Dançar o djine :composições e movimentos entre mulheres e espíritos na Ilha de Moçambique

Abstract

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the relationship between Makhuwa and Nahara women from the northern region of Mozambique (Nampula and Ilha de Moçambique) and madjine spirits. Starting with the places inhabited by these beings (the sea, the ruins, the mountains), the study describes the ecological relationships and ways of coexistence between people and spirits, as well as the landscapes in which their encounters take place. The presence of the madjine in this region and how they come into contact with people - in a relationship understood as a marriage - makes us reflect on the combinations between Makhuwa matrilineality and Islam as cosmologies and everyday practices. In this context, being married by a djine is a phenomenon understood as a disease that affects women and their love relationships, generating a state of stagnation. Dancing the djine is one of the ways of treating this imbalance in the rituals known as batuque de madjine (ekoma ya djine). These rituals, in turn, are connected to other batuques that make up Ilha de Moçambique's daily rhythm, especially the female initiation rites. Being danced (ser dançada, being collectively initiated into adulthood) is a necessary movement to become a woman who can be married and knows how to treat others with care and respect. In relationships of otherness between people, but also in the more radical alterities that mark the bonds between people and spirits, balancing/stabilizing relationships involves avoiding stagnation, constantly recreating movements that animate (anima).