ABSTRACT
In a meeting held in 1957, the inspector of Indigenous Affairs, António Policarpo dos Santos, visiting the Muchopes Constituency (Manjacaze district in Gaza province, southern Mozambique), addressed the local population by declaring his satisfaction for having visited the chief of Coolela chieftaincy and witnessing his ‘high degree of civilization’ (Santos, 1957, p. 84). He called on all the present chiefs to imitate this chief’s way of living and encouraged them to ‘build more secure and comfortable houses, furnishing them with chairs and tables, encouraging the indigenous to use them, along with spoons and forks, and instilling hygienic habits in the population’. He went on, paternally advising on the ‘needs for creating social settlements and living in close vicinity, developing civilized habits of hygiene as well of clothing, to plant orchards near the villages … in a nutshell, to lose, little by little, the old habits’ (Santos, 1957, pp. 84, 86). This discourse is relevant because it represents a historical moment in Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique and refers to a particular chieftaincy, Coolela, which would be the main stage for the colonial civilizing mission in Manjacaze district from the 1950s onwards. Furthermore, these words embody decades of colonial dominance and ideology that would gain shape through urban and spatial planning in the region.
