Ethnographic Sorcery (11 page)

By expressing continuing suspicions of power in the democratic era through sorcery discourse, Muedans partially realized the world on their own terms and partially realized enduring constraints upon their abilities to do so. Indeed, sorcery discourse served Muedans well in their struggles to survive “on the margins” (as they were fond of saying) of the modern world. The “hidden transcript” (Scott 1990) sustained by Muedans through sorcery discourse told them that the operation of
power itself
remained hidden, notwithstanding the inception of liberal democracy.
⁹
Through reflection in and on the invisible domain of sorcery, Muedans sustained their understanding that the forces that animated social life were not always comprehensible, or readily manipulable. Sorcery discourse nurtured Muedan ambivalence toward power, reminding them both that power was essential to the creation of prosperity and social well-being and that truly decisive power generally operated in a realm accessible only to an extraordinary few.
¹⁰
Sorcery discourse facilitated
Muedan appreciation for the complex dilemmas created by the elusiveness and capriciousness of power in their midst. Those who did not enter with vigor into the fray remained vulnerable to being devoured, sorcery discourse reminded them, while those who played the games of power were destined, eventually, to lose. Sorcery discourse reminded Muedans that politics is an unavoidable and unending contest in which no victory is final, no defeat complete—a contest requiring constant surveillance and judgment of the contestants by participants and observers alike.
¹¹

Through sorcery discourse, Muedans reflected upon the complex truth that the world they made sometimes eluded their grasp, sometimes turned around and made them, and sometimes became suddenly and unexpectedly responsive to their whims.
¹²
Through the production of sorcery discourse, they reconciled themselves to the indomitable dialectics of social life. They resigned themselves to the idea that one cannot always truly see or know with certainty the reality in which one is suspended
¹³
—that one is sometimes left to trade secondhand accounts about how the world works, and why. Within sorcery discourse, Muedans perceived the irreducible complexity of their world even as they carried on making their world complex.

D
OCTORS
K
ALAMATATU

Despite frequent visits to Kalamatatu’s home in the village of Matambalale—where I based myself most often and for the longest stints during fieldwork in 1994 and 1999—Marcos and I were never able to find his home without guidance from a village youth, even though it was clearly marked by one of the largest and most distinctive mango trees in the village. We joked often about this, wondering aloud if this powerful healer had ringed his home with camouflaging medicinal substances, as we were told healers sometimes did.

When I returned to Matambalale in 1999, we were able for the first time to locate Kalamatatu’s yard unaided. The elder had died. As we stood wistfully, taking in the scene of the healer’s abandoned compound, I realized that I had no picture of the yard, his and his wife’s houses, and the tree. I had pulled my camera from my field bag and focused for a shot when I heard the voice of a woman, admonishing me.

“Why would you want a picture of that?!” she scolded me. “Of all the houses in this village, why must you take a picture of that one, in ruins? Why not take a picture of a house in good condition? We are proud too, you know!”

“No, Mama,” Marcos called back to her, respectfully. “It’s not because the house is in ruins that he’s taking a picture.”

The woman now stood only a few feet away. She remained perturbed.

Marcos put his hand on my back, looking at the woman. “This one,” he said, “was a friend of the elder.” He now pointed to the house. “Many times, he visited the old man in that house. He is taking a picture now as a remembrance of his friend.”

The woman looked carefully at me. “Andiliki?” she said. “Is this Andiliki?”

I did not recognize her face. I did not know if she knew me by appearance or only by name. “I am Andiliki,” I confessed.

She reached for my hand and greeted me. “You’ve come back to visit us!” she announced.

“Yes,” I said.

Marcos then asked her if anyone in the village tended to Kalamatatu’s affairs. She told us that we should speak to his nephew, who was away from the village but expected back in a few days.

When we returned on the appointed day, Marcos, Tissa, and I were met on the edge of Kalamatatu’s yard by his son, Lipapa Kalamatatu. Lipapa took us to his own house, just a few dozen meters away. There, we sat in awkward but brief silence as we awaited the arrival of others whom Lipapa had summoned to join us. Within a short time, we were introduced to four other men: another son, Laja; a nephew (sister’s son), Duarte Felipe; another nephew, Henrique Maulide; and a “younger
likola
brother” (probably a mother’s sister’s son), Calisto Simoni.

When all were assembled, Lipapa began to speak. Since we had last seen Kalamatatu, he told us, the elder had suffered from headaches and backaches. He became quite ill once, but recovered. Some time later, however, he fell ill again. This time, he did not recover. He died in 1996, Lipapa reported.

“Was this illness provoked by
uwavi
[sorcery]?” I asked.

“No,” Lipapa responded, nonplussed. “It was a natural illness.” His words were steady and assured. “It had nothing to do with
uwavi.
He wasn’t attacked, nor did he injure himself.”

I expressed my sentiments. “Kalamatatu was a good friend to me,” I said, wondering if my words would be considered appropriate.

“Namene
[very],” the entire group responded in unison with an enthusiasm that surprised me.

To this, Lipapa added: “It’s true. You were great friends. The old man received your visits many times. He had great confidence in you.”

I was not certain what Lipapa meant by “great confidence,” but his statement filled me with a vague satisfaction.

Calisto Simoni told me that the photos I had given Kalamatatu were now kept in his house.

“When the elder died,” Lipapa then said, “he left his
mitela
with three of us.” Lipapa reached out and pinched the cloth of Calisto’s and Henrique’s tattered shirts, indicating the threesome who had inherited Kalamatatu’s stores of medicinal substances. “Calisto holds the
mitela
in his house. But we work together.”

Later, we sat with the three men and talked about their work as healers. The triumvirate they formed replicated one that had once included Kalamatatu, his
njomba
(mother’s brother)/mentor, Mikuku, and Mikuku’s younger brother. Collaboration not only made the responsibility of healing less onerous for each healer but also ensured the continuity of the
mitela
with which they worked. “Kalamatatu knew that he could die at any time,” Lipapa told us. “He wanted to be sure that his
mitela
would survive, even if the one he passed it to died suddenly, unexpectedly.”

Before conversing further with Kalamatatu’s three successors, I requested that we visit Kalamatatu’s grave so that I might pay my respects. My request was anticipated—perhaps even expected—and off we went, despite a surprise shower in the midst of this, the dry season.

A bulging mound of earth with a small wooden cross at one end marked Kalamatatu’s resting place. Burned onto the cross
with a hot iron were the letters “PAUL O.” In his final moments, I learned, Kalamatatu had been baptized.

I gathered my thoughts for, now, I knew, I was expected to speak. I removed my hat, as did the others. I cleared my throat.

“Kalamatatu Ndudu Nankanda,” I said, clearly, intentionally, as if my words might somehow overwrite the name on the wooden cross. “From the very first time I spoke with the
nang’olo
(elder), I knew that I could learn many things from him. He was a man of important wisdom. But it was the second time I met him that I remember most dearly. I introduced him by name, ‘Kalamatatu,’ to my colleague here.” I looked at Marcos. “When he heard me pronounce his name correctly, he was so pleased that he told me, ‘From now on, you, too, are Kalamatatu!’” Everyone laughed, gently. “He not only shared his knowledge with me, he shared his name.” I reached into my pocket, where I had earlier placed one of my business cards. “When I visited him years ago, I gave him a card like this one with my name printed on it. He kept it, I know, because each time I returned, he retrieved it from his house and held it as we spoke.” Again, we shared gentle laughter. “Well, now I have a new card for Kalamatatu. As I promised him, I have become a ‘doctor.’”

“Doctor Andiliki.” Marcos interjected with a smile.

“I could not have accomplished this without my friend, my teacher, Kalamatatu. He taught me what I had to know.” Now looking at his three successors, I added, “and he was there with me when I was tested.”

Indeed, he had been. On the day of my dissertation defense, I wore tied around my arm beneath my shirt the
ilishi
(small packet of
mitela
) that Kalamatatu had given me to ensure that I speak with the voice of a lion and that my words be respected.
¹

The elder’s three successors nodded knowingly at my euphemism.

I felt a jag in my voice as I continued: “So now, as Kalamatatu shared his name with me, I share my title with him. We are doctors, he and I—Doctors Kalamatatu.”

An affirming murmur surrounded me as I placed the card at the base of the wooden cross.

As I stepped back, Marcos initiated a Catholic prayer in Shimakonde. The others followed along as best they could. Where words sometimes failed them, the gesture of the cross did not.

We reconvened at Lipapa’s house, where we spoke at length about their work, and about mine. I took their pictures, promising to give them copies when I next saw them. I then showed them pictures of my family. Among them were pictures of me, my partner, and my parents assembled around the larger-than-life stone sculpture of the Nittany Lion that sits on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University where my father taught. I explained that there were lions in Pennsylvania too, but that they were much smaller than the statue—and much smaller than the lions found in Mueda. Lipapa joked with me, saying that the photo was evidence that my family and I knew how to make lions of which we had no fear.

As we departed, Kalamatatu’s successors assured me that his work was being carried on, and they asked that my friendship with him also be continued through them. Lipapa looked at me and cleared his throat. “As you were such a good friend of the elder,” he said, “perhaps you can help us resolve one of our concerns.” Where such a preamble might ordinarily have made me wary of the request to come, I found myself receptive—even eager to accommodate. “The elder is buried here in any old way. The rain beats down on his grave and, in time, it will disappear. We would like to preserve this site properly, but we need a sack of cement.” Lipapa and his relatives wished to cover the grave with a slab of concrete, as they had seen done in cemeteries elsewhere, in Pemba, in Mocímboa da Praia, or in Tanzania.

I asked Marcos if cement could be purchased in any of the shops in the town of Mueda, and he assured me that it could. I asked if one of them could accompany us the next day when we departed for the town of Mueda, and Henrique was chosen. I would arrange the cement, I promised, as well as transport for Henrique to carry it back to Matambalale.

Lipapa clasped my hand. Before he let go, he offered words that he seemed to be holding on to until the moment of our parting. “Kalamatatu trusted you because he recognized in you a certain characteristic—a certain ability,” he told me, looking me in the eyes. His facial expression was intense. His words remained unclear to me. I noticed, however, that Tissa looked at him with astonishment. “This is what allowed you to write your book,” Lipapa added. “This is what allowed you to become a doctor.”

Later, Tissa would explain to me that Lipapa’s words euphemistically indicated that his father, Kalamatatu, thought of me as a sorcerer—a
fellow
sorcerer. “That certain characteristic,” Tissa said, “that certain ability . . . it’s
uwavi
! And the elder recognized it in you, his son was saying, because he knew it himself!”

Neither Lipapa nor Tissa specified what
kind
of sorcery Kalamatatu understood the two of us to practice.

E
THNOGRAPHIC
S
ORCERY

“Well, now that we
have
seen each other,” said the unicorn, “if you believe in me, I’ll believe in you.”

«
LEWIS
CARROLL
,
Through the Looking-Glass
([1871] 1998: 201) »

On the day that Mandia treated me, one of his three wives gave me reason to believe that he, too, considered me a colleague of sorts. Upon completion of my treatment, the
humu
rose to his feet and disappeared from the house in which we were seated. I later discovered that he was fetching a drum to be played while he danced in a ceremonial manner reserved to
vahamu
such as he. As we sat awaiting his return, however, his wife drew close to me and asked me, almost conspiratorially, what cures
I
knew. They were most concerned, she admitted, to learn if I knew how to cure chickens, for theirs, like everyone’s in the village, were dying of a strange disease that neither the
humu
nor anyone else knew how to treat. The ailment she described to me reminded me of what I had heard of Newcastle disease. I told her that I thought chickens could be vaccinated against such diseases but, to her great disappointment, I informed her that I was no veterinarian.