Interview with José
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Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Interview with José
Author/Creator Lunstrum, Elizabeth (Interviewer); José (Interviewee); Helder (Interviewee); Macandza, Manuel (Interviewer and Translator); Chemane, Laila (Interviewer and Translator) Date 2004-09-29; 2004-11-06 Resource type Interviews Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Mozambique Coverage (temporal) 1940-2005 Description José is a middle-aged, influential man from Canhane. In Part I of the interview, Helder, who is a younger man and neighbor of José, contributes to the discussion. Part I begins with the origin story of Canhane and then examines life under Portuguese rule and under Frelimo during the early years of independence. Part II of the interview begins with a discussion of life under the Portuguese (focusing in particular on cotton production) and then turns to Mozambican independence. It closes with a brief discussion of landmines used during the war of destabilization. Original interview conducted in Shangana. Format extent 19 page(s) (length/size)
http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.LUNSTRP1B10002
http://www.aluka.org Title: Interview with José [J] (pseudonym) with Helder [H] (pseudonym) Date of Interview: Part I: September 29, 2004, Part II: November 6, 2004 Interviewer: Elizabeth Lunstrum, Manuel Macandza [MM], Laila Chemane [LC]
Part I (29 Sept. 2004):
MM: Where did your family originally come from?
J: My family came from Caniçado.1
MM: How did you arrive in this area?
J: Our presence in this area began with our ancestor. He got married to a woman of the Valoi family, who was from this area. And the Valoi family was in mourning, so every son-in-law had to be there at the home of Valoi. A long time ago, the families used to go to the family that was mourning with a sack of “caroço de canhú” as a sign of condolence and solidarity. So one of the son-in-laws who was a Zitha did this. Then Zitha wanted to leave the Valoi family and go back to Caniçado to his home. But the Valoi family said they didn’t eat his “caroço de canhú,” so they said “your sack will stay here.” And he answered that this was not a problem because he would come back. Three days later, he arrived at his home. The Valoi family opened Zitha’s sack and the found in the sack of “caroço de canhú” human excrement. The younger wife of Zitha did that to harm her rival, the older wife of Zitha. Then the Valoi family concluded that Zitha should be called back. Some soldiers went to the Caniçado village to fetch Zitha and his older wife. They were taken without knowing what was happening. When they arrived at this area, the chief showed them what was in the sack, and they asked Zitha if that sack belonged to him. He answered, “Yes, the sack belongs to me.” They ordered him to open the sack and he saw human excrement besides the “caroço de canhú.” They asked him who had done this. But he had no knowledge about this, and neither did his older wife. Who knew about this was the younger wife. But the Valoi family didn’t believe Zitha. They wanted to kill him because they thought he had attempted to make them eat the excrement, while they are chiefs. They said that Zitha governed in Caniçado but not in Massingir, which belonged to Valoi. Later, they decided to forgive him and let me go free. Because it was night, Zitha slept with spite. Because he had tension problems, he suddenly died. His wife woke up to him after he had died. She reported this to her family – the Valoi family – and they went to see him and believed that he was dead. They asked each other if anyone of them had killed him. The wife answered “no.” So the chief ordered a group to go to Caniçado and bring the sons of Zitha. The group left for Caniçado, but because the journey at that time was made by foot and Caniçado was so far, they spent three nights on the way there. The dead body of Zitha began to swell, mainly in his stomach, and the people understood that his body was decaying. They thought they could bury him without his sons present. His burial was prepared next to the “canhueiro” at the baixa. Then he started to urinate forcefully, and his stomach went down. They the realized his body was not decaying. At the end of the burial, the group and sons of the dead man arrived.
[5:00]
1 Caniçado is a small village of the Guija District near Chokwe.
1 The chief said to the sons, “We went to call you because of the death of your father.” The sons asked to see their father but were told that he had already been buried. The sons demanded that he be disinterred [unburied] and accused the Valoi family of killing their father because when he had been taken from Caniçado he was healthy. The Valoi family said that even they did not know what had happened and said, “If you want proof [that we did not kill your father], ask your mother.” Their mother told them, “nobody killed your father. When I woke up in the morning, I found him dead.” The sons then started to suspect their mother, saying that she was close to her family. The sons continued to demand that their father be unburied. The Valoi family calmed down their nephew, and finally the nephew said, “As his sons, we would like to put a branch of a tree on our father’s tomb.” They then went back to their home to tell others what had happened. The Zitha family asked them again if the man was killed, and the asked the Valoi family who said, “no.” The Valoi family lived four years without rain. They were worried about the lack of rain and went to look for [a whelk2]. So the whelk showed them that the lack of rain was related to someone who was married to a woman of the Valoi family, and that man was important in his family in the southern region. The members of the Valoi family talked with each other and began to think about Zitha. The whelk said that to resolve this problem, the Valoi family needed to look for a black ox and make a traditional drink in order to perform the kuphaiha ceremony for that man [Zitha] and said that, after this, they would see rain. Then Valoi wanted to know who could lead the ceremony. The whelk man said that they had to call his sons to lead the ceremony. After then, they made a drink while a group went to take the sons of the Zitha family to lead the ceremony. When they arrived, the drinks were waiting for them. They took the drinks and the ox. The sons laid down their drinks to kill the ox on the tomb of their father. Before they went back to their home, the rain began to fall. They didn’t have time to roast the meat of the ox. They cut it in pieces and took it home. The rain was so hard that the road and houses were flooded by the water. Some of the men lost their way home. Finally, at the home of the Valoi family, they said to the Zitha sons, “Look, your father had mistreated us, forbidding the rain. Yes, now we believe that. But now we want to go back to Caniçado.” A few minutes after they left, some older men said, “You let those men go back to Caniçado. Will they agree to come back when this problem repeats itself?” Older people asked them to stay here. The Zitha sons came back and the Valoi family said, “We have given you this space so that you can decide what will happen on the land.
[10:00]
They thanked them and said, “First we have to go inform our chief what happened.” After they spoke to their chief, they weren’t surprised that he didn’t have a problem with this. On the contrary, he said this was nice because the Zitha family had conquered new space. So the Zitha sons and their mothers moved to live at the new place called Macavene.
MM: Were there other families who came for the same reasons at the same time?
J: No, only those that I was talking about. Their area has limits. Once a man of the Zitha family made a canoe from Canhueiro. He used to come here. This area had belonged to the Ngovene family. One day he fell in love with a girl from this family.
LC: What year was it?
2 Búzios = Curandeiros.
2 CA: It’s not easy to remember because we were not used to writing down what had happened.
LC: Were the Portuguese here?
J: No, it was long before the Portuguese arrived. It was between them. He won over the girl. And the girl greatly enjoyed her lover. So the Zitha boy used to cross the river by canoe to this side to find his girlfriend. One day when he was coming to find her, he encountered an elephant and killed it. It was between Kubo and this area. Then he went to explain to the Ngovene family what had happened. After they confirmed what had happened, they decided that the tusk that had landed on the earth belonged to the owners of the area. And the other tusk belonged to him. But he thought the tusk weighed so much that he wouldn’t be able to cross the river in the canoe with it. But because he wasn’t able to give a ring to his girlfriend, he asked her family if they would accept as his lobolo the elephant’s tusk, and they accepted. When he returned he told his family what had happened. Zitha’s men used to cross the river. So the Valoi family felt pity for their son-in-law. Then they gave him this area. They said they did this to avoid their daughter’s suffering caused by moving back and forth. They said, “you have to stay here or there as you are at your home. Its limits are Tihovene at the north and Kubo at the south. The name Canhane came later.
[15:00]
Macavene was the oldest son of Zitha and he stayed there where his father had been buried and he sent Covane whose name is written there at Covane Lodge to come and live here. The land of Ngovene now belonged to Zitha. So Macavene and Covane border each other, and their people usually visit each other.
MM: Had you heard those stories form your ancestors?
J: Yes.
MM. But what was it like to live under the Portuguese?
J: When the Portuguese arrived, we didn’t understand what was going on. When they arrived we were not here yet. The leaders had their proper area. When the oldest son died, the next one became leader, so the arrival of the Portuguese found the population divided by each community. The Portuguese arrived at Tihovene and then went to Massingir Velho and Mavodze. At Massingir Velho, they started to build their homes, and the local people asked those foreigners what they wanted. Some of them said they wanted money in the form of taxes. The local people refused to be ruled by foreigners. So ants began to move in the houses of the foreigners and began to bite them. It was night and they knew they couldn’t leave because they didn’t have transportation. After daybreak, the Portuguese said they wanted to move and never go back to Massingir Velho.
MM: Do you mean that the Portuguese didn’t stay long in Massingir Velho?
J: Yes, they didn’t stay long. Their houses and shops were damaged. All of this district is called Massingir because the Portuguese first lived in Massingir Velho.
3 MM: How did they gain access to the land?
J: When they arrived, the Portuguese said, “We want to construct buildings to control the movement of people across the South African border.” They knew about this movement. So they looked for workers for the mines and wanted to construct a building for collecting taxes.
MM: What year was this?
J: It’s not easy to remember the year. After leaving the district administration in Mavodze, they went to Maphulanguene in Magude District.
LC: What did they do there?
J: They came simply to govern us because they beat Ngungunhane [in the battle they had with him]. So we were obliged to carry the Portuguese chief on our shoulder to transport him. They didn’t fight us. …
MM: Who worked on the machambas?
J: At first, they worked on the machambas themselves. Sometime later, they changed. With the taxes they collected, they were able to build an office at Mavodze.
MM: Where did the Portuguese plant their crops?
J: The Portuguese didn’t have machambas.
MM: When they arrived at Massingir Velho, didn’t they plant crops?
J: They used to cultivate only in Chokwe. They used to send us here.
MM: Where did they send you?
J: At the baixa they determined the size of the machambas where we had to work producing cotton. At the time of the harvest, they came to buy what we produced and with the money we used to pay the tax.
MM: Where were you living when Mozambique attained independence from Portugal in 1975?
J: We lived at Canhane.
MM: Were you with your family?
J: Yes.
MM: Do you remember what the transition was like?
J: I saw everything. It brought some difficulty because we welcomed Frelimo. But when Frelimo started to institute their laws, everything became difficult. Frelimo started changing everything. But what offended us a lot was Frelimo’s claim that the cattle belonged to the people [povo]. If
4 you had a shop, this belonged to the people, even the machambas. Private ownership had ended. And we realized that it would bring confusion. Because someone could get in the car of another person, while the owner wouldn’t want that. There was someone who bought a tractor with cattle and someone else that had a motor pump for watering his machamba, and Frelimo came and said everything belonged to the people, and these people let go of these things. The government took these things and gave them to the people of Chinyangane.
LC: Where were the machambas of the Portuguese?
J: Before the Aldeias Comunais, the population lived in the baixa which was also called Canhane. So the Portuguese used to send us to plant cotton.
LC: Did the Portuguese live in the baixa too?
J: The Portuguese lived at Estaleiro.3 But in that time there was no dam. Before there was the reservoir, people lived in that area.
LC: What was it like to move from there?
J: When Frelimo arrived, they told us to move from the place just as the Portuguese did because they wanted to put water in the reservoir after completing the dam. Thus they wanted to improve the water supply of the machambas south of the dam. So you have to move to Tihovene, they told us. We refused to go there because of the lack of machambas and we came to this place and we liked it. When we told them that we had chosen this place, they accepted it and let us live here, and they gave each of us 15 chapas de zinc.
MM: Who did that, Frelimo or the Portuguese?
J: It was Frelimo. The Portuguese had the same program to give us 10 chapas of zinc, and Frelimo added 5 more.
MM: How did it affect the community when the Portuguese left?
CA: The idea of freedom was not bad because we hoped to be free just like white men. But life was not like what we had expected.
[30:00]
MM: What expectations did you have of Frelimo?
J: We are like we were before. Our life didn’t change. We would have liked them to build houses for us. But now it is different because people build houses for themselves by selling their cattle. But we still don’t have water and other services that would make us believe we are free. We have freedom but not completely.
LC: When you asked the government of Frelimo to build houses for you, what did they do?
3 The area next to the dam.
5 J: They simply gave us chapas of zinc.
LC: And what about water?
J: They built a tank for water and they used to bring water to the tank and sometime later they built the “furos de água.”
LC: Frelimo only built the furos de água and gave you chapas of zinc?
J: The schools we built ourselves. We bought cement and the posts we cut by ourselves in the mato.
MM: During that time, were you living in the aldeia?
J: Yes.
LC: Your moving from the baixa was because of the aldeias comunias or because you wanted to move?
J: They said that we had to move and look for a new place where we could live together.
LC: Did they tell you about the aldeais comunais?
J: Yes.
MM: When they told you that, did people freely move to this place, or were you forced to come here?
J: We immediately understood the idea because they said we were at war. If we lived next to each other, we could hear our neighbors shout. But if you lived alone, you could be killed without being heard by anyone.
LC: You had war in that time?
J: I think so because they had come from the war and they knew well what was happening.
[35:00]
LC: Did they form the aldeia comunal because of the war?
J: I think they wanted us to live together, and they used that policy to convince us that we are a unique people. Even in the machambas, we had to work in the same machamba together. If someone worked for his boss, he should not feel lower because everything was for the people.
MM: Did living in the aldeia affect your traditional life?
J: It was difficult in the first days because we thought our cattle could be stolen, that they would go on someone else’s land. But later we saw the advantages because the government promised to
6 build schools and said that if everyone lives alone far from his neighbors, it would be difficult to improve services. So living together was easy.
MM: Were these programs successful?
J: It was difficult in the beginning.
MM: What were the objectives of the machambas do povo?
J: In the machambas do povo, we saw more fraud because people could eat maize from the machamba do povo without having worked for it since everything belonged to the “povo.” So many things failed because of that policy.
H: It was the same when I was growing up. [sorrisos]
MM: What was the work like?
J: We used to take our ploughs and oxen to the machambas do povo. Sometimes people used to take their cattle and use them in the machamba.
[40:00]
MM: Were you forced to work there?
J: We simply used to follow orders.
MM: Did you fulfill the orders but not want to do so?
[41:00]
J: Yes, it isn’t what we wanted.
H: We knew that what we produced was ours, but they came to take what we had produced and we didn’t know where they took it to. Once we contributed money to buy a lorry to transport our crops and to bring what we needed to the aldeia. Sometime later the lorry disappeared. When the lorry was bought, we were told that it belonged to the aldeia of Canhane.
LC: When did the machamba do povo end?
H: I don’t remember.
LC: Had the war between Renamo and Frelimo began?
H: No, maybe the war of Ian Smith had.
MM: In the beginning of the war between Frelimo and Renamo, were the machambas do povo still there?
J: No.
7 LC: Did you work on your own machambas at some time?
H: We used to spend more time on our own machambas. The community picked a day when everyone should go to the machamba do povo.
LC: Did you have cooperatives [shops of the community] where you could sell your crops?
H: Yes, one was built here.
MM: Did you have other programs that were introduced here in this aldeia?
J: They built a water tank and hospital and they introduced literacy programs and the adult educators formation.
H: There was another program to register our wives for military service.
LC: Do the people of Canhane know the people in Massingir Velho?
J: Yes, we know each other. Even Helder’s mother lived there. Sometimes we used to go there to dance for cultural events. Our wives come from those places, Massingir Velho, Mavodze, and Kubo.
[5:00]
MM: Were there people left here during the war?
J: They fled to another country. We can’t enumerate them – there were a lot. All the space you are seeing had houses, and the people were in South Africa.
MM: Could you estimate how many people?
J: It’s difficult. I think some of them are Helder’s age. But I’m sure that the number of people who left is greater than the number of people that we have here.
LC: How many people are you here?
J: Without looking at my book, it’s difficult to say.
LC: What about the number of families?... Are there more than 100 families?
J: I think so.
MM: Are there other places where people fled?
J: The number of people who went to the village is small because sometimes Mapswangas [Renamo’s men] attacked the village. Other people went to the baixa.
MM: When did you return to the aldeia?
8 H: It was 1993. This is the year we started to rebuild our houses.
MM: What was the aldeia like when you returned?
J: My return was like others’. When I returned, the setting was normal because they said the war had finished.
MM: How many years did you live out of the aldeia?
J: The people lived for many years out of the aldeia; some of them never came back.
MM: What about you?
J: Ah, I used to travel to South Africa.
MM: On account of the war?
J: No, because of work.
LC: When you went to South Africa, had the war started?
J: No.
MM: When you returned, did you receive help from an NGO or governmental organization?
J: We had help building a school, the houses of teachers, and two ‘furos de água’ that almost didn’t work.
MM: Were those things provided by the government or an NGO?
H: The ‘furos de água’ were built by an NGO.
J: I just remembered Geomoc which tried to open the furos de água’ but wasn’t able to.4
MM: The Three R NGO didn’t work here?
[10:00]
J: Three R was the organization that built the school.
MM: Did your expectations of the state change during or after the war?
J: It is difficult because we are still waiting for water. Sometimes they come to fix the furos de água. But this doesn’t last. During the hot time of the year it is difficult to find water. We have to go to the baixa to get water. It would be nice for us if we had water here.
MM: Do you think the government didn’t fulfill its promises?
4 Geomec is a Mozambican state enterprise that opens furos de água in the rural areas.
9 J: During their speeches, they asked us to work on the machambas do povo. And they told us that we had to collect money. They wanted us to use the money to pay a fee to the Frelimo party, as we were members of the party. They also wanted money to go to the community. We didn’t have any money. Even now we depend on the government.
MM: Have any members of your family gone to South Africa to live or to find work there?
J: They transferred their homes to there, then they invited their family to follow them.
MM: Why were they prepared to leave?
J: In the beginning, they said it was because of the war.
MM: Do they think about coming back?
J: It’s difficult for people who have good houses there, while here they lost a lot of cattle. The Mapswangas took everything they found and burnt it. They even burnt the maize so that when the people thought about this, they would become discouraged and prefer to stay where they were.
MM: Has the absence of these people who are now in South Africa affected your family or community?
J: They are already accustomed to living there because they have jobs there. We are backward because we still depend on our machambas. When they receive their salaries, they can buy goods. Their wives won’t agree to come back once they think about how much they suffer because of the lack of water.
MM: What can you tell us about the Massingir Dam?
J: When the idea of constructing the dam became a reality, they came to meet us and told us to move because where we were would become a lake.
[15:00]
We complained. We didn’t believe them. For us, it was impossible for the lake to take up all this space.
MM: Who were the people who talked to you?
J: They were the Portuguese. Sometime later, they brought machines and then cut down every tree from here until Kubo and then burnt them. At that time, we were living in the baixa. When the floods came, it wasn’t so bad. The dam wasn’t finished. From this time, we began to believe that the water would reach the places where we were living. If the dam had been finished, the situation would have been worse.
MM: Were there a lot of families that fled because of the floods?
CA: All of us left the baixa.
10 LC: Did any of you continue living there?
J: Nobody stayed there.
LC: Did you freely accept to move?
J: Yes, we freely accepted this because we could have seen ourselves dying. And we told them that we wanted this area and not Marrenguele, not even Tihovene.
MM: Why did you refuse these places?
J: We refused because many of us said that it would be difficult to have that area for our machambas, so we choose this area because we were sure it would be enough for everyone to have their machambas.
H: In this area, after the rain, sometimes there are places where the water accumulates because of the rain [lagos]. We use these places for our machambas or for water for our cattle.
LC: Was someone living there before you arrived?
J: Yes.
LC: Who was that? Did they belong to your aldeia?
J: He belonged to our aldeia. He had his cattle and machamba and lived there. He got water at the baixa.
MM: What was the name of the dam.
J: It was Tihovene.
MM: And the name of the village?
J: The village name was Tihovene. They adopted it.
H: I think they used to call it Xigoguene.
J: Yes. It was Xigoguene.
…
MM: What do you call it today?
H: It is Estaleiro.
[20:00]
MM: During the construction of the dam, were people forced to move, or did they move freely?
11 H: There were some people who were forced. Because before the people came to the aldeia, there was a place called Hlhulane. People were living there when they moved from the baixa. When Frelimo told us to come here, some of us refused because we wanted to continue living there. For example, there was an older man. His house was destroyed and they forced him to come here. That man had to be put in a car with his goods and taken to this place.
LC: When you arrived here, was it Canhane?
J: Yes.
LC: The baixa was also Canhane?
J: Yes.
H: At the baixa, people used to work on their machambas and used this place to graze their animals.
LC: Where are they living?
J: They are still alive.
MM: Were you compensated for your land?
H: The only thing that they gave us as compensation sheets of zinc.
MM: Did you receive other things?
J: No.
MM: Were you affected by the move?
H: The water is our problem now. Now we don’t have water. We trusted the machambas of the baixa more. The zona alta doesn’t have good machambas, except for growing peanuts.
MM: Did you choose this place yourself?
[25:00]
J: We wouldn’t go to the other place. We preferred to stay here.
MM: Will the rehabilitation of the dam affect you and your community?
J: No. it doesn’t affect us... This rehabilitation benefits us because people can get jobs and earn money.
LC: The name of Canhane, what can you tell us about that?
12 J: The name Canhane comes from a long time ago. They called the Zitha people who broke the laws, therefore they were called Canhane. We should give “caroço de canha” as tax, and we used to refuse to do it. Every community accepted to pay the tax except ours.
MM: Did you refuse to accept the laws of Frelimo or of the colonial government?
J: They were our laws, long before the coming of Ngungunhane.
MM: What do you think about the economic transition [from socialism to a free-market economy]?
J: We haven’t benefited from it. I think it is every bit the same. We don’t see any development. During the time of Machel, life was difficult because we were supposed to do everything together. We formed a militia force to fight Renamo. After the war, many people were not compensated for what they did during the war. In Chissano’s time, people pay tax but they also collect other taxes like taxes associated with being members of the [Frelimo] party. It worries us because we don’t have money. We had cattle but Renamo stole everything. How can I get it back? So for us there is no difference.
MM: But don’t you notice any differences, for example about owning private property?
J: I think it’s better now that people can own private property because everyone can work for himself. We go to work on our machambas, and if someone stays at home, he will starve.
MM: Didn’t this affect your life?
J: What affected us was the machambas do povo.
H: During this time of freedom of economic activity, everyone can do his own work. The value of what you produce is determined by your effort. But sometimes the instability of prices worries us. Look, we work hard on the machambas but we don’t earn money everyday. It happens that sometimes you work on the machambas and the rains don’t come. We lose everything, our labor and our seeds. So when people travel to other countries and find good conditions there, they prefer to stay there.
[35:00]
[Interview ends with a long discussion of the Limpopo National Park which has been ommitted.]
Part II (6 Nov. 2004):
MM: What was it like to live under the Portuguese?
J: We are so sorry to have lived through what the Portuguese did to us. They used to make us suffer; they forced us to work without payment for a week. That’s what we called xibalo. If they wanted to pay you, they gave you 5 escudos.
MM: What types of work did you do?
13 J: We used to work on the cotton farms. The process of growing cotton was difficult because they forced us to grow it. Sometimes they sent us to open up roads. Even so, they looked down on us.
LC: What did they use when they beat you?
J: They used an instrument called xipakana and cavlao-marinha.
LC: Did you continue to work after they beat you?
J: Yes, they beat people on hands and then forced us to carry heavy containers of water with sore hands.
LC: When did the Portuguese arrive here?
J: They arrived in my grandparents’ time.
LC: Was there a certain time when many Portuguese moved to this area?
J: No, all of the Portuguese lived at Mavodze because the administration was there where we had to pay taxes.
LC: Did they explain to you why you had to pay taxes?
J: No, we don’t know why. Perhaps they told our grandparents long before I was born. That is why people of my era have refused to pay taxes.
LC: Where did the majority of Portuguese live?
[5:00]
J: The majority of Portuguese lived in Maputo. One Portuguese man came here in Canhane to control the cotton growing process. At one time, white men came here from Caniçado and the natives had to transport them on their shoulders. ...
LC: How many Portuguese lived in Massingir?
J: I think there were 3 Portuguese: an administrator, cotton controller and one cattle controller.
LC: Did that process of transportation have a name?
J: I don’t know. But [maybe] it can be called xibalo. People used to carry white men on their shoulders from Caniçado to Massingir. And people of a certain region had to carry them until the limits of their region. In the next region, people did the same. That work was done by our grandparents.
LC: What did your grandparents say about the Portuguese?
J: They said that Portuguese came to make us suffer because we worked hard without a salary.
14 MM: How far from your homes did the Portuguese live?
J: It was far. The Portuguese lived at Mavodze, and the people of Massingir District had to pay taxes in Mavodze. People who lived far had to walk for three days to get there. People from Canhane got there in one day by walking on foot.
LC: How much did you pay for taxes?
J: In the beginning it was 150 escudos.
LC: Did the Portuguese make you pay taxes?
J: The Chefe de Terras had collected taxes in the middle of the year. For women whose husbands were working in South Africa, when they went to sell their cotton, the Portuguese used to take money out of what they owed the women to pay for the taxes. If the value of the cotton only covered the debt, the Portuguese would take everything. The taxes were paid yearly.
LC: Was the Chefe de Terras a friend of the people? Did people like him?
J: People didn’t like him, but we were born after the tax system was already in place. It was not easy to avoid this rule because it already existed. And it never changed. All that changed was the value, which always increased. That is why people got angry sometimes.
LC: The job of Chefe de Terras was created by the Portuguese, or had it existed before they arrived?
J: It existed before they arrived.
LC: What was the impact of the collection of taxes by the Portuguese?
J: The problem was that they beat people, including Chefe de Terras, if someone of the area didn’t pay taxes. The Portuguese would assume that the Chefe de Terras had not collected taxes… There was a big mato where people who didn’t pay taxes were taken to cut trees.
…
MM: How big were the cotton farms?
J: Frelimo took the machamba of the people in Xissinguele [to build the communal farms].
LC: Who worked on their farms? Were people forced to work there?
J: It was slaves and people who failed to pay taxes. But they also had employees. And those employees have received 5 escudos… It seemed we were their workers because we were forced to grow cotton. We were angry and sometimes we cooked the cotton seeds.
MM: What was bigger, your farms or the cotton farms?
J: Yes, they were so big. The Portuguese used a tape to measure your farm.
15 [20:00]
LC: Where are the machambas of cotton today? Are people still using this land?
J: The cotton farms were at the baixa. And there was a road near the farms.
LC: Where did you bring the cotton to sell?
J: We took it to a place in Canhane. Every community [Bingo, Machamba and Mavodze] sold their cotton there.
LC: Were you selling at a store or another place?
J: The Portuguese built a big store covered by grass. When the cotton was ready, they gave us sacks in which we put the cotton. We divided it into two parts: cotton of first and second quality. Then, we took it to the store at Xitevetene. A car came to the store to get the cotton.
LC: How much money did you get from one sack?
J: It depends on how many kilograms it weighed. If your sack weighed 100 kg, you got little money…
MM: Were you forced to grow cotton for the Portuguese? What would happen if you refused?
[25:25]
J: We were forced to grow cotton. Unmarried people weren’t forced to do so.
LC: Did the couple work together on the cotton farms?
J: Yes, but sometimes the men went to work in South Africa.
LC: Why didn’t unmarried people have cotton farms?
J: Because if the man went to the South Africa for work, there was no one to take care of his machamba.
MM: What other types of crops did you grow?
J: We had our own machambas where we grew our things.
LC: Did every married person have a machamba?
J: Yes, and man with more than one wife should have the same number of machambas.
MM: Did you grow other crops for the Portuguese?
J: No.
16 [30:35]
LC: Did they have capatazes?
J: Yes. They were like the Portuguese policemen.
LC: Who beat you?
J: The Portuguese sent their police to best us.
MM: How many people from Canhane worked for the Portuguese?
J: There were close to 10 people. Some were capatazes, cooks and sailors.
MM: [Question about independence]
J: No, but we heard about the fighting between the Portuguese and Frelimo, and we should chose if we would like to be with Portuguese or not. But the Portuguese used to say that Frelimo had socialist politics and that everything would belong to everyone. The Portuguese also said that the people of Frelimo killed people. And they would make people work for them.
[35:30]
MM: Were you happy to see Frelimo come to power?
J: Yes. Frelimo’s people said that they were going to eliminate poverty and that people were going to live in good houses like the ones the Portuguese had. We were forced to do hard work for the Portuguese, and they didn’t pay us. Frelimo was telling this to us. In response, the Portuguese promoted people with skills into good positions. That was to convince people that the Portuguese were good and that they [the Portuguese] liked them.
MM: What can you tell us about the Massingir Dam?
J: The Portuguese only said people of Canhane, Cubo, Massingir Velho and Mavodze had to move because they wanted to build dam and will have water at all times.
[40:00]
MM: Did the Portuguese beat you if you supported Frelimo.
J: No, they didn’t beat us for supporting Frelimo. I think this is because they wanted people to accept them [the Portuguese], to accept being with them… We were very happy when we heard about the liberation movement. It meant the end of suffering.
…
J: In Maputo, the transition time was more difficult than here. Some Portuguese wanted to stay, but then they went to South Africa…They sold their cattle, but not every head of cattle. They took with them things that were important for them.
17 …
J: Life was better in colonial time. Nowadays things have changed. There are many illnesses. Just before Frelimo, people lived until old age.
[45:00]
MM: Why did life change?
J: I think God did that, not people. Girls get married very young and that didn’t happen before.
…
[Long discussion of a farming association omitted from transcript]
LC: What was the impact of the landmines?
J: They brought sadness. Once a young boy caught a bullet of a “bazuka” which exploded, blowing off all of his fingers.
MM: Were there things like that here?
J: There were some in the village because the government strongly defended much of the village.
LC: Are they still there?
J: Yes, I remember that there were some at the village.
…
J: Is there only one way to get Kubo?
LC: Yes, militias put the mines there.
MM: Why?
J: They wanted to defend the village from Renamo.
MM: Why didn’t they remove the mines?
J: They were alone. Some animals treaded on them, and others were taken out byade-mining team.
LC: Did a de-mining organization come here to work?
J: Yes.
18 LC: Are they still removing them?
J: Yes
LC: When did they begin to remove them?
J: In 2000.
LC: Were there landmines placed at the Massingir Dam?
J: Yes.
MM: Why?
J: Soldiers thought that Renamo’s men could damage the dam.
LC: Why did the people go to the village during the war?
J: I don’t know exactly, but there were many soldiers at the village.
LC: Did they go there because of the soldiers?
J: Yes, it was safe there.
LC: Were there a lot of soldiers?
J: Yes, there were two groups, one at the village and another at the dam.
LC: Why were there so many soldiers?
J: It was because of the dam.
LC: Was the administration there for a long time?
J: It moved from Mavodze to that place.
LC: What was it here?
J: There were homes of “brigade” that were removed.
LC: Were there people from Canhane protecting the dam?
J: Yes, there was the chefe. Other people went to South Africa, and others died.
LC: Thank you, this is the end of the interview.
19