Suku onganga: a missionary version of Ovimbundu ethics

• Grant number: 06/02222-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: September 01, 2006
• End date: April 30, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Omar Ribeiro Thomaz
• Grantee: Iracema Hilário Dulley
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The production of knowledge on indigenous people has played an essential role in the colonial project. Conceptions of the ethics and morals of the colonized people had considerable importance within the context of colonialism, as they have guided the actions and the discourse of various colonial actors. With this in mind, and taking into account the vast contribution missionaries have given to the construction of this knowledge, this study intends to, based on written records of the orality of the Ovimbundu gathered by Father José Francisco Valente, grasp this Catholic missionary’s view of the ethics of these people located in the Central Highlands of Angola in the third quarter of the 20th century. It is also important to understand how his perception establishes a dialogue with the more encompassing universe of Catholic representations. This standpoint will be perceived by means of his translations, glosses, and comments of native proverbs, tales, fables, stories, conundrums, songs, and myths from Umbundu – the language spoken by the Ovimbundu – into Portuguese. The research will focus on the various levels of the translation process, which occurs both at the more immediate semantic level, when the search for correspondences between the two languages takes place, and in a wider sense, for the interpretation of the native thought by a missionary always involves the translation of concepts: The key for interpreting the other is the Catholic cosmology.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

DULLEY, Iracema Hilário. From ancestral cult to cristianism and vice versa: glimpses of the practice of communication in the spiritanin missions of the Central Highlands of Angola. 2008. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas Campinas, SP.