VOICES FROM AN EMPIRE Volume 8 MINNESOTA MONOGRAPHS IN THE HUMANITIES Gerhard Weiss, founding editor Leonard Unger, editor University of Minnesota Press., Minneapolis VOICES FROM AN EMPIRE A History of Afro -Portuguese Literature RUSSELL G. HAMILTON Copyright © 1975 by the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America at Napco Graphic Arts, Inc., New Berlin, Wisconsin. Published in Canada by Burns & MacEachern Limited, Don Mills, Ontario Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-24416 ISBN 0-8166-0145-1 To my parents, Lucinda and Russell, Sr., and to Carlos Vieira Dias and Jose Craveirinha, companions on my excursions through the musseques of Luanda and Louren^o Marques' Xipamanine This page intentionally left blank Preface Since the completion of the body of this study there have been some startling changes in Portugal and Portuguese Africa. The first significant occurrence came on 25 April 1974 with the unex- pected overthrow of the right-wing dictatorship that had ruled Portugal for nearly fifty years. General Antonio de Spinola, a seasoned campaigner of the African wars, assumed leadership as interim president of a regime that included political moderates, socialists, and communists. In February of 1974 General Spinola had published Portugal e o futuro (Portugal and the Future), a book conceded to have inspired young army officers to revolt. The focal point of Spinola's book was Portugal's future as it concerned her African provinces and the thirteen-year-old guer- rilla wars being waged there. Paradoxically, Spinola, a member of the rightist military establishment, helped fan the flames of long-standing discontent over untenable economic conditions at home and he rallied an overwhelming majority of the Portuguese people around the conviction that they must extricate themselves from the costly and futile African wars. In September of 1974 President Spinola resigned under pressure from leftist army officers, but he had already begun to honor his vn viii Voices from an Empire promise to grant freedom to the African territories. And indeed Portugal recognized the new nation of Guinea-Bissau, formerly Portuguese Guinea, and a provisional, black liberation government took over rule in Mozambique preparatory to full independence in June 1975. My title, Voices from an Empire, was conceived as a poetic and ironic label for a sui generis Lusophone literature produced in the shadow of what many had come to consider an absurd nationalistic mythology. Given the historic transformations that have already come to pass and \vith those that are likely to occur, I hope that my title's intended irony will become even more meaningful as a symbolic expression of the social environment in which Afro-Portuguese writers have lifted their voices. I give English translations of all titles, lines of poetry, and prose passages, both primary and secondary, used in this study. In the case of poetry I also supply the original, and unless otherwise indicated all translations are mine. For permission to use poems or lines of poetry in this study acknowledgment is made to the following. M. Antonio: "A sombra branca," "Avo negra," "O tocador de dicanza," "Poesia de amor," "Simples poema de amor," and "Viagem a terra natal" from 100 poemas, "Para depois" from Rosto de Europa, "O leao morreu, o campo ficou livre!" and "Transplantado cora^ao" from Coracao transplantado, to the author; Jose Craveirinha: "Escape" and "Lustre a cidade" from Caliban, 1, to Rui Knopfli; Tomas Vieira da Cruz: "Bailundos," "Cana doce," "Colono," and "Febre lenta" from Quissange, to Tomas Jorge; Carlos Estermann: "Morte de um guerreiro" from Etnografia do sudoeste de Angola, v. 1, to the Junta de Investigacoes do Ultramar, Lisbon; Tomas Jorge: "Manguinha" and "Welvitchia Mirabilis" from Areal, to the author; Rui Knopfli: "A descoberta da rosa," "Ars poetica," and "Hackensack" from Mangas verdes com sal, "Mulato" and "Winds of Change" from Reino submarine, to the author; Rui Preface ix Nogar: "Do himeneu vocabulo" from Caliban, 1, to Rui Knopfli; Jorge de Sena: "Nogoes de lingui'stica" from Caliban, 3/4, to Rui Knopfli; Noemia de Sousa: "Sangue negro," "Se me quiseres conhecer" from Presence Africaine: Noiivelle sornrne de poesie du wonde noir, No. 57, to Presence Africaine, Paris; Malangatana Gowenha Valente: "O mineiro sobrevivente" from Presence Africaine: Noiivelle somme de poesie du monde noir, No. 57, to Presence Africaine, Paris; Geraldo Bessa Victor: "Bemvinda, bemvinda," "Mistica do Imperio," and "O homem negro e o carvao" from Ao som das marimbas, "Cangao de um negro com alma de branco" and "O feitigo do batuque" from Cubata abandonada, "Amor" and "O menino negro nao entrou na roda" from Mucanda, to the author. Every effort was made to trace all copyright holders and authors whose poetry is quoted in this book. In carrying out research for a study of this nature one con- fronts the problem of the scarcity of primary and secondary materials. With these difficulties in mind I acknowledge here the assistance and generosity of a number of people. The names cited represent only those whose exclusion would be tantamount to gross ingratitude on my part. Many people aided me, either directly or indirectly, but it is with great appreciation that I men- tion the following. Gerald Moser, himself a pioneering scholar in Afro-Portuguese literature, was kind enough to direct me, in Lisbon, to the Portuguese writer and critic Manuel Ferreira, whose private library became my domain for many months and whose friendship I value. Among the many who helped me during my stay in Portugal and in parts of Portuguese Africa I must thank the Cape Verdeans Arnaldo Franca, Jaime de Figueiredo, Felix Monteiro, Baltasar Lopes da Silva, Oswaldo Osorio, and Antonio Aurelio Goncalves, the Angolans Aires d'Almeida Santos, Domingos Van-Dunem, Arnaldo Santos, and Linda Graga. Also in Luanda, Carlos Vieira Dias and Jose Maria combined to make my stay there pleasant and culturally rewarding. During my months in Portugal the Angolan poets Mario Antonio and Tomas