as a Boring Friday Evening @bloggingabroad

I have been at my site for 9 months and I love my little village. It’s a small rural villa and it reveals traditions. Many nights I sit in my apartment and I hear drums beating and people chanting close by. I am told that it comes from a curandero’s house and they are performing a ritual. A curandero is a traditional Mozambican Spiritual/Medical Healer, similar to the Witch Doctor in the American Indian culture. I always said to myself that someday I will be invited to watch. I haven't yet.

So it’s Friday and the sun is setting and honestly I was trying to think of something to do, and then I hear the drums. My boredom gave me the nerve to think of a way to visit. I walk to my friend’s house, who very discreetly mentioned that she is a curandeiro, and asked if we could walk and visit the commotion. Before I knew it, we were wrapped in a red, white, and black symbolic wrap and walking down this dark road close by.

A small group of woman, men, and children sat in a group, like they were camping around a fire. The adults were all wrapped in the same colors, and the beaded women were beating on the drums. I couldn’t tell their reaction to my visit at first, but my friend immediately had them chuckling and a space was cleared for us to sit.

The drums were beating, as women were chanting in a different tongue. I didn’t know what was happening but, I was fascinated. All of a sudden, my friend grabs my hand and pulls me to dance- no one else was dancing- but the “special guests” were invited with the woman who were chanting. I just copied the beat, everyone was giggling at my attempts to dance.

It was a brief visit and now tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m and again 2:00 p.m we are invited back to the anointment of a new curandeiro.

8:00 am Saturday

Equip with my Ipad, by myself, I visited the continuation of the ceremony. Since words cannot depict the intensity of this ritual, the pictures will give you a glimpse of a traditional custom here in Mozambique.

It was fascinating to say the least.

The woman in the middle is being ordained, she is being cleaned after she drank and threw up the goat's blood.

Dancing and singing are a big portion of the ceremony.

Beautiful drums made locally

This black goat donated it's blood and later its bile organ and skin to the ceremony

Red, white , and black are the colors of this tribe's tradition, animal symbols represent as well

The dances are quick moving and strong stomping - dust

Here the another part is starting: she is looking to get hints to where the hidden treasure was put. She needs to find parts of the goat that will lead to her being ordained.