Converting the Spirit Spouse: The Violent Transformation of the Pentecostal Female Body in Maputo, Mozambique

Abstract

This article discusses the forceful transformation of the female body in Brazilian Pentecostalism in urban Mozambique and argues for an understanding of Pentecostal conversion as embodying spiritual warfare. Presenting the case of avenging spirits, such as the spirit spouse, it explores how spirits interfere in women's new socio-economic positions and intimate relationships. Pentecostal women learn to stay in control of their body under guidance of the Holy Spirit and a ‘violent’ war against the spirit spouse unfolds. The prevalence of ‘violence’ implies that we should critically question a perception of conversion as bringing healing and harmony.

Keywords:

• Brazilian Pentecostalism
• conversion
• gender
• violence
• Mozambique

Acknowledgements

I thank Rijk van Dijk, André Droogers, Henri Gooren, Paulo Granjo, Birgit Meyer, Miranda Klaver, Kim Knibbe, Astrid Schmuhl, Regien Smit, Jason Sumich and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. In particular, I am grateful to my Mozambican interlocutors who shared their lives with me. In this text, their names are fictive. I thank Prometra-Moçambique, Narciso Mahumane, Job Massingue, Joice from Boane, Isaura from Patrice Lumumba and Cremildo, and curandeiros from Maluana and Chibuto-Macalawane for the knowledge they shared with me.

Notes

Research in Mozambique took place from August 2005 to August 2007 as part of doctoral research sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

In some cases virgin boys are also given to the avenging spirit (Bagnol 2006: 185–202).

In this region, this spirit spouse that ‘eats’ human flesh refers to the spirit of persons who have been appropriated or killed for the benefit of another person, which points to witchcraft (cf. Fry 2000: 79, 80; Schuetze 2010; West 2005: 35–9 for Mozambique; Bähre 2002; Comaroff & Comaroff 1999; Niehaus 2002 for South Africa).

For similar percentages in other regions of Mozambique, see Igreja and Dias-Lambranca (2009), Pfeiffer et al. (2007) and Schuetze (2010). Normally the women had at least completed primary-school education and thus spoke Portuguese (the official language). Some of them were studying at university and at institutes of higher education. In principle they all earned their own salary, even though the amounts could differ from US $ 50 minimum wage to US 500 a month (rates correspond with the fieldwork period, 2005–2007).

The figures are based on my own observations and interviews with pastors and converts. According to the preliminary results of the latest census, about 20% of the inhabitants of Maputo are Evangelical/Pentecostal (INE 2009: 39).

For more on the use of Afro-Brazilian concepts and the South-South Pentecostal exchange, see Van de Kamp and Van Dijk (2010) and  Van de Kamp (2011).

2 March 2007. In churches and conversations, the spirit spouse was called marido espiritual (spiritual husband), espirito da noite (spirit of the night) or marido da noite (husband of the night). In the local Ronga and Changana languages, the curandeiros speak of two types of spirit spouses: xikwembu xamathlari (spirit of a person killed in a violent way) or xikwembu muhliwa (spirit of a person killed or stolen through witchcraft) (cf. Bagnol 2006: 181). Throughout this text, I use the term ‘spirit spouse’.

Similar observations were made by curandeiros and pastors who said that a spirit spouse existed in almost every extended family.

Interviews with curandeiros on 15 November 2006, 5 December 2006 and 8, 27 and 28 February 2007.