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Carlos Paradona Rufino Roque: Tchanaze, a donzela de Sena (Tchanaze (Beauty and the Beads)
This book is told as a fable, with ghosts, evil spirits, strange apparitions and various examples of shape changing, with these evil spirits appearing as animals or objects. It seems that the locals very much believe in these spirits and that these spirits are ubiquitous.
Tchanaze is a great beauty, fire and moon courted and coveted her but then suddenly she had become wife to the wickedest spirits of the underworld. The reason is clear: n’fucua. We soon learn what happened. Mbemba is the antithesis of Tchanaze. Her father has been sent away on forced labour and she lives with her mother, Farença. Farença’s job is to protect her daughter’s virginity but when she finds evidence that her daughter has seemingly been having sex, she reacts quickly. It is clear that Mbemba is a mwali, a wife to the wickedest spirits. She decides to consult a warlock, Mabureza who confirms that the problem is n’fucua. The way to free her from the evil sprits is to nominate another maiden and mother and daughter are quick to nominate Tchanaze.
There seem to be an inordinate number of witches, warlocks, healers and the like, of various ability, some more evil than others, some not too evil. Often they are the spirits of the dead and they have taken over a dead body, of which the Zambezi causes quite a few. In this book, we learn that three friends drowned together and their bodies have been taken over.
As frequently happens there is a stange spirit ceremony which all too often involves people disrobing, urinating on some object, something being surreptitiously buried and the usual incantations. In short Mabureza gets the n’fucua transferred from Mbemba to Tchanaze.
When Tchanaze is afflicted by the n’fucua and her parents – Suplera and Thomossene – see what has happened to their daughter, they go to another warlock, Phanga, who tells them thatTchchanaze now belongs to the spirits of the underworld and she is doomed. All they can do is build a cabin for her, place her in it and leave her to die. Eventually she dies and her parents bury her, with Mbemba and Farença secretly providing the final touch to make sure that the body remains there and cannot be moved to the traditional burial ground, despite the efforts of Campira, a friendly warlock.
Some time later Campira is on his travels in Inhangoma when he meets a woman, whom nobody knew, who had settled in a small hut near the river. When he meets her, she seems to be the spitting image of Tchanaze. She denies that she is Tchanaze, claiming that her name is Fineja. When he challenges her, she screams an unearthly scream and runs away.
Campira, aided by Phanga and involving Suplera and Thomossene, determines to pursue the matter. We now get a very complex story of good versus evil, of adventures and dangers faced by Campira and Suplera and Thomossene, who are called on to do their bit and have to confront evil spirits, lions and Fineja. Thomossene will be turned into a gorilla. Mbemba and Farença, aided by the evil spirits will resists and fight back and, of course, there are all sorts of strange ceremonies and procedures, evil creatures, dangers, failures and lots of magic, good and evil.
It all makes for fascinating reading as you have no idea what horrors await our heroes and the various trials and tribulations they encounter are highly imaginative as it is clear that in this part of the world, there are numerous magicians, witches, spirits of the dead and other otherworldly creatures, some good, some bad and some both good and bad as well as tests, ceremonies and quests to be got through if you want to have any chance of staying alive. To add to the problems, alive does not necessarily mean alive and dead does not necessarily mean dead. Yes, you might take it all with a pinch of salt but it does make for unusual reading.
Publishing history
First published in 2007 by AEMO (Associação dos Escritores Moçambicanos
First English translation in 2024 by Dedalus
Translated by Jethro Soutar & Sandra Tamele