A group of females, based in Maputo’s historic brick and corrugated iron houses suburb of Mafalala, are being asked by local and expatriate women to share the traditional ‘erotic codes’ of the Makhuwa ethnic group.
Colourful scarfs are tied to the back of their heads. ‘Capulanas’ – the Mozambican kind of sarong or kanga, all of the same vibrant fabrics, patterned with matching designs – are wrapped around their waists. These are good quality, thick and shining ‘capulanas’, a two-metre wide fabric enveloping the body and tied in a loose knot at stomach level, an everyday look adapted for a special occasion.
The women are experienced elders and mothers in the community, residents of Maputo for many years, and very proud of their sexuality. As a result, they have started being asked by other women, Mozambican and expatriates in Maputo, to share with them the traditional ‘erotic codes’ of the Makhuwa, an ethnic group established in the northern provinces of the country.
We visit them in Mafalala, a suburb packed with wood, tin and exposed brick houses, which was settled in the 1930’s and 40’s, between Maputo international airport and the “cement city”. For decades it has been accommodating migration flows from the rural provinces, men and women flooding to the ‘big’ city seeking jobs. In this neighborhood were born and raised renowned Mozambicans, like writers Jose Craveirinha and Noémia de Sousa, composer Fany Mpfumo, and football legend Eusébio, nicknamed the ‘Black Panther’, regarded as one of the greatest players in football history.
“You go to ‘Cadria’ mosque in Mafalala, and someone will come to pick you up from there,” came the written instruction via WhatsApp to Ancha, a Makhuwa woman from Mozambique Island, in Nampula province, who moved to Maputo in 1987.
We arrive at 4pm as instructed, to see two old men seated on the mosque’s doorsteps, topped by a sign saying “Massgid Cadria Sadat”. As raindrops fall, a teenage girl wearing a Mozambican style Muslim outfit – a single-colored fabric draped like a skirt and a bright red scarf covering her hair and shoulders – makes a signal for us to follow her on foot down a narrow pathway between wooden, brick and corrugated iron fences.
The rainwater flows along the ditches and down the walls of many of the houses waiting to be painted. It is through this labyrinth that we end up in a constricted courtyard, where boys and girls play cards, as children observe them. We reach the house of Neyma, born in 1960, also from Mozambique Island, the elder sister of the group of four women, living in Maputo since 1978.
In contrast to the humbleness of the façade, the gloomy indoors has the grandeur of the imperial-style furniture of noble wood. Neyma watches this stranger entering her house.
“Why does the journalist want to talk to us?” she asks at one point in the conversation. Ours interest arose because these women have chosen to take advantage of the sex education that was taught to them when they were young as part of the Makhuwa girls’ initiation rites, and are now sharing it with other women, showing an unconventional, open-minded, self-confident and free of prejudice approach to sexuality. The other younger sisters, Ancha, born in 1971, and Zélia, in 1969, will arrive a bit later. Zena, born in 1964, their mother’s cousin, is already here, sitting silently on a chair by the window.
From tradition to modern culture
Days before, at a hen’s party that brought together about 30 women in the uptown Bairro da Polana, held in a house of modernist architecture on a street shaded by red acacia trees, this group of women from Mafalala, had been the surprising highlight of the event. Using traditionally acquired knowledge, the women presented a shortened version of what they call “sexual pleasure codes” adopted by Makhuwa men and women, for whom sexuality is encouraged as recreational and pleasurable within marriage and modern relationships.
Standing surrounded by the sisters, who are seated on a snow-white sofa, the self-determined Ancha gives advice and recommendations projecting her voice to be clearly heard, while Neyma, at the back, provides the hints. The women sing, clap and play percussion instruments. Following the instructions of Ancha, Zélia and Zena simulate movements and caresses among a pile of cushions; one pretends to be the “future husband”, while the other is the bride. The amused actual bride-to-be and her friends laugh and exchange hilarious comments. After all, no one was expecting a group of ‘mamanas’, the name given to the elder, experienced mothers, to step out and perform in such a bold and daring way.
“In bed, a man gains claws and becomes a lion, he forgets you, and you have to remind him that you are there,” says Neyma. “The intention is to stimulate pleasure and to seek pleasure at that moment,” adds Ancha.
The sessions are reserved for adults, girls above 18 years old, assures the elder sister. “We do not admit underaged, we only allow adults to attend our sessions,” says Neyma, while sitting at her home in Mafalala, wearing a patterned scarf around her head. “We show the reality, which is why we are bold. We do not omit certain things, because these things that we put into practice are what the woman will face in real life, so there is no need to omit these things,” she adds.
Ancha adds that the “sex is something we have to prepare for. It’s like a lesson, when we’re going to have an exam. We want to get a good result, it’s the same thing,” she explains.
The traditional teachings are generally shared with other women, whom as young girls “did not have the opportunity to learn,” they say. “For example, here in the south, they started learning because we have been here teaching them, even the elder ones who did not have the opportunity to learn when they were younger, we teach them,” says Neyma.
It was about 10 years ago that this group from Mafalala decided to “help their fellow country women from the south,” when a Mozambican university student sought them out to learn the sexual rites of which her Nampula boyfriend had spoken about. Then, the expatriates living in Maputo also started coming more often, contracting them to liven up the parties given in honor of the bride-to-be.
For these kinds of entertaining sessions, they have adopted a more condensed and spectacular version, that lasts for around two hours, which they direct like a theatre play and according to the reactions of the public.
For those looking for the complete teaching package, very strict hygiene rules also apply. Practices include knowing how to use and shake a bead necklace that is placed around the waist and learning how to “pull the little ears”, a practice of stretching the labia that, traditionally, girls learn from their “aunties and grandmothers”.
Neyma assures that these arrangements lead to erotic games, increasing the chances to stimulate short and long-term relationships. In Nampula, where these Makhuwa women originate from, the practice “is a tradition that has always existed,” they say. “There [in Nampula] nothing fails, when a girl is getting married she needs to learn, because this is our ancestors’ tradition, passed on by our grandmothers and our aunts,” they add.
Also, “boys learn from other men, who teach them how to respect their wife, their mother, their father, their family, their elders,” says Ancha.
Circumcision is a common practice among boys, who were formerly required to live and survive all alone in the bush for a period. Today, circumcision is done mostly in hospitals, explains Neyma, and teaching is done at home.
While these women have adapted the traditions to modern times and culture, taking advantage of their acquired talents, several organizations have been warning of the consequences for adolescent girls who undergo the initiation rites, a controversial practice considered by women’s rights groups as anachronistic and against the rights of children. At the same time, a broader public debate has been initiated, with many arguing that initiation rites could be adapted to educate girls on their own rights, and on practical matters such as how to avoid early marriages and pregnancy, and the importance of going to school for their development.
Sex education
For the two main ethnic groups of the Mozambique northern area, the Makhuwa and the Makonde, the initiation rites are seen as fundamental to human growth and development, as well as socialization. The groups are both matrilineal by tradition.
“Thus, in contrast to the rest of Mozambique, land is passed from mother to daughter, with young men marrying into the family. This gave women considerable authority over issues related to land and food – although much decision making power was still held by men of the maternal line, especially maternal uncles,” writes Jane Carter, International Program Advisor of Swiss development organization Helvetas, on its website.
“Integral to the matrilineal system was the practice of initiation rites for girls entering puberty, in which they were taught by an older woman, how to please a man. Whilst no genital cutting is involved, part of the rites involve the pulling and stretching of the labia.”
Following Mozambique’s independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, initiation rites were widely criticised and publicly banned on the grounds that they promoted female subservience to men and hindered the advancement of women.
“Some social scientists argue, however, that this was and is, a simplistic understanding of the rites, and that in fact they equip girls with a sexual education, and provide women with a joyful opportunity to assert their feminine identities,” adds Jane Carter.
The most prominent advocate of this view is Danish sociologist Signe Arnfred, who has worked for many years in Mozambique, and written widely, focusing on the country’s northern matrilineal Makhuwa ethnic group. In her book Sexuality and Gender Politics in Mozambique: rethinking gender in Africa, published in 2011, “Arnfred critiques second-wave Western feminists’ assumption of the universal subordination of women, by illustrating how traditional matrilineal institutions such as female initiation rites, as well as women’s role in food preparation and sexual relationships grant women autonomy and authority”, according to a book review by Sandra Manuel, of Eduardo Mondlane University, in Maputo.
Signe Arnfred “develops the argument regarding the erroneous perception of anthropologists and feminists who assumed that such organizational systems were rooted in patriarchy, thus denying women power. Arnfred contends that it is worrisome that politicians, NGOs and donors strategies to ameliorate Mozambican women’s position and quality of life have been – and continue to be – grounded in these deeply problematic assumptions,” adds Sandra Manuel.
Signe Arnfred’s interpretation is contested by others however, especially lawyers and women’s rights groups. They argue that initiation rites harm bodily integrity, promote promiscuity and early marriage, and are actually a violation of the rights of girls, such as the right to education, the right to health, and the right to personal liberty and dignity.
Avoiding early marriages and pregnancies
Statistics show that initiation rites do indeed lead to early marriages and pregnancies and to school drop-outs, with consequences for the future development of the girls, trapped in a cycle of hunger and poverty. Data from Mozambique’s Ministry of Education and Human Development indicate that in 2014, the dropout rate reached about 14 percent of enrolled students – and that initiation rites had a heavy impact on the scenario. A 2014 UNICEF report says that “the widely reported forced participation of young girls and boys in sexual initiation rites (…) have some correlation with child marriage (…)”.
Early pregnancy is amongst the highest in the world in Mozambique. Although child marriage has shown a declining trend in recent years, according to UNICEF, Mozambique still has the ninth highest child marriage prevalence rate in the world, and the 15th highest absolute number of child brides – 649,000. UNICEF data from March 2018 indicates that 14.3 percent of Mozambican girls between the ages of 20 and 24 were married before 15 years of age. The proportion of girls in the same age group married before 18 is 48.2 percent. Boys are also affected, but to a much lesser extent.
Marriage before the age of 18 is considered a fundamental violation of human rights. The problem of juvenile pregnancy is still closely associated with child marriage, as the overwhelming majority of adolescent mothers were married in their teens, and child marriage is associated with a significantly lower likelihood of finishing primary school and starting secondary school. Also children of adolescent mothers are significantly more malnourished than children of mothers in other age groups at the national level.
In 2016, at the National Girls Conference, the participating girls recommended: “We want the definition of a minimum age for the initiation rites; We want initiation rites to be done in phases, with each step at an appropriate age; We want laws that penalize people who impregnate underage girls.”
“So who is right? Possibly it is a mix of both, depending on individual circumstances,” says Jane Carter.
Makhuwa Eroticism in “Niketche”
a novel by Paulina Chiziane
“The First Wife – A Tale of Poligamy”, by Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane ( the title in Portuguese is “Niketche: Uma História de Poligamia”) is a humorous novel about polygamy, where one of the main characters is a Makhuwa woman. The novel discusses about sexuality and sex education by telling the story of Tony, a senior police officer, and his wife Rami, married for 20 years. Rami learns that her husband is polygamous, he has four other consorts and several children, and decides to go after her husband's wives. Tony's wives are scattered across the country, from South up to North: in Maputo, Inhambane, Zambezia, Nampula, Cabo Delgado. The novel portrays the Rami's pursuit as an incursion into the unknown and an attempt to deal with difference, symbolized by her husband's lovers. The original Portuguese novel title “Niketche” is the name of a dance performed in the northern provinces of Zambézia and Nampula, in Mozambique, where the ethnic Makhuwa group is predominantly found. Ritual of love and eroticism, the dance Niketche is performed by girls during initiation ceremonies.