Isaacman, Allen. the Prazeros as Transfrontiersmen

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The Prazeros as Transfrontiersmen: A Study in Social and Cultural ChangeAuthor(s): Allen Isaacman and Barbara IsaacmanSource: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1975), pp. 1-39Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/217484 .Accessed: 22/08/2011 20:14

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THE PRAZEROS AS TRANSFRONTIERSMEN: A STUDY IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGE1

Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman

Fifteenth-century maritime expansion precipitated an unprece- dented exchange of ideas and technology between Europe and the indigenous societies of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.2 While scholars have focused on the broad political and economic impact of the overseas exploration, they have been less concerned with patterns of local interaction and the concomitant processes of social change. Recently social scientists have developed a number of analytical models to inter- pret the outcome of cultural contact between European overseas communities and the indigenous populations. These forms range from plural societies, with their separatist ideologies, to new hybrid cultures. While interculturation has been recognized as a common phenomenon on the frontier,3 scholars have failed to consider the possibility that

'This paper originally was prepared for the Schouler Lecture Symposium on Creole Societies in the Americas and Africa held at the Johns Hopkins University, 9-10 April 1973. The authors are grateful to Jack P. Greene, department of history, Johns Hopkins University, and to his colleagues for the opportunity to participate in the symposium and for permission to publish the paper in its present form. We also wish to thank Franklin Knight for his concurrence; he will be editing a volume in which the Schouler symposium, including a version of this paper, will appear. We are indebted to Peter Carroll, Philip Curtin, Paul Lovejoy, Stuart Schwartz, and Stuart Wagner for their penetrating criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper. Susan Isaacman also added significant comments to a preliminary version, and John Modell provided extremely valuable assistance with the demographic data. The concept of transfrontiersmen was first advanced by Philip Curtin during a series of lectures on comparative tropical history which he presented in 1966 at the University of Wisconsin.

2See W.H. McNeill, The Rise of the West (Chicago, 1963), for an examination of this process of cross-fertilization.

3For a general discussion of various approaches to the frontier, see Paul Bohannan and Fred Plog, eds., Beyond the Frontier (Garden City, 1967); Owen Lattimore, "The Frontier in History," in Owen Lattimore, ed., Studies in Frontier History (London, 1962), 469-491.

The International Journal of African Historical Studies, VIII, 1 (1975) 1

2 ALLEN ISAACMAN and BARBARA ISAACMAN

European settlers could be absorbed into the dominant local cultures. Because of generally held assumptions about the superiority of Western civilization and a narrow geographic perspective limited to the European side of the frontier, few historians have seriously examined the process of acculturation in what Paul Bohannan has called the great beyond.4 Nevertheless, the process of indigenization occurred with some frequency. Allowing for differences in detail, the coureurs de bois of Canada, the lancados of the Guinea coast, the sertanejos of Angola, the prazeros of Mozambique, and perhaps the sertanistas of the Amazon lived in similar circumstances, underwent comparable processes of culture change, and evolved into a distinct social type which Philip Curtin has termed transfrontiersmen.5

Within the context of maritime expansion, transfrontiersmen are defined as people of European descent who permanently settled beyond the limits of Western society. They included traders, hunters, merce- naries, deserters, and social outcasts. Because of their relatively small numbers, the absence of metropolitan women of child-bearing age, and their total isolation from European socializing institutions, they were progressively absorbed into the dominant population. Their adoption of indigenous cultural elements extended beyond the borrowing of local artifacts, techniques, and languages, which facilitated their adaptation to a new and difficult environment, to include the transformation of institutions and values which were at the core of their respective cultures. As such, acculturation was substitutive rather than additive, and differed from the process of hybridization which characterized many frontier societies.

This paper seeks to examine the origin and historical development of one such transfrontier society: the prazeros of the lower Zambezi Valley of Mozambique. It places specific emphasis on both the frontier conditions which affected the process of acculturation and the cultures of the indigenous societies with whom the settler community interacted. The discussion is limited to the period from 1675 to 1850, a somewhat arbitrary delineation since Portuguese traders were already present in 1675 and the descendants of several prominent prazeros reside in the area today. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that a profound change in the racial and social composition of the prazero community occurred during this period which was intimately related to its subsequent cultural transformation.

4Paul Bohannan, introduction, Beyond the Frontier, xii. 5Curtin has used the term transfrontiersmen to refer to "people who cross the frontier

of their own culture area, often taking up a new way of life." Personal communication, 27 Feb. 1973.

THE PRAZEROS AS TRANSFRONTIERSMEN

Portuguese interest in the Zambezi Valley began as early as 1505 when they founded a small refueling station and trading post at Sofala, located on the Indian Ocean coast (see map 1). Within twenty years small groups of traders and adventurers had moved into the Zambezi Valley seeking the Biblical gold mines of the queen of Sheba and hop- ing to dislodge the infidel Arab merchants who controlled inland and coastal commerce. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Por-

tuguese had established administrative centers at Sena and Tete as well as a number of inland trading fairs, where they purchased gold, ivory, copper, and tropical products from the surrounding peoples.6 Although they never located the mythical mines, they effectively eliminated their Arab competitors during the second half of the sixteenth century and quickly came to appreciate the commercial potential of the Zam- bezi Valley. As a result, a small but sustained migration of Portuguese continued throughout the seventeenth century.

Political events within the principal Zambezian chieftaincies facilitated the intrusion of Portuguese traders. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Korekore invaders had conquered the small Sena and Tonga polities located along the southern margins of the

6For the most insightful primary account of the early commercial patterns, see Joao dos Santos, "Ethi6pia Oriental," in G.M. Theal, ed., Records of South East Africa (9 vols., Capetown, 1898-1903) [hereafter RSEA], VII, 1-370.

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Zambezi River and had incorporated them into the famous

Muenemutapa kingdom (see map 2). Within this large empire the southern Zambezi chieftaincies were considered marginal and there was no real attempt to effectively integrate them either politically or

culturally. Consequently the Sena and Tonga were able to exploit a series of civil wars and succession crises to reassert their independence by the middle of the sixteenth century.7 A similar, although somewhat

later, pattern of state formation followed by rapid decentralization characterized political relationships in the Malawian kingdom just north of the Zambezi River (see map 2).8

The instability within these two major political systems precluded their effective control over the Zambezi Valley, which both states considered a frontier zone of little significance. Within this power vacuum several powerful Portuguese traders were able to establish military and

political preeminence. Through conquest or the threat of punitive ac-

tion, Portuguese gained recognition as the political chiefs of specific Sena, Tonga, and Malawian chieftaincies located on the margins of the Zambezi River. Although the indigenous amambo, or land chiefs, retained religious and secular responsibilities for the health and well-

being of their polities, they were compelled to pay taxes and provide

'Allen Isaacman, Mozambique: The Africanization of a European Institution. The Zambesi Prazos, 1750-1902 (Madison, 1972), 5-11.

81bid 11-15


services to their new overlords much as they had previously to the local representative of either the Muenemutapa or the Malawian king, Kalonga.9 This division of power between land chief and political chief was a common phenomenon in precolonial Africa.10

By the middle of the seventeenth century Manoel Paes de Pinha, Sis- nando Bayao, Antonio Lobo da Silva, and others had carved out personal empires which included most of the polities around Sena and Tete as well as the outlying provinces of the Barue kingdom.11 Their power was based upon control over warrior slaves, or achikunda, whom they had acquired through trade, slave raids, and the indigenous practice of voluntary enslavement.12 A number of more prominent Por- tuguese owned and armed several thousand achikunda, and one settler was reputed to have been able to mobilize 15,000.13

Although Portuguese preeminence is generally ascribed to conquest, involvement in local African politics was equally important. It was not uncommon for a mambo to attempt to protect himself from threats to his sovereignty by seeking an alliance with a powerful Portuguese.14 By

9Ibid., 5-15. '?See Jan Vansina, "A Comparison of African Kingdoms," Africa, 32 (1962), 324-335. "The most complete primary account of the activities of these early prazeros can be

found in Manuel Barretto, "Informacao do Estado e Conquista dos Rios de Cuama, 1667," RSEA, III, 436-508.

12E. Axelson, ed., "Viagem que fez o Padre Antonio Gomes...," Studia, III (1959), 203; Barretto, "Informagao," 475. For a short summary in English, see Eric Axelson, The Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600-1700(Johannesburg, 1962), 40-42. For an analysis of the various slave systems on the prazos, see Isaacman, Mozambique, ch. 4.

'3Arquivo Historico Ultramarino, Lisbon [hereafter AHU], Mozambique, Caixa 2: unsigned, undated.

'4Archival data for the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries and oral traditions support this generalization. See Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon [hereafter ANTT], Documentos Remittidos da India, Livro Arquivo da Torre do Tombo, Lx, fol. 230, cited in Francisco de Arag5o e Mello, Memoria e Documentos 4cerca dos Direitos de

Portugal aos Territorios de Machona e Nyasa (Lisbon, 1890), 122; Charles Boxer, "Sisnan- do Dias Bayao: Conquistador do Mae d'Ouro," Primeiro Congresso da Histdria de Expansao Portuguesa no Mundo, III (1938), 107-109; Jose Fernandes, Junior, "Hist6ria de Undi" (unpublished manuscript, Makanga, n. d.), 17; AHU, Mop., Cx. 1: Dom Nuno Alferes Pereira, Ambrozio de Feitas da Camara, Francisco de Lucena, 16 March 1631; AHU, Moc., Cx. 14: Petition written by Ricardo Jose de Lima for Dona Ignez Pessoa d'Almeida Castello Branco, with supporting statements from various inhabitants in Sena; AHU, Mo9., Cx. 20: unsigned, 11 and 16 July 1783; AHU, Mo9., Cx. 31: unsigned document, probably written for Macombe, the king of Barue, 2 Feb. 1795; Arquivo Historico de

Mozambique, Louren?o Marques [hereafter AHM], Fundo do S6culo XIX, Quelimane, Governo do Distrito, Cx. 1: Venancio Raposo de Amarel, 28 Jan. 1849; AHU, Moq., Pasta 13: Antonio Candido Pedroso Gamitto to S.M.T., 31 Dec. 1854; AHU, Codice 1462, fol. 50: Custodio Jose da Silva to Jose Maria Pereira de Almeida, 1 Sept. 1860; "Viagem as Terras de Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relatorio do padre Victor Jose Cour- tois, vigairio de Tete, 1885," Boletim Oficial de Moqambique [hereafter BOM], 29 (1886), 361; interviews with Conrado Msussa Boroma, Simon Biwi, Jasse Camalizene, Antonio Vas, and Renco Cado; joint interview with Gente Renco and Quembo Pangacha. See appendix for more detailed information on informants.

5


combining such arrangements with a judicious use of force, a number of settlers from the seventeenth century onward were able to gain the generalized position of political chief. In addition to protection the overlord provided the mambo with cloth, salt, and jewelry.15 These gifts increased the prestige of the latter and through their selective redistribution helped to secure the loyalty of his principal subordinates.

By the middle of the seventeenth century the Portuguese government viewed the Zambezi situation with alarm, since after nearly a century of colonization Lisbon's position still remained precarious.

In those [Zambezi towns] which I saw, particularly Quelimane, I noticed nothing to represent a captaincy beyond a wooden stockade with four houses thatched with straw, but I observed several iron guns lying on the shore full of sand, in proof of which an ear of green millet was growing from the touch-hole of one of them, showing the great fertility of the soil and the great care which is taken of the king's property.16

Although the early settlers and traders generally were loyal, the absence of a well-trained administrative bureaucracy and the government's dependence on a small, poorly-trained military force limited the extent to which this backwater region could be effectively integrated into the colonial empire. Thus the crown was forced to depend on the settlers as colonizing agents. Such a policy yielded few benefits because much of the energy of the badly factionalized European community was dissipated in prolonged internal feuds.17 One knowledgeable observer noted in 1667 that "about thirty years ago there were more than sixty married Portuguese, for the most part rich and powerful, and many quarrels and deaths arose from each one wishing to be chief; today there are not more than thirty houses."18 These conflicts not only prevented the pacification of the Zambezi but also enabled a number of local amambo and the Barue king to regain their independence.19

In a move designed to assert the legal basis of its control and to bolster its sagging position Lisbon nationalized the Zambezi Valley in the middle of the seventeenth century. While acknowledging the rights of the settlers to retain the use of their lands, the government

"Interviews with Jasse Camalizene, Renco Cado, and Antonio Vas; AHU, MoC., Documentos, Annexos, e as Plantas: Francisco de Mello de Castro to Marques de Tavora, 10 Aug. 1750.

'Barretto, "Informacao," 506. 7Ibid., 473; Eric Axelson, "Portuguese Settlement in the Interior of South East Africa

in the Seventeenth Century," Congresso Internacional da Historia dos Descobrimentos, V (Lisbon, 1961), 11.

'8Barretto, "Informaao," 473. '9lbid., 488.


claimed ultimate ownership of these estates, which were legally to be known as prazos da coroa. Theoretically, the crown's assertion of its feudal rights defined a highly structured relationship in which the settlers remained totally subordinate to the government. The estate holders, or prazeros, were required to pay an annual tax, provide specified services, and obey laws promulgated in Lisbon. Failure to fulfill these stipula- tions meant immediate expulsion from one's estate.20

In practice, Lisbon lacked the capacity to enforce these regulations and had to rely on the patriotism of the colonists. In return for a titled deed, the government sought recognition of its feudal rights of ter- ritoriality. It also hoped to use the nationalized land to induce large- scale immigration and to insure the perpetuation of a Portuguese community in the Zambezi. Toward this end tracts of land were offered ex- clusively to European women who might be reticent about settling in such a backwater area. An additional proviso that the estates could only be transmitted through the female line was established but often ignored.21

In terms of composition, life style, and loyalty, the seventeenth-century prazero community fulfilled the broad expectations of the Por-

tuguese crown. The small group of prominent families included individuals who had been awarded estates in recognition of their stand- ing in metropolitan society as well as royal agents who had performed outstanding services for the crown. Others represented in the elite were priests, successful merchants, and former military officers. As a group they rigorously adhered to Lisbon's colonizing principles and saw themselves as the progenitors of a permanent Portuguese racial and cultural community.

Throughout the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries, the principal families enjoyed a virtual monopoly of wealth, power, and prestige. As in Lisbon, they formed carefully calculated marriage alliances designed to reinforce and perpetuate their privileged positions.22 Perhaps the most successful were the descendants of Sis- nando Bayao. By gradually expanding their web of marital unions, the family created a personal empire which by the middle of the eighteenth century included nine prazos, several thousand warrior slaves,

2For a general discussion of the contractual relationship between the state and the

prazero, see Isaacman, Mozambique, 95-101; Alexandre Lobato, Colonizaqdo Senhorial da Zambezia (Lisbon, 1962), 97-116; Alexandre Lobato, Evolufo Administrativa e Econ6mica de Mo%ambique (Lisbon, 1957), 209-225.

2"Lobato, Evolufao, 209-225. 22Barretto, "Informaao," 463-478; ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Maco 604: Antonio

7


and a substantial income in taxes.23 Inheritance patterns tended to reinforce the closed nature of the elite by keeping the estates in the hands of a small number of families who willingly bequeathed their holdings to each other when they lacked proper heirs.24

Despite their local power, the major prazero families shared a profound commitment to king and nation and viewed themselves as con- questadores expanding the majesty of Portugal. They pacified new territory for the king, defended his most remote holdings, acted as his principal ambassadors, and held important bureaucratic positions within the local government.25 The example of Bayao is a case in point. Not only did he subjugate parts of the surrounding kingdom of Quiteve and voluntarily surrender the lands to the king, but he used his large slave army to protect Lisbon's interests against the Changamira and other major African powers.26 He also held the highest administrative position in the Zambezi as Capitao-mor de Sena e os Rios de Cuama. Ant6nio Lobo da Silva and Manoel Paes de Pinha performed services of similar proportions.27 In return they sought recognition through royal decrees and honors. Of Ant6nio Lobo da Silva one contemporary wrote: "He wished for nothing but a patent of nobility and the habit of the order of Christ."28

As the reported aspirations of Ant6nio Lobo da Silva suggest, the elite conspicuously maintained its allegiance to Portuguese culture and tradition. It rigorously adhered to a Catholic heritage, often at great personal expense. A number of prazeros built large churches on their estates,29 and many sent their sons to Portugal or Goa for a proper

Pinto de Miranda, "Memoria sobre a Costa de Africa," undated, 30-51. 23AHU, Cddice 1314, fol. 82: Pedro de Saldanha de Albuquerque to Ant6nio Caetano

de Campos, 16 April 1759; AHU, Moc., Cx. 9: Marco Ant6nio de Azevedo de Montaury, 18 June 1752.

24AHU, Mo., Cx. 34: Francisco Jose' de Lacerda e Almeida to the king, 22 March 1798; AHU, Moc., Cx. 12: Balthazar Manoel Pereyra do Lago, 17 Aug. 1766.

25Biblioteca da Ajuda, Lisbon [hereafter Ajuda], 51-VI-24, No. 67, fol. 291: "Tres Papeis feitos pello Mouros em Franca sobre os Rios de Cuama e sobre India," unsigned, 1677; Barretto, "Informacao," 463-488. For the role of the settlers in the sixteenth-century conquest and their upper-class backgrounds, see Father Monclaros, "Account of the Expedition under Francisco Barretto," RSEA, III, 157-253; Antonio Bocarro, "Decada da India," RSEA, III, 254-435.

26AHU, Codice 1439, No. 2051, unsigned, 30 Oct. 1832. The year that Baya6 presented the gift to the crown was either 1672 or 1673. In addition to Cheringoma Dona Ines owned prazos Gorongoza, Bumba, Agora Santa, Tungue, Maringue de Inhambu, and Maringue Bumbu. AHU, Moc., Cx. 20, unsigned, 11 and 16 July 1783.

2'Barretto, "Informarao," 463-488. 28Ibid., 473. 29Large cathedrals were built on prazos Luabo, Cheringoma, Caya, and Monga, among

others.


Christian education. Among the European-educated sons of Manoel Paes de Pinha were a highly regarded priest and several laymen actively involved in the Catholic Church.30 Bayao's immediate descendants included officers and statesmen who were awarded the Habit of Christ and Foro de Fidalgo.31

Although less is known about their social organization, the evidence suggests that the elite accepted the same basic concepts of marriage, family, and rank as did their privileged counterparts in Portugal.32 Their life style was also conspicuously upper-class Portuguese; furniture, jewelry, and wines were regularly imported from the metropolis. In short, the first families initially lived in a social milieu which remained outside African society, and through closed marital patterns and a con- tempt for "halfbreeds" jealously guarded their racial exclusiveness and cultural identity.

The early prazero community, however, was homogeneous neither in composition nor in life style. From the outset Lisbon recognized the claims of a number of estate holders who belonged to the lower echelons of Portuguese society. They included petty merchants, minor officials, shipwrecked sailors, and a growing number of degredados and other social outcasts.3 While some of the estate holders of more hum- ble origin emulated the elite and were distantly linked to it through alliances, many evidenced less concern about maintaining racial and cultural purity. The absence of an adequate number of eligible Euro- pean women led to extensive miscegenation. By 1667 one observer noted the presence of a significant number of mulattos, known alter- natively as mizungu (sing., muzungu) or filhos do pais34 The tendency to marry African women and raise offspring in the indigenous social milieu carried obvious social and cultural implications which were reinforced both by the inability of less affluent prazeros to send their children to Lisbon and by the virtual absence of European socializing institutions outside the small Zambezi towns of Sena and Tete. Al- though it is difficult to measure the exact nature and direction of

30Barretto, "Informavao," 479. 31AHU, Moy., Cx. 14: Petition written by Ricardo Jose de Lima for Dona Ignez Pessoa

d'Almeida Castello Branco, undated. 32Barretto, "Informa9ao," 463-478; ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Mayo 604: Antonio

Pinto de Miranda, "Membria sobre a Costa de A'frica," 30-51, undated; ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Ma9o 604: Francisco de Mello de Castro, 28 Dec. 1753.

33Axelson, "Portuguese Settlement," 13; M.D.D. Newitt, "The Portuguese on the Zambesi from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries," Race, 9 (1968), 479; Jer6nimo Jose Moguiera de Andrade,"Descriqao do Estado em que ficava os negocios de Capitania de Moqambique nos fins do anno de 1789," Arquivo das Colonias, 1 (1887), 119.

34Barretto, "Informagao," 473.

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cultural change during this early period, some members of the inland community practiced polygamy, visited herbalists, believed in witchcraft, and adopted much of the material culture of the indigenous population.35 One chronicler disgustedly remarked in 1696 that "some of the muzungos live more like Africans than the kaffirs live like Christians."36

Throughout the eighteenth century the social and racial composition of the prazero community changed dramatically. In part the shift can be attributed to the failure of several elaborately planned immigration schemes, the largest of which resulted in the settlement of only seventy-eight men, women, and children. Of this group, fourteen died almost immediately upon arrival.37 As late as 1750 the governor of the Rivers of Sena lamented the virtual absence of industrious white settlers who, he felt, were essential for the Portuguese community to survive.38 n a desperate attempt to maintain a nominal presence in the Zambezi, Lisbon began to distribute estates to anyone, regardless of background, skills, and loyalty. Those who received aforamentos, or titled deeds, were lower-class residents of Portugal, impoverished inhabitants of the Zambezi, degredados, mulatto wives of European soldiers, and Asians from Goa.39

The image of the Zambezi Valley as insalubrious undoubtedly deter- red many Portuguese families from immigrating. They preferred instead the more desirable climates of Brazil, Goa, or other parts of Africa. As a result, the number of metropolitan-born settlers living in the Zambezi region was extremely small. This is most clearly reflected in the demographic composition of the inhabitants of Sena and Tete in 1777, a year for which precise statistics are available. Of the 713 Chris- tians in the two principal towns, only 95, or 12 percent, had been born in Portugal.40 Within this small group there was a noticeable absence of women of child-bearing age. In Sena there were seventeen men from

35Santos, "Ethi6pia Oriental," 199, 360; Ajuda, 51-IX-3, fol. 41: "Rezumo breve de algtas notfcias que da Custodio de Almeida e Souza do Estado dos Rios de Senna e Sofalla," undated.

36Ajuda, 51-IX-3, fol. 41: "Rezumo breve de alguas not(cias que da Cust6dio de Almeida e Souza do Estado dos Rios de Senna e Sofalla," undated.

37Axelson, "Portuguese Settlement," 15. 38Francisco de Mello de Castro, Descripcpo dos Rios de Senna, Anno de 1750 (Lisbon,

1861), 110. 39Barretto, "Informaa;o," 463-478; ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Ma;o 604; Antonio

Pinto de Miranda, "Mem6ria sobre a Costa de XLfrica," 30-51, undated; ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Maco 604: Francisco de Mello de Castro, 28 Dec. 1753; Axelson, "Portuguese Settlement," 13; Newitt, "Portuguese," 479.

40AHU, Mo;., Cx. 15: pe Manoel Pinto de Concei;ao, Vigario, 5 July 1777; AHU, Mo;., Cx. 15: Ant6nio Jose Lobo, Senna, 20 July 1777.


Portugal but no women.41 Tete exhibited a somewhat less extreme adult sex ratio with a metropolitan-born population of thirty-six males and ten females of child-bearing age.4 Thus Mozambique's adverse

image reduced the number of potential immigrants and thereby under- mined the possibility of perpetuating a European community.

For those who did immigrate to the Zambezi Valley, the intense heat and prolonged winter rains created serious problems of acclimatiza- tion.43 Moreover, the European community suffered from such fatal diseases as malaria and belharzia as well as a number of less serious afflictions. According to Dr. Francisco Jose de Lacerda, the harsh cli- mate and foul water "produced lesions, bilious fevers, blemishes, dys- sentary, cataracts, and other debilitating illnesses."44 He concluded that in such an environment it was impossible for the Portuguese community to survive, citing as evidence that in 1796 there had been fifteen deaths and only three births in Quelimane.45

Of the small numbers who moved to the Zambezi during the second half of the eighteenth century, the majority were of Indian extraction, and their arrival was intimately related to economic reforms in 1752. Before this period the government controlled the export of all ivory and gold in the Zambezi through a complex factoral system,46 and most Goans preferred to settle in northern Mozambique where this mercan- tile system was not operative. There they dominated the commerce in

tropical products and established a complex trading network which extended throughout the Indian Ocean to the Indian subcontinent.47 When Lisbon abolished the factoral system, the Goans enlarged their

trading empire to include the Zambezi Valley, and within twenty years they had established a preeminent economic position.48

Th, small infusion of settlers and the high mortality rate profoundly

41AHU, Mop., Cx. 15: Antonio Jose Lobo, Senna, 20 July 1777. 42AHU, Mo;., Cx. 15: pe Manoel Pinto da Conceicao, Vigario, 5 July 1777. 43Francisco Jose de Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia da Afriica (Lisbon, 1936), 83. 44bid. Lacerda's observations were corroborated by most eighteenth- and nine-

teenth-century travelers who passed through this region. 45Ibid., 94. 4See Isaacman, Mozambique, 75-76, and Lobato, Evoluao, 250-256, for a general

description of the factoral system. 47Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa, Lisbon [hereafter BNL], Fundo Geral 826: "Noticias

dos Domtnios Portugueses Actuaes na Costa da Africa," fol. 13, unsigned, 21 May 1762. 48BNL, Fundo Geral 826: "Noticias dos Dominios Portugueses Actuaes na Costa da

Africa," fol. 13, unsigned, 21 May 1762; Ajuda, 52-X-2, No. 3: Jose Francisco Alves Bar- bosa, "Analyse estatistica," 30 Dec. 1821; AHU, Codice 1473, fol. 50: Izidro Manoel Car- razido to Commandante de Quillimane, 31 July 1835; AHU, Codice 1368, fol. 230: Fran- cisco Guedes de Carvalho e Menezes da Costa to Jeronimo Pereira, undated; Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 109.

11


affected the demographic structure of the Portuguese community. Al- though detailed statistics for this period are unavailable, parish records from Sena and Tete at the end of the eighteenth century illustrate the joint effects of these variables (see tables 1 and 2). Despite the ques- tionable quality of the statistics and the failure to distinguish actual births from baptisms, the data reveal a dramatic loss of total population each year. Such a conclusion is consistent with that drawn from a comparison of the general censuses of 1722 and 1802, which provides graphic evidence of the inability of the Portuguese to perpetuate themselves. During this period the "white population" decreased from 300 to 282, of which a substantial number were recently arrived Indians.49

TABLE 1

The Christian Population of Tete, 1786-1792 MALES

YEAR AGE: 0-7 7-15 15-60 over 60 Total 1786 8 18 375 6 407 1789 17 22 379 9 427 1790 19 22 375 9 427 1791 30 22 369 8 429 1792 42 24 358 8 432

FEMALES

YEAR AGE: 0-7 7-12 12-40 over 40 Total 1786 7 14 193 42 256 1789 10 18 196a 49 273 1790 12 18 196b 49 275 1791 12 18 196b 49 275 1792 16 28 239c 49 322

a15-40 age group b 14-40 age group c15-50 age group SOURCES: A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 23: Vigario, 1787; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 27: Vigario

de Tette, 31 Dec. 1789; A.H.U., Moq., Cx. 27: Vigario de Tette, 31 Dec. 1790; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 28: Fr. Vicente de Jezus, Vigario, 29 Dec. 1791; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 29: Fr. Felix de S. Antonio Silva, 31 Dec. 1792.

49Cited in Newitt, "Portuguese," 479.

THE PRAZEROS ASTRANSFRONTIERSMEN

TABLE 2

Fertility and Mortality of the Christian Population of Tete, 1786-1792

CHILD- BEARING WOMEN FERTILITY MORTALITY

YEAR BAPTISMS DEATHS (12-40) RATE RATE

1786 19 21 193 98 32 1789 14d 39 196a 71 56 1790 17 34 196b 87 49 1791 24 30 196b 122 43 1792 24 35 239c 100 46

a15-40 age group b 14-40 age group c15-50 age group dnumber of actual births

SOURCES: A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 23: Vigario, 1787; A.H.U., Moq., Cx. 27: Vigario de Tette, 31 Dec. 1789; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 27: Vigario de Tette, 31 Dec. 1790; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 27: Fr. Vicente de Jezus, Vigario, 29 Dec. 1791; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 29: Fr. Felix de S. Antonio Silva, 31 Dec. 1792.

This demographic trend can be explained either in terms of low fertility, high mortality, or a combination of the two. The data from Tete at the end of the eighteenth century (see table 2) will be used to illustrate the ways in which these variables interacted. The Tete community had a rather high average fertility rate of 98 per thousand. Converted into individual rates of reproduction, this meant that women who survived to age forty would average between five and six live births. Neverthe- less, the high rate of reproduction was outweighed by an even higher average raw mortality rate of 42.5 deaths per thousand. Given the age structure of Tete and assuming that it was a stable population,50 the intrinsic mortality rate would jump to 48 deaths per thousand.5 Viewed

50A theoretically stable population means one in which the birth rate and death rate do not vary over several generations and which is characterized by neither in- nor out- migration.

5'From the information in table 2 an average fertility rate was computed for the period by averaging both the number of child-bearing women and the number of births. This figure was then used as a guide to locating a population with a similar birth rate and age structure from the model life tables compiled from historical data on Europe and the United States. See Ansley J. Cole and Paul Demeny, Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations (Princeton, 1966). The Tete population was found to correspond best to the southern variant. Utilizing the intrinsic fertility and mortality rates associated with the southern variant and assuming a normal age distribution, which was far from the case, a mortality rate of 48/1000 was calculated.

13


from a somewhat different perspective, the high raw mortality figures would have been even greater but for the unexpectedly low proportion of people over sixty years of age. In short, a relatively young to middle- aged population was reproducing itself rapidly but dying at an even faster rate.

Demographic data from Sena for the period from 1788 to 1795 suggests similar conclusions. Because of the somewhat more favorable age structure, the gap between the birth and death rates was narrower. Nevertheless, the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by thirty-three percent for the period under examination.5 The ratio would have been even greater were it possible to differentiate between the number of live births and the baptisms of converts, both of which were subsumed under the same heading in the annual parish reports.

Given the inability to improve health conditions, foster immigration of metropolitan women of child-bearing age, or increase the already high fertility rate, prazeros were compelled to incorporate new members from outside the Portuguese community. A number of prominent families resolved the problem by marrying prosperous Goans, despite social resistance to such unions.53 This tactic ultimately proved unsuc- cessful, because males predominated among Indian immigrants. In the 1777 census of Tete, for example, there were thirty-eight Asian males and only one woman.54 The influx of Goans, therefore, only exacerbated the existing sexual imbalance and forced Europeans to cohabit with either African women, most commonly daughters or sisters of the amambo,55 or mulatto offspring of previous interracial unions. Once begun, this process never reversed, and successive generations swelled the ranks of the growing mulatto population.

52During this period there were forty-eight deaths and thirty-two births in Sena. AHU, Mog., Cx. 26: Francisco Joao Pinto, 1788; AHU, Moc., Cx. 27: Francisco Joao Pin- to, 3 Feb. 1790; AHU, Moc., Cx. 27: Francisco Joao Piito, 15 Feb. 1791: AHU, Moc., Cx. 27: Francisco Joao Pinto, 1 Jan. 1792; AHU, Moc., Cx. 29: Francisco Joao Pinto, 1 Jan. 1793; AHU, Moc., Cx. 31: Francisco Joao Pinto, "Relaqao dos Habitantes da Villa de Senna...," 1 Jan. 1794; AHU, Mo;., Cx. 32: Fr. Ant6nio de Santa Arma, Prior, 3 Jan. 1796. The data for the year 1794 is missing from the archives.

53AHU, Mo;., Cx. 3: Fr. Fernando Jesus (MA), 13 April 1752; AHU, Moc., Cx. 19: Comerciantes Portuguezes (Vitorino Joze Gracias, et al.) to Jeronimo Jose Noqueira, 29 April 1783; Ajuda, 52-X-2, No. 3: Jose Francisco Alves Barbosa, "Analyse estatistica," 30 Dec. 1821.

54AHU, Moc., Cx. 15: pe Manoel Pinto da Concei ao, Vigario, 5 July 1777. "The famous nineteenth-century prazeros Gambete, Ferrao, Bonga, and Chicucuru

were all married to daughters of the mambo.


TABLE 3

Christian Births and Deaths in Sena, 1740-1801 RACIAL BIRTHS DEATHS

CATEGORY (1740-1801) (1775-1801)

Mulattos 1340 179 Whites 188 120

SOURCE: A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 40: "Rellacao Circunstanciado de Nascimen- tos, Cazamentos, e.... havidos nesta Frequezia de Santa Catharina de Villa de Senna" (unsigned, undated).

By the middle of the eighteenth century there were enough people of color within the prazero community to warrant recognition as a dis- crete racial entity known as muzungu.56 Members of the most prominent and powerful families of the old prazero elite, including D. Ignes Pessoa de Almeida Castelo Branco and D. Catherina de Faria Leytao, were described as mulattas muita escuras.57 Parish records of all Chris- tian births and deaths in Sena clearly demonstrate the nature and direction of racial change throughout much of the eighteenth century (see table 3). There is no reason to believe that a similar pattern did not hold for Por- tuguese living in or near the towns of Quelimane and Tete. Since most of the prazero community resided in isolated rural areas, the growing racial imbalance was probably even more pronounced among this sec- tor of transfrontier society.

Scattered racial and demographic data from Sena and Tete provide diachronic indicators of the direction of racial change. They, like the previous statistics, must be treated as suggestive, since the inaccuracy of the figures as well as the unclear racial categories used in the 1735 census limit their reliability.

The data presented above are consistent with a census of the entire Zambezi conducted in 1819. Because this report included the coastal town of Quelimane, which historically had a higher ratio of Europeans, a somewhat smaller percentage of mulattos is to be expected. In 1819

56ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Malo 604: Antonio Pinto de Miranda, "Mem6ria sobre a Costa de Africa," 30-31, undated.

57Ibid., 44; AHU, MoC., Cx. 15: Balthazar Manuel Pereyra to the queen, 30 Aug. 1775.

15


TABLE 4

Racial Composition of Sena and Tete RACIAL 1735 1777 1802

CATEGORY percent no. percent no. percent no.

Portuguese 22.8 188 14.6 103 23.3 253 Goans 16.2 147 18.5 130 - - Pardosa 60.0 489 66.9 471 76.6 666 (Mulattos)

aThe unclear categories in the 1735 census were filhos da terra and rol de molhos. Both have been included here under pardos. SOURCES: A.H.U., Moc,., Cx. 3: Jeronyme de Sau, "Rol dos Frequeses de San-

ta Maria deste Frequezia de Senna," 1735; A.H.U., Mo?., Cx. 3: "Lista dos Christaons, e Frequezos de Tette da Administracao dos Rios de Senna," E. Fr. Matteus de S. Thomas, 6 May 1735; A.H.U., Mo?., Cx. 15: pe Manoel Pinto da Conceicao, Vigirio, 6 July 1777; A.H.U., Moc., Cx. 15: Antonio Jose Lobo, "Pardos e os Negros que existem nas tres villas do Districto do Governo desses Rios de Sena, 1802," unsigned, undated.

racially-mixed individuals comprised 61.6 percent of the total Christian population, while Europeans and Goans represented 12.9 percent and 25.5 percent respectively.58 Oral testimonies relating to this period support this general conclusion. According to informants whose ancestors resided on prazos in the Tete and Sena regions, the vast majority of prazeros were mizungu.59 By the middle of the nineteenth century there were almost no Portuguese in the Zambezi Valley, suggesting that racial absorption was virtually complete.60

Inextricably related to shifting racial patterns within the prazero community was the process of cultural transformation. According to acculturation theory, the specific cultural configuration which emerges as a result of contact is a function of whether the borrowed cultural elements are additive or substitutive, whether they are compatible with the host culture, and whether the host culture can absorb change without fundamentally altering its core institutions. Because of the inter-

58Ajuda, 52-X-2, No. 3: Jose Francisco Alves Barbosa, "Analyse estatistica," 30 Dec. 1821.

59Interviews with Jose Antonio de Abreu, Antonio Vas, and Zacarias Ferrao. 600f the 140 free people living in Sena in 1861 -nly eight were listed as Portuguese.

BOM, 44 (1862), 205 (8 Jan. 1862). A similar pattern existed in Quelimane, which had only eighteen Europeans in a free population of 2433. BOM, 17 (1862), 63-64 (31 Dec. 1861). These specific censuses corroborate general observations deploring the lack of Europeans. AHU, Moc., Pasta 10: Antonio Candido Gamitto, "Memoria sobre uma Systema para as Colonias Portuguezas," 2 Jan. 1850.


relationships between cultural components, even selective borrowing can reverberate through the entire system, and the process of change sometimes develops a momentum of its own.61

Evidence from the eighteenth century suggests the growth of a number of hybrid cultural forms. Syncretic religious practices were ap- parently common. A church edict in 1777 specifically denounced the use of African ritual in the baptism, the public demonstration of the bride's virginity, and the copulation of slaves in the bed of their deceased owner, a practice which had become integral to the Christian burial ceremony.62 That these same prazeros, who were seemingly im- mersed in African culture, sought and invented Portuguese titles and honors is yet another indication of the process of hybridization.63

The paucity of detailed documentation for the eighteenth century obscures the degree of acceptance of these hybrid cultural forms.

Furthermore, the limitations of the data make it impossible to ascertain if these specific changes were part of a larger process of acculturation. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the prazero com-

munity had become integrated into the dominant local society. It is unclear if a transfrontier culture actually emerged at this time or whether the availability of oral data and corroborating primary accounts merely highlighted a situation which already existed. To avoid the problems of the ethnographic present and the ahistorical assumptions of the structural-functionalists, the discussion of culture change will be limited to the first half of the nineteenth century.64

One additional temporal qualification needs to be made. Although the analysis focuses on aggregates, substantial differences existed from

6'Bronislaw Malinowski, The Dynamics of Culture Change (New Haven, 1961), 58, 80; Melville J. Herskovits and William R. Bascom, "The Problem of Stability and Change in African Culture," in William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits, eds., Continuity and Change in African Cultures (Chicago, 1962), 6; Social Science Research Council Summer Seminar on Acculturation, 1953, "Acculturation: An Exploratory Formulation," Ameri- can Anthropologist, 56 (Dec., 1954), 973-1002; M. Fortes, "Culture Contact as a Dynamic Process," Africa, 9 (Jan., 1936), 24-55; Wilbert E. Moore, Social Change (Englewood Cliffs, 1963), 13, 86.

62Fr. Joao de Pilar and Manoel Ant6nio Ribeiro, "Edital da Inquisicao de Goa," in Joaquim Helidoro da Cunha Rivara, ed., O Chronista de Tissuary (Nova Goa, 1867), 274.

63Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 100-101. 64For an interesting discussion of the problems of the ethnographic present, see Jan

Vansina, "Anthropologists and the Third Dimension," Africa, 39 (1969), 62-68. Two other valuable articles examining the interrelationship of history and anthropology are Jan Vansina, "The Use of Ethnographic Data as a Source for History," in T.O. Ranger, ed., Emerging Themes in African History (Nairobi, 1968), 97-125; Bernard Cohn, "An Anthropologist among Historians," South Atlantic Quarterly, 61 (1962), 13-29.

17


one family to another. These are best explained in terms of length of culture contact with the local African population. Thus the cultural variations between a family which had resided in the Zambezi for six months and one which had been there for six generations were ob- viously enormous. In practice, these discrepancies were not so pronounced because of the progressively diminishing number of immigrants.

The nature of the primary sources presents a further problem. Al-

though contemporary observers universally acknowledged extensive borrowing by the prazeros, their comments were limited either to vague generalizations about the corruption of the European population or to detailed and highly prejudiced descriptions of the most exotic aspects of prazero society, such as witchcraft and polygamy.

The Europeans who go to reside in East Africa, principally those who establish themselves in the interior, instead of divesting the Kaffirs of their grossest superstitions, adopted these superstitions in an exagger- ated form: with the result that the grandchildren of the Portuguese live absolutely like savages.65

To compensate for these distortions, a heavy emphasis is placed on the oral testimonies of both descendants of the prazero community and elders whose families had historically resided on the prazos. These accounts provide valuable insights into the mundane aspects of the prazeros'lives and their relationships with the indigenous culture. The major shortcoming is that the testimonies tend to be particular, describing in depth the life style of a prazero without any attempt to generalize about the larger transfrontier community.

Used critically, however, these two very different bodies of data provide a consistent picture of the broad cultural configuration of the prazero community during the first half of the nineteenth century. Since a low but positive correlation between behavior and attitude is generally recognized, profound changes in behavior are assumed to re- flect a substantial modification in the value systems for which explicit data is lacking.6 Our basic contention, therefore, is that by this period

65Jose Joaquim Lopes de Lima, Ensaios sobre a Statfstica das Possessoes Portuguezas na Africa Occidental e Oriental (Lisbon, 1844), 53.

66See, for example, Stuart A. Rice, "Objective Indicators of Subjective Variables," in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Morris Rosenberg, eds., The Language of Social Research (New York, 1955), 35-37. The interrelationship between behavior and values is also stressed in Talcott Parsons' model of social systems. Every social system performs the four basic functions of pattern maintenance, integration, goal attainment, and adaptation, and changes in any one sphere will generate the changes in all others necessary to return the system to a state of equilibrium. Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, 1951); Talcott Parsons, Societies (Englewood Cliffs, 1966).


the prazeros, whether of Portuguese or Goan extraction, shared a deep commitment to the indigenous African culture. A similar conclusion was reached by the governor of the Rivers of Sena in 1821: "In cos- tume and belief there were no significant differences between the mulatto [prazeros] and the African population at large."67

The remainder of this paper will describe and explain the Africaniza- tion of the prazero community. For the purpose of illustration, two prominent nineteenth-century transfrontiersmen and their families, the Pereiras and the Cruzes, about whom information is abundant, will be discussed in some detail. The general conclusions drawn from these case studies will then be tested against the less specific data on the larger prazero community. Implicit in the entire discussion is a jux- taposition of prazero society in the first half of the nineteenth century with its late seventeenth-century frontier antecedents. While it is impossible to isolate intermediate forms or to determine the nature of the process of acculturation, such an approach enables us to make specific diachronic comparisons and to suggest some preliminary explanations.

The Pereira family migrated from Goa around the middle of the eighteenth century and rapidly became involved in the profitable ivory and slave trade north of the Zambezi River. As part of their activities they amassed a large number of slaves. Toward the end of the eighteenth century Goncalo Caetano Pereira, known more commonly as Chamatowa or Dombo-Dombo, established a close relationship with Undi, the king of the Chewa. In a gesture of friendship Undi presented either Chamatowa or his son Chicucuru with a maternal relative in marriage. This marriage alliance proved mutually beneficial; when dis- sident forces within his kingdom rose against Undi, the Pereiras provided direct military assistance which enabled him to crush the revolt. In repayment Undi presented the Pereiras with the secessionist fringe area of his empire known as Makanga. The gift not only carried the customary political rights which Undi conferred on all his territorial chiefs, but it explicitly authorized the subjugation of the hostile chieftaincies, which the Pereiras did with the help of their warrior slaves.68

67Ajuda, 52-X-2, No. 3: Jose Francisco Alves Barbosa, "Analyse estatfstica," 30 Dec. 1821.

68Interviews with Chiponda Cavumbula, Conrado Msussa Boroma, Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano Pereira, Simon Biwi; joint interviews with Calavina Couche and Zabuca Ngombe and with Chetambara Chenungo and Wilson John; "Viagem as Terras da Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relat6rio do padre Victor Jos6 Courtois, vigario de Tete, 1885," BOM, 29 (1886), 361; Jose Fernandes, Jdnior, "Hist6ria de Undi" (unpublished manuscript, Makanga, n. d.), 17; AHU, Moc., Cx. 8: Manoel de Caetano, 5 March 1760; BNL, Pombalina 721, fol. 300: Francisco Jose de Lacerda e Almeida to D. Rodrigues Coutinho, 21 March 1798; AHU, Mot., MaCo 38: Nicollo Pascoal da Cruz, ca. 1810.

19


Having gained recognition as sovereigns, Chicucuru and his suc-

cessors legitimated their position by stressing their marriage alliance

with Undi and their personal identification with the Chewa king. Toward this end Chicucuru's heir apparent adopted the title chissaca

maturi, which was one of Undi's most prestigious praise names. To

strengthen their claim, they also negotiated marriage alliances with

principal amambo and village headmen and adopted a number of rituals

and symbols of kingship. Each new ruler of Makanga underwent ex-

tensive rites of investiture after the council of elders and land chiefs

had selected him from among Pereira family members, gave ritual ap-

probation to newly appointed amambo, and helped to propitiate the an-

cestor spirits in times of national crises.69 While the adoption of these aspects of kingship tended to increase

their legitimacy by blurring their differences from the indigenous

population, there is no evidence that this represented a calculated effort

to enhance their prestige and power. It was more likely part of a larger

process of acculturation which dramatically altered their life style, cos-

mology, and mode of social organization. In 1830 one Portuguese official described Chicucuru as "an ignorant individual of dark com-

plexion, who lives like the Africans and their chiefs, not only dressing like them but adopting all their customs, beliefs and superstitions going so far as to have a house full of remedies [charms] to protect himself

against evil."70 Oral traditions collected among the people of Makanga and from a descendant of the Pereiras confirm this general portrayal of

Chicucuru and his heirs. According to these testimonies, they dressed

in capulano, or African loin cloths, ate African foods, generally lived in

African thatched huts, and spoke Chi-Nyanja rather than Portuguese.71

Their adoption of the Chewa cosmology and religious system most

graphically demonstrates the extent of their acculturation. Like the

members of the local population they believed in ancestor worship, ac-

69Jose Fernandes, Jdnior, "Narra9ao do Distrito de Tete" (unpublished manuscript,

Makanga, 1955), 105; AHM, Fundo do Seculo XIX, Tete, Governo do Distrito, Cx. 11:

Augusto Fonseca de Mesquita e Solla to Governador de Tete, 26 June 1888; AHM, Fun-

do do Seculo XIX, Governador do Quelimane, Cx. 7: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de

Andrade to Joao de Souza Machado, 12 April 1858; AHU, Mop., Pasta 30: Anselmo Joa-

quim Nunes de Andrade, 28 Nov. 1875; personal communication on the borrowing of

the praise name with Harry W. Langworthy, 11 Dec. 1968.

70BOM, 3 (1861), 13: Jos6 Manoel Correia Monteiro (Major Ex-Commandante da

Feira do Aruangoa do Morte, Commandante da Praca e interino da Villa de Tete) to

Manoel Joaquim Mendes de Vasconcellos Cirne (Governador da Capitania de

Quelimane e Rios de Sena), 13 June 1830.

7Interviews with Chiponda Cavumbula and Leao Manuel Banquiero Caetano

Pereira; joint interviews with Calavina Couche and Zabuca Ngombe and with Chetam-

bara Chenungo and Wilson John.

THE PRAZEROS AS TRANSFRONTIERSMEN 21

knowledging the midzimu as the vital link between man and the distant deities. They maintained burial shrines, or kucisi, and an elaborate royal grave site which they visited periodically for religious ceremonies and in times of crisis.72 At these ceremonies they propitiated the midzimu and beseeched them to provide rain, insure fertility, help them against their enemies, and give them wisdom to make important decisions.73 Thus before negotiating a treaty with the Portuguese in 1875, Chicucuru's descendant Saka-Saka conferred with the ancestor spirits to determine the wisdom of such an act.74 Over time the burial sites of the Pereira family became the national shrine center of Makanga, watched over by a guardian of the royal grave who also served as a repository of Makanga traditions.75 The indigenous Chewa as well as the Pereiras periodically visited the burial site and invoked the midzimu of the Pereiras.

The Pereira family also adopted the Chewa belief in witchcraft and sorcery.76 A.C.P. Gamitto, writing in the 1830s, noted that Chicucuru refused to forward letters by messenger. "This is hardly to be surprised at, because of his colour, his way of life and his manner are like those of Africans and they, including their mambo and fumos, do not touch letters or allow them in their villages thinking them to be some magic of the whites."77 To protect themselves against witches the Pereiras em- ployed muabvi, or the poison ordeal.78 In at least one case a member of

2Interviews with Chiponda Cavumbula and Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano Pereira; AHU, Moc:, Pasta 30: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de Andrade, 28 Nov. 1875; "Viagem as Terras de Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relat6rio do padre Victor Jos6 Courtois, vigario de Tete, 1885," BOM, 29 (1886), 361; M.D.D. Newitt, "The Por-

tuguese on the Zambesi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System," Journal of African History, 10 (1969), 82.

73Ibid. 74Interview with Chiponda Cavumbula; joint interview with Calavina Couche and

Zabuca Ngombe; AHU, Moc., Pasta 30: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de Andrade, 28 Nov. 1875; "Viagem as Terras da Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relato'rio do padre Victor Jose' Courtois, vigario de Tete, 1885," BOM, 29 (1886), 360-361; Jose Manoel Cor- reia Monteiro to Manoel Joaquim Mendes de Vasconcelos e Cirne, 13 June 1830, BOM, 3 (1861), 13.

75AHU, MoG., Pasta 30: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de Andrade, 28 Nov. 1875; "Viagem as Terras da Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relat6rio do padre Victor Jose Courtois, vigario de Tete, 1885," BOM, 29 (1886), 361; Newitt, "Historical Inter- pretation," 82.

76Interview with Chiponda Cavumbula and Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano Pereira; joint interview with Chetambara Chenungo and Wilson John; "Viagem as Terras da Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relat6rio do padre Victor Jose Courtois, vigario de Tete, 1885," BOM, 29 (1886), 360-361.

7A.C.P. Gamitto, King Kazembe, Ian Cunnison, trans. (Lisbon, 1960), 1, 160. 78Interviews with Chiponda Cavumbula and Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano

Pereira; joint interviews with Chetambara Chenungo and Wilson John, and with Calavina Couche and Zabuca Ngombe.


their family was thought to have been responsible for the murder of the reigning monarch of Makanga, and before he could become eligible to replace the dead ruler he had to undergo muabvi19

The system of social organization also became modified over time, although the evidence on this factor is less conclusive. The Pereiras were incorporated into the local clan, Malunga, practiced polygamy, acknowledged the primacy of the senior wife, and adopted a unilineal system of inheritance rather than retaining the Indian practice of coparcenary.80 Despite these shifts, throughout much of the nineteenth century they remained committed to patrilineality rather than recognizing the preeminence of the matrilineage. The first five Pereiras to rule Makanga, for example, were all related to Chamatowa through the male line. The royal descent system was challenged after 1870 when matrilineal segments of the ruling family, which had been frozen out of positions of status and power, forced the selection of Chicuacha and later Chigaga with the support of a number of important Chewa amambo. The local historian, Chimpazi, explained their success in the following terms: "This was consistent with the indigenous rules of descent, by which nephews or cousins always enjoy the right of inheritance when their claims are supported by groups of powerful men with great influence or force."81 While the appointment of members of the matrilineage was undoubtedly related to the adoption of other Chewa cultural forms by the royal family, the fact that each of these kings was subsequently overthrown by a member of the patrilineal segment suggests that the descent system remained in flux. The Portuguese conquest of Makanga in 1901 ousted the Pereiras before a clear pattern of bilaterality or matrilineality had emerged.

At approximately the same time that Chicucuru ruled in Makanga, the da Cruz family, more commonly known by the African name of the Bongas, established its hegemony over the patrilineal Tonga chieftaincies located near the confluence of the Zambezi and Luenha rivers. Like their counterparts to the north, the Bongas were of mixed Asian and African descent. The first Cruz came to Mozambique in the middle

79AHU, Mot., Pasta 30: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de Andrade (Capitao-Mor do Dis- trito), 28 Nov. 1875.

80Interviews with Chiponda Cavumbula, Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano Pereira, and Simon Biwi; joint interviews with Calavina Couche and Zabuca Ngombe and with Chetambara Chenungo and Wilson John; AHU, Moc., Pasta 30: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de Andrade, 18 Nov. 1875. For a discussion of coparcenary, or collective ownership among the three generations of male descendants (sons, grandsons, and great- grandsons) of the deceased, see A.M. Shah, "Basic Terms and Concepts in the Study of Family in India," Indian Economic and Social History Review, 1 (1964), 10-14.

8"Fernandes, Junior, "Narracao," 110.

THE PRAZEROS AS TRANSFRONTIERSMEN 23

of the eighteenth century, and by the third decade of the nineteenth century Joaquim da Cruz, known as Nhaude, had become a prosperous trader and elephant hunter with a substantial body of warrior slaves. Successive invasions by Barue and Nguni warriors convinced a number of Tonga amambo to seek his assistance; in return they recognized Nhaude and his heirs as their legitimate overlords. Shortly thereafter Lisbon granted Nhaude an aforamento, or titled deed, for his new lands.82

Once in power, the Bongas strived to legitimize and institutionalize their authority. Previously consummated marriage alliances with the royal families of the Muenemutapa and the Barue,83 both of whom claimed suzerainty over the Tonga, enhanced their prestige, as did select marital unions with important Tonga amambo. Like Chicucuru, Nhaude and his heirs adopted a number of rituals and trappings associated with kingship within Tonga society. They underwent traditional rites of investiture, carried royal walking sticks, received African praise names, were universally greeted by handclapping, and gave ritual ap- proval to the newly selected amambo.84

The similarities between the two families extended beyond background and position to include racial absorption and acculturation. Nhaude is described in contemporary accounts as "the kaffir son of a negress," while his son Bonga "belonged to the African race possess- ing only Mongrel blood."85 They and their descendants were illiterate and communicated solely in Chi-Tonga. They mastered the indigenous arts of hunting and boating, dressed in capulana, preferred massa (African porridge made from sorghum) and pombe (locally brewed

82Interviews with Conrado Msussa Boroma, Domingo Kunga, Antonio Gaviao, Chale Lupia, Joao Vicente, Niquicicafe Presente, and Alberto Vicente da Cruz; AHU, Cddice 1477, fol. 144: Domingos Fortunato de Valle to Governador de Quelimane e os Rios de Sena, 9 May 1849; AHU, Codice 1477: Domingos Fortunato de Valle to Governador de Quelimane e os Rios de Sena, 27 June 1849; AHM, Fundo do Seculo XIX, Governo Geral: Cx. 2.37; C.J. da Silva to Joze' Pereira d'Almeida, 27 Nov. 1858; Fernandes, Jutnior, "Narraao," 8.

83Several independent sources noted that Bereco, the father of Nhaude, married a member of the Muenemutapa's family. Interviews with Conrado Msussa Boroma and Alberto Vicente da Cruz; Augusto do Castilho, Relatdrio da Guerra da Zambezia em 1888 (Lisbon, 1891), 30-31; A.P. Miranda, Nottcia Acerca do Bonga da Zambezia (Lisbon, 1869), 6; AHU, Moc., Pasta 10: Anto'nio Candido Pedroso Gamitto to SMT, 30 Dec. 1854. There is also evidence that Bonga's family entered into a marriage alliance with the Barue royal family. Fernandes, Junior, "Narracao," 23; interview with Conrado Msussa Boroma.

84Interviews with Alberto Vicente da Cruz, Domingo Kunga, Antonio Gaviao, Ni- quicicafe Presente, and Chale Lupia; Fernandes, Junior, "Narracao"; Joaquim Carlos Paiva d'Andrada to Conselheiro Governador da provtncia de Mocambique, Relato'rio, 27 Oct. 1887, BOM, 1 (1888), 10.

85Miranda, Notlcia A4cerca do Bonga, 7.


beer) to Portuguese or Goan foods, and lived in African thatched huts.86

The Bongas also restructured their social organization to conform with that of the local Tonga population. They practiced polygamy, recognized the privileged position of the senior wife, and extended high status to her oldest son even if he were not the first-born male offspring of his father.87 This position carried with it greater responsibilities and privileges vis-d-vis his age cohorts. Like the Tonga, Nhaude and his heirs transmitted inheritance from senior brother to junior brother and practiced false leverite, or widow inheritance. Thus when Bonga died, his next senior brother, Chatala, inherited his position as well as responsibility for both the family estate and the deceased's wives.88 Accompanying these structural changes was the adoption of concomitant social rituals, most notably the payment of chuma, or bride price.

The internalization of the Tonga belief system was another manifestation of cultural change. The Bongas regularly consulted the svikiro, or spirit medium, claimed special remedies from their midzimu, and maintained royal burial sites. In times of crisis they invoked not only the spirits of their own ancestors but also the national guardian spirit, or mhondoro, of the Tonga through his svikiro. It was the senior mhondoro who sanctified and legitimized the rule of successive members of the Bonga family and reputedly provided them with strategic assistance and magic in times of war.89

Within Tonga cosmology the mhondoro was considered the vital link between man, the earth, and the moral order. The Tonga believed that breaches in the moral code created a disequilibrium in the natural order which generally took the form of divinely inspired droughts, famines, or pestilences, although other hardships were also explained in such causal terms. These difficulties could only be resolved through the in- tercession of the mhondoro, since the supreme deity, Mwari, was con-

86Interviews with Domingo Kunga, Chale Lupia, Niquicicafe Presente, Chacundunga Mavico; Paul Goyot, Voyage au Zambese (Nancy, 1889), 185.

8Interviews with Domingo Kunga, Chale Lupia, Niquicicafe Presenter and Chacun- dunga Mavico.

88Interviews with Domingo Kunga and Chale Lupia. 89Interviews with Domingo Kunga, Antonio Gaviao, Niquicicafe Presente, and Chale

Lupia; Fernandes, Jdnior, "Narra ao"; Joaquim Carlos Paiva d'Andrada to Conselheiro Governador da provfncia de Mozambique, Relatdrio, 27 Oct. 1887, BOM, 1 (1888), 10; 0 Territorio de Manica e Sofala e a Administra9do da Companhia de Moqambique (Lisbon, 1902), 128; Augusto de Castilho, Relatdrio de Guerra da Zambezia em 1888 (Lisbon, 1891), 38.


sidered inaccessible to mortals.90 The Bongas' reliance on the mhondoro reflects their commitment to the indigenous cosmology.

The adoption of the Tonga belief structure also included recognition of witches and sorcerers as potent evil forces.91 Bonga's fear of witches is evident in his explanation to David Livingstone that he refused to meet with emissaries of the Pereiras because "they carried medicines with them to bewitch me."92 Indeed, the principal cause of the Zam- bezi war of 1850-1851 was Bonga's belief that the descendants of Chicucuru were responsible for his father's death through witchcraft.93 To counteract such evil threats, Bonga and his heirs sought to isolate and destroy all suspected witches through muabvi. Among his victims were at least two of his junior wives, who had reputedly cast a spell on him.94 The Bongas also regularly consulted diviners to receive charms which would both insure their good fortune and protect them against evil spirits.

Like the Pereiras and the Bongas, other transfrontiersmen universally adopted African artifacts, material goods, and techniques. It was common for them to dress in loin cloths, live in thatched huts, learn the arts of hunting, fishing, mining, and planting, and eat African foods without European utensils.95 The adoption of the indigenous material culture and skills facilitated their adaptation to a new and difficult environment. Borrowing itself was not proof of significant culture change, since artifacts, except for those with symbolic value, tended to be culturally neutral. It created no conflict, therefore, for the nineteenth- century prazeros to adopt aspects of the local material culture while maintaining others from their Portuguese past. The premium many placed on specific wines and European luxury items supports this point.96

90The mhondoro, or national guardian spirit, is a characteristic religious institution

among all Shona peoples. For a brief discussion of the mhondoro, see Allen Isaacman, "Madzi-manga, Mhondoro, and the Use of Oral Traditions," Journal of African History, XIV, 3 (1973).

9lInterviews with Conrado Msussa Boroma, Chale Lupia, Domingo Kunga, and Cha-

cundunga Mavico; AHM, Fundo do Seculo XIX, Tete, Governo do Distrito, Cx. 11: An- to'nio Joaquim Goncalves Maceiras to Governador de Tete, 6 Oct. 1888; Castilho, Rela- torio de Guerra, 35; R.P.R. Wallis, ed., The Zambesi Expedition of David Livingstone 1858-1863 (London, 1956), I, 42.

92Wallis, Zambesi Expedition, I, 42. 93Interview with Conrado Msussa Boroma. 94Castilho, Relato'rio de Guerra, 35. 95Interviews with Joao Pomba, Zacarias Ferrao, Jose Antonio d'Abreu, Antonio Vas;

joint interviews with Tomas Chave and Oliveira Sinto. 96Import lists from the beginning of the nineteenth century indicate a strong demand

for wine and other metropolitan luxuries. See Antonio Norberto de Barbosa de Villas Boas Truao, Estattsticas da Capitania dos Rios de Sena no Anno de 1806 (Lisbon, 1889).

25


The wide acceptance of indigenous witchcraft beliefs and practices is a much more significant indicator of cultural transformation. Writing in

1797, Lacerda described an incident in which a principal inhabitant of Sena killed four of her slaves because she believed them to be witches.7 Forty years later Gamitto, commenting on a prominent member of Tete society who claimed that a headache had been caused

by a witch's spell, disparagingly concluded:

I might offer my reflection on beliefs of this kind. It will be enough to say that the very people whose duty it is to glow with the light of European civilization are the ones who adopt African usages and customs .... This censure is not directed only against Portuguese, for strangers who establish themselves in these parts also acquired the same habits and followed the same road.98

From the indigenous population the prazeros borrowed a complex set of practices to determine the identity of witches and to insure their removal. The control of witches centered around the poison ordeal, which according to Lacerda "is frequently practiced among the whites whom I have observed."99 The accused was expected to drink publicly a highly lethal potion made from the bark of a tree soaked in water. Al-

though poisonous, the substance was difficult for the body to retain. If the individual emitted the potion, it was considered supernatural support of his innocence and the accuser would be subject to careful

scrutiny. Those who died were assumed to have been witches, and the

society was relieved that it had removed an evil force. Muabvi therefore

provided the only mechanism to determine possession by evil spirits which otherwise defied external recognition.

The wide acceptance of witchcraft and muabvi is a definite indication of a shift in the cosmology of the prazeros. Although Charles Wagley has argued that similarities between medieval Christianity, with its

emphasis on spirits, demons, ghosts, and witches, and indigenous Amazonian religions allowed seventeenth-century frontier Catholics to incorporate much of the latter, such an analogy does not hold for the Zambezi Valley.100 Unlike the settler community in the Amazon, most of the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century prazeros were of Goan

extraction, and there is no evidence that witchcraft figured significantly in the cosmology of either the Hindu or Christian communities of Goa.?10 The data suggest rather that their adherence to witchcraft and

97Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 115. 98Gamitto, King Kazembe, I, 35. 99Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 235. '0?Charles Wagley, Amazon Town: A Study of Man in the Tropics (New York, 1964), 225. 'O'Andrade, "DescrisCo do Estado," 119; personal communication, Rocky Miranda,

department of South Asian languages, University of Minnesota, 10 Feb. 1973.


muabvi was inextricably related to explanations about causality, evil, and the ordering of the universe which clearly fell outside the bounds of Christianity and Hinduism.

The prazeros viewed witchcraft as one element in a complex belief system which interpreted the relationship between natural phenomena and the moral order. The world was thought to be divinely ordered by a distant creator God who in conjunction with ancestor spirits provided a supernatural umbrella for those mortals who acted properly. Given these assumptions, it is not surprising that many estate holders established ancestral shrines, participated in first fruit ceremonies, and invoked the midzimu in times of crisis.102 The causal relationship between morality and divine intervention is a substantial departure from both the Judeo-Christian belief that God often lets his servants suffer (as in the Book of Job) and the Hindu metaphysical system premised on dharma and kharma.103

The indigenous belief structure provided an explanation for the ran- dom occurrence of serious illnesses, barrenness, and other misfortunes. These problems were particularly difficult to understand if, as often happened, the injured party was a respected member of the community and the situation appeared to be a case of unmerited suffer- ing.104 This apparent contradiction was resolved by recognizing the ex- istence of evil forces whose power had to be destroyed-thus the reliance on muabvi and the use of charms to counteract the threat of sorcerers.

In addition to sorcerers, another category of diviners performed magical feats which were not antisocial for members of the prazero community. Before going on a dangerous trip or participating in an im-

102Interviews with Chiponda Cavumbula, Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano Pereira, Conrado Msussa Boroma, Chale Lupia, Domingo Kunga, Chacundunga Mavico, An- disseni Tessoura, and Dauce Angolete Gogodo; joint interviews with Tomas Chave and Oliveira Sinto; AHU, Moc., Pasta 30: Anselmo Joaquim Nunes de Andrade, 28 Nov. 1875; "Viagem as Terras da Macanga, Apontamentos colhidos d'um relatorio do padre Victor Jose Courtois, vigario de Tete, 1885," BOM, 29 (1886), 361; Newitt, "Historical Interpretation," 82; AHM, Fundo do Seculo XIX, Tete, Governo do Distrito, Cx. 11: An- tonio Joaquim Goncalves Maceiras to Governador de Tete, 6 Oct. 1888; Castilho, Rela- to'rio de Guerra, 35; Wallis, Zambesi Expedition, I, 42; Joaquim d'Almeida da Cunha, Estudo Ace'rca dos Usos e os Costumes dos Banianes, Bathias, Pares, Mouros, Gentios e In- drgenas (Lourenco Marques, 1885), 93-98; Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 114-115.

103Dharma is defined as "action conforming to universal order" in Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus (Chicago, 1970), 251. Kharma is defined as "the effect of any action upon the agent whether in this life or in a future one" in William Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition (New York, 1958), 39.

'04Lucy Mair, Witchcraft (New York, 1969), 11-12; Max Marwick, ed., Witchcraft and Sorcery(London, 1970). The classic study of witchcraft in Africa was done by E.E. Evans- Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (London, 1937).

27


portant business venture, prazeros often sought the predictions of a di- viner.105 Livingstone portrayed the proliferation of specialized practitioners of magic in the Portuguese towns which he visited during the middle of the nineteenth century.06 Similar practices occurred just south of the Zambezi region in the town of Sofala and its hinterland.

The inhabitants of Sofala with the exception of the principal men in authority, and a few others, live in complete ignorance, being almost rooted in the ideas and dominant superstitions of the Kaffirs, in magic, enchantments, etc., to the point of not sowing or harvesting their crops without consulting a curandeiro who replies affirmatively or negatively according to the divination of six cowry shells he carries with him.107

The broad system of beliefs to which the prazeros adhered was common to many African societies which lacked techniques for treating everyday crises, most notably sickness.108 To compensate for their in- adequate knowledge, the prazeros not only internalized indigenous cos- mological assumptions but relied heavily on local herbalists, whom they recognized as highly skilled medical practitioners.

[Dona Pascoa] ... on hearing of Mr. Brown's death, expressed surprise and grief, regretting at the same time that Mr. Kilpatrick had preferred the European practices to that of the natives, which she considered to be the only successful one.109

According to Governor Barbosa, Dona Pascoa's views enjoyed wide support within the prazero community, where any serious affliction was immediately brought to the attention of an herbalist.110

To scandalized officials and travelers, the belief in witches and the reliance on herbalists were unequivocal manifestations of cultural regression. The level of illiteracy among prazeros reinforced this con-

'5Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 114-115. 106David Livingstone and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zam-

besi and its Tributaries (London, 1865), 51. '0Cited in Newitt, "Portuguese," 492.

'08"But there must be somewhere a theory of causation which can account for the serious cases; and this is the theory that sickness, along with other misfortunes such as barrenness of women or cattle, destruction of crops by a sudden storm, a bad harvest when your neighbor has a good one, or even some unexplained accident such as falling off a ladder, is sent by personalised beings, either spirits who have authority to punish you or humans who envy or hate you. Death too, although it is irremediable, must be assigned a cause." Mair, Witchcraft. 9-10.

109W.F.W. Owen, Narrative of Voyages to Explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia, and Madagascar (London, 1883), 81.

"OAjuda, 52-X-2, No. 3: Jose Francisco Alves Barbosa, "Analyse estatfstica," 30 Dec. 1821. This is confirmed by AHU, Moc., Cx. 29: Jose Joao d'Araujo Aranha e Oliveira, undated.


viction. One official report concluded that rarely could a "European dona" speak a word of Portuguese;11 numerous documents signed with an X demonstrate that illiteracy extended beyond the female population.12 Allowing for both the low rate of literacy within Portugal and the probability that many Goans were not fluent in Portuguese, it would be still more precise to view an inability to read and write as a manifestation of a shifting communication system. From this perspective, the prazeros and their families were part of the indigenous culture which relied on oral communication. All were fluent in Chi-Sena, Chi-

Nyanja, or Chi-Nyungwe, and many could converse in several of the related Zambezian dialects.'13

By the middle of the nineteenth century the nature of the prazeros' social system and the basic rules of social organization had undergone a

profound change. Although the data are sketchy, they indicate a re- jection of monogamy, for example, in favor of local African forms with their attendant rituals. Since marital patterns, family organization, and inheritance practices were core institutions underpinning both Por-

tuguese and Hindu society, shifts in these areas indicate both the extent of acculturation and the likelihood that other related practices for which there is an absence of data were similarly modified.

Perhaps the most dramatic transformation occurred among the prazeros of Hindu extraction, who gradually came to ignore the caste system which historically had determined their form of social organization. When Indians, primarily from Goa, first arrived in the Zambezi Valley, they religiously adhered to the caste system. Writing in the 1760s, one prazero explained that there were six castes, of which the most important were the Brahmans and Chardo, and that all social relations were defined by caste position.114 Forty years later the governor of the Rivers of Sena observed that while intercaste marriages were still

prohibited, many Indians now married "Portuguese," often a euphe- mism for mulatto.115 By the middle of the nineteenth century prazeros of

"'Capitao de Tete, 29 Dec. 1862; BOM, 48 (1863), 235. 12These can be located both in the AHU and the AHM. Since the Mozambican

archive tends to be the repository of more local documents, they are found there in

greater abundance. The nineteenth-century correspondence is in sharp contrast to that of the earlier period. The AHU is the principal repository of highly literate letters written by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century prazeros.

13Interviews with Domingo Kunga, Chale Lupia, Joao Pomba, and Chapavira Muiessa; joint interviews with Tom's Chave and Oliveira Sinto, Aleixo Jasere and Jose Gunda, and Chetambara Chenungo and Wilson John.

'4ANTT, Ministerio do Reino, Maco 604: Antdnio Pinto de Miranda, "Mem6ria sobre a Costa de Africa," 31-32, undated.

'5Joaquim Mendes Vasconcelos e Cirne, Memoria Sobre a Provfncia de Mo9ambique (Lisbon, 1890), 17-18.

29


Indian extraction totally disregarded caste considerations and married whomever they considered desirable.'16 As in the case of prazeros of

Portuguese descent, demographic pressures obviated custom. Whatever their ancestry, the nineteenth-century prazeros practiced

and defended multiple marriages.

Polygamy is so common that it has become acceptable. It is true that it rarely occurs in the town, but on the prazos, there were not any patricios (as are called the children of the river who are a mixture of African, European and Canarian) who do not have three or more wives.17

Governor Lacerda's comments were echoed by a number of contem-

porary observers and by descendants of prominent prazeros.18 Polygyny enabled the prazero to negotiate a wide network of marriage alliances with amambo and local village headmen whose assistance was vital in protecting his role as political overlord. In addition, it provided a basis of legitimacy for his heirs, who could claim direct, if somewhat distant, links with the local royal family. Multiple marriages also made it possible for the prazero to increase the size of his lineage, an important status criterion within the indigenous community.19

Polygyny required the imposition of a new ranking system within the family with parallel role differentiation. Like their Sena and Tonga counterparts, prazeros recognized the primacy of the senior wife. She enjoyed a position of authority and prestige vis-a-vis the junior wives which affected all aspects of their lives. The senior wife lived in the largest hut, was exempt from certain undesirable activities, and, most importantly, had the greatest claim to the prazero.'20 Such a hierarchical relationship often generated tensions between competing wives. One tradition relates how the prazero Gambete and his senior wife con- sumed special medicines to protect themselves against envious junior wives who they feared would have them killed by a sorcerer.121

The privileged position of the senior wife extended to her first-born son. No matter what his actual genealogical position among the male

'l6Interviews with Zacarias Ferrao, Antonio Vas, Dauce Angolete Gogodo, Joao Pom- ba, and Esmail Mussa Valy.

"7Lacerda e Almeida, Travessia, 113. "8Interviews with Zacarias Ferrao, Antonio Vas, Dauce Angolete Gogodo, Joao Pom-

ba, and Esmail Mussa Valy. "'For an analysis of the status criteria among the Sena and related Zambezian peo-

ples, see Barbara Isaacman and Allen Isaacman, "Slavery and Social Stratification among the Sena of Mozambique," in Igor Kopytoff and Suzanne Miers, eds., Slavery in Africa (University of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming).

120Interviews with Domingo Kunga, Chale Lupia, Dauce Angolete Gogodo; joint interview with Tomas Chave and Oliveira Sinto.

'2'Joint interview with Tomas Chave and Oliveira Sinto.


offspring, he was considered the legitimate heir and ultimate guardian of the family estate."22 This practice represented a substantial departure from the patterns of inheritance within both Portuguese and Indian society. In the former, the estate of the deceased was divided among the immediate heirs without regard to genealogical position or sex.123 Unlike the Portuguese practice of partilhas, cooperative holding by all male descendants was the prevalent pattern within Indian society.124

The shift in inheritance patterns was probably related to a larger alteration in the mode of descent. While a lack of detailed genealogical data precludes any meaningful generalizations, the cases of the Bongas and Pereiras suggest that by the nineteenth century other prazeros may have accommodated to the dominant system of descent.125

The absence of a localized prazero community with its related Euro- pean institutions, the shifting racial patterns, and the emergence of an alternate process of socialization all contributed to the peculiar pattern of acculturation which emerged in the Zambezi Valley. Although treated separately for the purpose of analysis, these factors were inter- related and had an aggregate impact on the nature and direction of change within transfrontier society.

To successfully maintain their position as political overlords, prazeros were compelled to reside permanently on their estates rather than in the small towns of Sena, Tete, and Quelimane.126 These estates were scattered along the margins of the Zambezi River within a region of about 50,000 square miles. The enormous distance between one prazo and another precluded sustained social interaction between the few hundred prazero families. This isolation forced the children, and often their parents, to seek companionship from a segment of the African population which resided on the prazos. Over time the local inhabitants became an important reference group and a vital transmitter of cultural traits.

'2Interviews with Domingo Kunga, Chale Lupia, Dauce Angolete Gogodo; joint interview with Toma's Chave and Oliveira Sinto.

23See Armando de Castro, "Propriedade," in Joel Serrao, ed., Diciondrio de Historia de Portugal (Lisbon, 1963-1971), III, 494-497. For an excellent ethnography of rural Por- tugal, see Jose" Cutileiro, A Portuguese Rural Society (London, 1971).

"2Shah, "Basic Terms," 10-14; Irwati Karve, Kinship Organization in India (Bombay, 1965), 340-378; personal communication, J. Noronha of Goa, 25 Feb. 1973.

'25Although the descendants of the principal prazero families on the southern bank of the Zambezi have now adopted the indigenous mode of social organization, it is impossible to determine when this change occurred without genealogical data, which unfor- tunately is unavailable.

'26Absentee ownership was very rare. Attempts by some prazeros to appoint agents to oversee their estates generally resulted in political turmoil. See Isaacman,iMozambique, 117-119.

31


Located beyond the frontiers of Portuguese society, few prazero families had any access to European socializing institutions. One high church official lamented the absence of churches and schools which left the prazeros in a state of total ignorance.

They have never heard the mass, and know nothing of the doctrine, because there has been no one to teach them, since the prazeros often live seventy or eighty leagues apart and there are only a small number of priests scattered throughout the region.127

The situation was not appreciably better for those prazero families who

happened to live in the immediate environs of Tete, Sena, or

Quelimane. The few schools and churches located in the towns were

acutely understaffed. Moreover, the clergy, who were responsible for the religious and secular education of the community, were totally absorbed in commerce and lacked the interest to fulfill their obliga- tions.128 The lengths to which they would go to protect their privileged position is revealed by the account of one traveler writing in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

[When] the inhabitants of Tete prevailed on a poor friar to undertake the task of instructing their children to read and write, the rest of the holy fraternity rose in alarm, and instantly obtained the removal of the of- fender to Sena, where he was obliged to be idle, and the priest who was there at the time of this expedition frankly owned... that he and the other religieux only existed by the ignorance of their flock.129

By 1850 few members of the urban Portuguese community cared about such abuses or even pretended to be Christians. In that year there was

only one small church in Sena and it was more than adequate for the few who attended.130

Demographic factors reinforced the cultural isolation of the transfrontiersmen. A high mortality rate precluded the development of a self-sustaining European community capable of providing spouses for the prazeros, and failure to attract female immigrants of child-bear-

ing age exacerbated the problem. Such a group would presumably have been committed to the perpetuation of Portuguese culture. The lack of

127AHU, Moc., Cx. 6: Fr. Joao de Nossa Senhora, Administrador Episcopal, 8 Aug. 1758.

'"Cirne, Memdria, 28. 290Owen, Voyages, 66. '30AHU, Mog., Pasta 10: Antonio Candido Pedroso Gamitto, "Memoria sobre uma

systema para as Colonias Portuguezas," 2 Jan. 1850. This general pattern is confirmed by Livingstone. David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Research in South Africa (London, 1857), 644.


overseas culture bearers and the decline of the European population compelled prazeros to marry mulattos and Africans who did not share their concern for Portuguese custom or tradition.

Less selective marital patterns effectively precluded the maintenance of an ideology of racial exclusiveness and social conformity. Unlike the situation in eighteenth-century Jamaica, for example, where pressures to remain white and European were a mechanism of social control in the settler community,131 attempts to articulate and enforce a policy of racial and cultural superiority proved ineffective in the Zambezi Valley. Thus government legislation banning interracial unions was ignored when it conflicted with social realities, as were the locally-generated stereotypes of the primitive African and the slothful mestizo. These at- titudinal modifications reflected the racial and cultural metamorphosis which the prazeros themselves had undergone.

Social and cultural isolation, the changing racial composition, and at- titudinal shifts all reinforced the process of socialization which was the predominant factor in the Africanization of the transfrontiersmen. By the nineteenth century most prazero children were raised by relatives of African descent; whose values were totally alien to the cultural matrices of the Portuguese and Indians.132 This didactic process was reinforced by the house slaves, or mabandazi, who were responsible for the day-to-day supervision of the children, and by their African age mates with whom they interacted.133 The result was that a wide range of indigenous beliefs and explanations became internalized and transmitted from one generation to the next. Even when limited interaction between neighboring prazero families occurred, each had become so im- mersed in the indigenous culture that neither served as a reminder of their common European or Goan past. This ongoing process of acculturation was simplistically explained by one late-nineteenth-century observer: "[Portuguese] children born in this land are frequently mestizos, who violate the traditions of their heritage ... [and] living in permanent contact with the Africans, they lose all notion of dignity, adopting the secret heathenistic rites of the mysterious indigenous population."134

'31Philip D. Curtin, Two Jamaicas (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 42-60; Edward Brath-

waite, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica 1770-1820 (London, 1971), 297-305. 132Joao de Azevedo Coutinho, Manuel Antonio de Sousa: Um Capitao-mor da Zambezia

(Lisbon, 1936), 6-7. '33Ibid.; ANNTT, Ministerio do Reino, Maco 604: Antonio Pinto de Miranda,

"Mem6ria sobre a Costa de 'Africa," 56-57, undated. For a general account of the slaves on the prazos, see Antonio Candido Pedroso Gamitto, "Escravatura na'Africa Oriental," Archivo Pittoresco, 2 (1859), 369-372, 397-400.

34Coutinho, Manuel Antonio de Sousa, 6-7.

33


Cultural transformation had profound implications for government-prazero interaction. Although a detailed analysis of the shifting relationships falls outside the bounds of this paper, we suggest that Africanization of the transfrontiersmen directly affected their degree of commitment to the metropole and motivated their resistance to Por- tuguese penetration from 1850 until the early twentieth century. By operating at a high level of generalization, it is possible to isolate trends in their relations with Lisbon at different points in time.

In the seventeenth century most prazeros thought of themselves as imperial agents of the crown. Sisnando Bayao, Ant6nio Lobo da Silva, and Manoel Paes de Pinha, for example, were all willing to undertake major ventures at substantial personal costs to demonstrate their loyalty to Lisbon. They accepted the feudal assumption that the king of Portugal was the legitimate and ultimate owner of all that his servants had conquered. In return they asked only that their limited holdings be recognized and that they receive symbolic rewards for their services to the crown.

The highly formalized relationship between king and subject con- trasts sharply with the more typical frontier-metropolis conflicts of the eighteenth century. During this period the prazero community no longer acknowledged a subordinate position and refused to subsume its interests to those of the state. Considerations of patriotism and fealty were replaced by a recognition that substantial areas of conflict existed and that Lisbon lacked the capacity to enforce its restrictive legislation.135 The prazeros manifested their autonomy in a number of ways, ranging from their refusal to pay taxes and provide military assistance to explicit denials of the government's claim to be the ultimate owner of their lands.136

Until the middle of the nineteenth century an uneasy modus vivendi existed between the prazeros and the state. The inherent tension in their relationship was obvious from the assessment by one official that among any "group of twenty prazeros each one has nineteen enemies, however all are the enemy of the Governor.'"37 Hostilities remained at a minimum because local civilian and military officials refused to challenge the autonomy of the prazeros; in those few cases when they did the results were predictable. "On being called up for his arrears" one nineteenth-century prazero "threatened not only the Governor of the place but also the authorities at Mocambique with his slaves, in

135See Isaacman, Mozambique, 95-101. 1361bid. '3'ANTT, Ministe'rio do Reino, Mapo 604: Inacio Caetano Xavier to Governador

Geral, 26 Dec. 1758.


number about a thousand.'"38 The request was subsequently dropped. The impending partition of Africa dramatically altered this situation.

As early as the middle of the nineteenth century Lisbon recognized the need to conquer and pacify the Zambezi region in order to thwart growing British interest. To achieve this end, Portugal stationed large numbers of troops with modern weapons in the Zambezi Valley in the hope that a show of force in conjunction with offers of titles, financial

rewards, and other European status symbols would convince the

prazeros to renounce their autonomy and even assist in the conquest of the area. Although their response was not unanimous, most prazeros re-

jected these appeals and actively fought against the Portuguese. Ac-

cording to an eyewitness account, the senior member of the Pereira

family called together a number of transfrontiersmen and important Zambezi chiefs to urge the creation of a multiethnic confederation

capable of driving the Portuguese out of the region.

The Africans of all tribes must unite in good faith, in a coordinated attempt to acquire large supplies of arms and ammunition and when we have achieved this, we must expel all the Portuguese and make an alliance with the British who are sympathetic to the aspirations of the Africans.139

A similar concern was illustrated by Muenemutapa Candie's proposal that Bonga and his descendants be recognized as the legitimate rulers of a Sena-Tonga-Tawara union which would include his domains as well as those of prazeros living within the territory.140

In the final analysis, these alliances and subsequent resistance move- ments shared a common raison d'etre with other anticolonial operations throughout Africa: to drive out the Europeans and protect their traditions, their lands, and their way of life. Such actions run directly counter to contentions by the Salazar and Caetano regimes that their overseas settlers performed an important civilizing function, and im-

plicitly challenge the assumptions underpinning the concept of Lusotropicalism which Gilberto Freyre has articulated.

Throughout this paper we have utilized transfrontiersmen to describe the nineteenth-century prazeros. We have also suggested that this term has value as an analytical tool for situations outside the Zambezi

138F. Torres Texugo, Letter on the Slave Trade Still Being Carried on Along the Eastern Coast of Africa (London, 1839), 65.

39Fernandes, Junior, "Narragao," 50; '40Joaquim Carlos Paiva de Andrada, "Campanhas da Zambezia," Boletim .da

Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 7 (1887), 727-728.

35


Valley. In order to properly employ the concept, distinctions between transfrontiersmen and Jrontiersmen must be made explicit.

The paramount difference between the two is that transfrontiersmen resided permanently beyond the limits of the European settler community while frontiersmen remained on the European side of the frontier. Although the latter often crossed the zone of demarcation for limited periods of time, they were never totally isolated from the European socializing institutions which mitigated against large-scale adoption of indigenous cultural forms.

Transfrontiersmen rarely were accompanied by European women and married into the local indigenous population. Frontiersmen often had wives or concubines beyond the frontier with whom they periodically cohabitated, but their primordial loyalty was to the kinship network which they had established within the European community. The location of spouse and family meant that the frontiersmen always returned to European society while the transfrontiersmen were progressively absorbed into the indigenous racial and cultural group. A further consequence of these marital and residential patterns was the degree to which European mothers participated in the socialization of subsequent generations. The lack of European women in the transfrontier community reinforced its cultural isolation and facilitated incorporation into the indigenous society.

Intimately related to these two distinctions were the nature and extent of acculturation. While frontiersmen tended to develop hybrid cultures, transTrontiersmen progressively lost their European identity, adopting the life style of the local population. Thus, unlike the prazeros, the bandeirantes of Brazil borrowed the language, much of the material culture, and some religious ideas from the Indian population, but also retained a commitment to Catholicism and other European cultural elements.41' In this way they were probably not too different from the early Portuguese settlers in the Zambezi Valley.

A concern for the broad question of interculturation makes it important to determine the impact which the prazeros had on the indigenous Zambezian population. Their principal contribution seems to have been the introduction of cloth, beads, and guns. Although these artifacts may have improved the material culture of the Africans they did not radically alter their life style, and their social organization and value system remained unaffected by the presence of the prazeros. Tete Prov-

'41C.R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil 1695-1750 (Berkeley, 1962), 30-84; Sergio Buarque de Holanda, Caminhos e Fronteiras (Rio de Janeiro, 1957), 13-180. For a general description of the life of the bandeirantes, see Alcantara Machado, Vida e Morte de Ban- deirante (Sao Paulo, 1965).


ince, for example, with a total estimated population of 50,000 in 1821, contained 259 Africans and mulattos listed as Christian. Of these only eighteen definitely lived on the prazos.'42 As a group, then, the prazeros were the converted rather than the converters. The direction of culture change was probably similar for all transfrontiersmen.

Finally, frontiersmen and transfrontiersmen defined their identities and loyalties in terms of distinctly different communities. Such self- perceptions are consistent with Owen Lattimore's definition of the frontier as a social rather than a geographic delineation in which people internalize a consciousness of belonging to an exclusive group sharing a specific territory.143 The overriding concern of the frontier community was to maintain its autonomy from the metropolis while guarding against threats from the indigenous society. As the case of the prazeros demonstrates, transfrontiersmen shifted their loyalties to the people of the great beyond. Throughout the nineteenth century prazeros and their African allies attacked the Portuguese administrative centers of Tete and Sena, disrupted trade, and at the end of the century joined together with a number of African polities to resist Portuguese penetration.

The general pattern of frontier history has been one of progressive advancement of the frontier. The westward expansion in the United States is a classic example. Within the Zambezi Valley, however, the exact opposite, the contraction of the European frontier, seems to have occurred. While the entire lower Zambezi, including the prazos, initially constituted a frontier zone, the shifting attitudes and loyalties of the prazeros left the frontier towns of Sena and Tete as isolated pockets of

European society by the nineteenth century. Even within these inland centers the evidence suggests substantial acculturation, although the scale of defection was substantially smaller than among the prazeros.

This paper has examined the frontier-transfrontier relationship from the perspective of the fifteenth-century maritime expansion. However, Lattimore's work convincingly places this form of contact within a much broader spatial and temporal perspective. He argues that the overseas migrations represented only one chapter in the larger history of the frontier.144 As his research on China exemplifies, interaction along geographic and cultural zones figured prominently in the history of Asia, the Americas, and Africa prior to their initial contact with

142AHU, Mo9., Cx. 64: "Mappa dos Casamentos, Baptizados e Morturios e Numero dos Christaons da Frequeza da Villa de Tete Principanda a 1? de Junho 1821 e findo a? Fim de Maio 1821 [sic," 22 May 1882, unsigned.

'43Owen Lattimore, "Frontier," 469-491. 14Ibid., 488.

37


Europe. Nomadic-sedentary conflicts, the growth of stranger communities within host populations, and the Chikunda diaspora suggest the

utility of frontiersmen and transfrontiersmen as analytical tools for the

study of aspects of precolonial African history.

APPENDIX

A List of Informants

Tape recordings of the oral interviews collected by the authors and used in this article are deposited in the African Studies Association oral data archives, which are housed in the Archive of Traditional Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. The following is a list of the informants interviewed, arranged by region.

REGION OF TETE

Boroma

Conrado Msussa Boroma, interview on 28 July, 17 Aug., 20 Aug., 29

Sept. 1968. T.T. #5(1), T.T. #5(2), T.T. #6(1), T.T. #6(2), T.T.

#6a(1), T.T. #6a(2); E.T. #3(2), E.T. #4(1), E.T. #4(2).

Village of Tete

Jose Antonio de Abreu, interview on 16 July, 22 July 1968. T.T. #3(1), T.T. #3(2).

REGION OF MASSANGANO

Joao Vicente, interview on 26 Sept. 1968. T.T. #13(1); E.T. #9(2). Domingo Kunga, interview on 27 Sept. 1968. T.T. #13(1); E.T. #9(2). Ant6nio Gaviao, interview on 27 Sept. 1968. T.T. #13(1), T.T. #13(2);

E.T. #10(1). Chacundunga Mavico, interview on 27 Sept. 1968. T.T. #13(2); E.T.

#10(2). Chale Lupia, interview on 28 Sept. 1968. T.T. #13(2); E.T. #10(1). Niquicicafe Presente, interview on 28 Sept. 1968. T.T. #13(2); E.T.

#10(1), E.T. #10(2). Alberto Vicente da Cruz, interview on 13 Oct. 1968. T.T. #16(2).

REGION OF SENA

Sena

Jasse Camalizene, interview on 6 Aug. 1968. T.T. #8(1); E.T. #5(1). Esmail Mussa Valy, interview on 10 Aug. 1968. Untaped.


Chemba

Ren9o Cado, interview on 13 Aug. 1968. T.T. #9(1), T.T. #9(2); E.T. #6(1).

Tomas Chave and Oliveira Sinto, joint interview on 14 Aug. 1968. T.T. #9(2); E.T. #6(2).

Ant6nio Vas, interview on 13 Sept. 1968. T.T. #12(2); E.T. #9(1), E.T. #9(2).

Caya

Joao Pomba, interview on 31 Aug. 1968. T.T. #10(1); E.T. #7(2). Aleixo Jasere and Jose Gunda, joint interview on 1 Sept. 1968. T.T.

#10(1); E.T. #8(1). Zacarias Ferrao, interview on 2 Sept. 1968. T.T. #11(1), T.T. #11(2). Dauce Angolete Gogodo, interview on 3 Sept. 1968. T.T. #10(2); E.T.

#8(2). Gente Ren;o and Quembo Pangacha, interview on 4 Sept. 1968. T.T.

#10(2), T.T. #11(1); E.T. #8(1).

Cheringoma

Andisseni Tesoura, interview on 8 Sept. 1968. T.T. #12(2); E.T. #9(1).

REGION OF MAKANGA

Simon Biwi, interview on 10 Oct. 1968. T.T. #14(2); E.T. #10(2). Chapavira Muiessa, interview on 12 Oct. 1968. T.T. #15(1); E.T.

#10(2). Calavina Couche and Zabuca Ngombe, joint interview on 14 Oct. 1968.

T.T. #15(1), T.T. #15(2); E.T. #11(2). Chetambara Chenungo and Wilson John, joint interview on 15 Oct.

1968. T.T. #15(2); E.T. #11(2). Chiponda Cavumbula, interview on 16 Oct. 1968. T.T. #15(2), T.T.

#16(1); E.T. #11(2), E.T. #12(1). Leao Manuel Banqueiro Caetano Pereira, interview on 17 Oct. 1968.

T.T. #16(1); E.T. #12(1).

39

Documents

Isaacman, Allen. the Prazeros as Transfrontiersmen