The “Unsaying” of Reproductive Affliction in Mozambique Witchcraft and Local Reproductive Knowledge

Abstract

The use of secret powers to harm others is considered to be an act of witchcraft. For many Mozambicans, witchcraft is also perceived as an involuntan; incorporation of alien flesh in the body (called "kutshamiwa"), thought to be a destructive force, which puts biological reproduction at risk. This article is based on an anthropological study on reproductive experiences conducted from 2009 to 2012 in Maputo and Gaza provinces, in southern Mozambique, that involved a total of 78 participants: 46 women, 11 men and 8 health professionals, and 13 traditional healers. In-depth interviews and life stories were combined with the observation of participants in biomedical environments, at the workplaces of traditional healers, and in the homes of those who were interviewed. The therapeutic itineraries of 11 infertile persons were extensively followed, and illness narratives were analysed. The general framework is borrowed from major medical anthropologr; theories, and employs a critical-interpretative perspective concerning health, disease, fertilihJ and the body. It draws on phenomenological traditions in which a woman's body is conceptualised not as a bare biological substrate of ill or good health, but as an existential ground of vital knowledge, embodiment, gender, motherhood and human fulfilment. In this article, the idea of"unsaying" is suggested, in reference to non-standard meanings of the experience of ill health, for which non-medical language and vocabulan; are used, and which the biomedical institution consequently ignores. However, both men and women experience greater empathy, and find a space in which to speak, and to reveal their afflictions and anxieties, among practitioners of traditional medicine. The study revealed that reproductive potential (conception, pregnancy and birth) is not always guaranteed and maintained, owing to a powerful malignant and invisible force, implanted in the body, called kutshamiwa. The experiences of the women who suffer from this problem, and the responses of therapists to this evil, mirror the multiple realities in existence within distinct and permeable universes of meaning. *Address for Communication: Esmeralda Mariano is Assistant Professor, in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. The Oriental Anthropol:ogist, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2016, Pages 303-320 © OICSR, Allahabad Corresponding Author E-mail: esmeraldamariano3@gmail.com 304 Esmeralda Mariano