"And hearts wave"

approaches to the Nyaneka universe through the poetry and cinema of Ruy Duarte de Carvalho

Abstract

Originally published in 1982, Ondula, savana branca, by Ruy Duarte de Carvalho, clearly demonstrates the intersections between the author’s formation and practice as an anthropologist and his poetic experimentation. It consists of poems constructed from sources within the oral tradition of various African peoples, including the Nyaneka, inhabitants of Southwestern Angola. In the section entitled “Derivations” of the book, one finds the poem dedicated to the Nyaneka people, conceived from proverbs that Carvalho accessed at a religious mission in the Huíla Province in 1978. Also a filmmaker, signing Rui Duarte, the author filmed the people in question around the same time he accessed the proverbs, creating the episodes of the series Presente angolano, tempo mumuíla (1977-1979). By engaging with the poem and three episodes of the series, we seek to approach the Nyaneka universe, as Carvalho himself did, through the different means at his disposal. In our case, we begin with a careful reading of the poem, proceeding to select some meanings clusters, which serve as guides for our attempt to understand potentially relevant aspects of the Nyaneka cultural universe.