MUEDA – In the labyrinths of initiation rites 2nd edition – Carlos Paradona Roque

MUEDA

The writer Carlos Paradona Rufino Roque, without being an anthropologist, brings us an authentic manual of initiation rites practiced by the peoples of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, fought by the terrorist war almost half a decade ago. The epicenter of the plot is Mueda (known in the annals of the history of the country for the saga of the massacre, but above all as a symbol of resistance against colonialism), but its circle covers national settlements mediated by terrorism and/or by its twin "gas of the Rovuma" (Palma, Macomia, Muidambue, Mbau, Nangade, Quissanga) and settlements on the side of Tanzania, Zanzibar, Mombassa, Comoros, with whom it has always made trade, etc.
The novel "Mueda" that goes through the meanders of initiation rites has, in Mozambican literature, illustrious predecessors – Mia Couto, Paulina Chiziane...-, whose literary value of the works is in mozambicanizing local/private rites, but also in growing and mozambicanizing the Portuguese language by introducing in it rites, flavors and speaking of our different ways of giving reason to existence.