ABSTRACT
The term 'creole' has three main usages in contemporary Portuguese-speaking contexts. In Portugal it refers to the Cape Verdean language spoken, whereas in Cape Verde itself it has come to mean also Cape Verdean identity and culture. It is quite interesting that the creole man is anxious to have the anthropologist turn him into the very native that creolization problematizes, in the sense that it estranges him from an origin that can be defined as situated and definable. Claridade is the critical place of an abrasive juxtaposition therefore unresolved of emancipation and colonization. Probably the responsibility for that unresolved juxtaposition is the concept of creoleness. The concept of culture conveyed by Claridade granted central importance to ethnography, owing to the interest in language and national culture of the people. The iconic cultural product of mestiagem and creolization is Creole language, seen as Cape Verde's most specific cultural product, especially because it is the mother tongue of the 'people'.
