This paper aims to analyze the oral narrative of African healer Rasta Samuel Pita, registered in the book Por quem vibram of tambores do além1, by Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane. In the beginning, the healer’s vision on the main characteristics of African religious tradition is presented. Then, I seek to connect such elements in his oral narrative, transposed by Chiziane to written text, to an effort to denounce ills derived by colonialism that still remain in modern Mozambican society, such as religious racism, religious intolerance, the destruction of nature and the loss of cultural identity. Finally, I interpret the healer’s oral narrative as an expression of religious and literary resistance towards the process of degradation of his religious tradition, by reimagining the sacred book of African orality, based on prophetic hope for transformation in the world.
Robert Daibert Junior (Wed,) studied this question.