The author is a famous research scholar from Brazil, with interests and works in ethnography of language, writings, anthropology and intercultural communication and translations. She is a PhD holder in cultural anthropology from the University of California.
Storyline :
Cape Verde Islands, an archipelago of 10 islands, located about 350 kms west of Senegal of Western Africa in the Atlantic Ocean was unknown and uninhabited by humans until 1450 AD. It was finally discovered by the Portuguese explorers during their quest for new lands. It was used as a strategic harbour for European ships carrying slaves from Western Africa to Europe and the Americas. The slaves transported via Cape Verde are acclimatized with basic labour skills, Portuguese language and fundamentals of Catholicism and hence considered more valuable in Western markets. The slaves also considered conversion to Catholicism as they were promised eternal life and it was considered to be the religion of the powerful.
The Portuguese colonial officials made it a norm to practice polygamy with the Slaves creating a separate sect of race called the Lancados. The Portuguese landlords, governors, judges, high rank military officials, and priests had multiple sexual relationships with black slave women giving birth to a separate set of population with mixed features. Surprisingly, it is considered normal amongst the Cape Verdean society. By the end of the seventeenth century, the islands were exclusively in the hands of “the sons of the land”, or criolus comprising of the illegitimate sons of the honoured whites of the previous century. One of the main reasons for Cape Verdeans to look more like European than African in physical features.
The Cape Verdean economy slid in the seventeenth century with the abolition of slave trade in 1836 as the commercialization of slaves by the land owners declined drastically. The Cape Verdeans were quick enough to identify themselves as ‘Crioulo’, a people of mixed descent, with whom they associate a sense of uniqueness, speaking Creole language but different from Portuguese and Africans. They started considering marrying someone of lighter skin than theirs as a sense of accomplishment and pride. The ‘lancado’ or the illegitimate sons of the colonials soon mingled with the African natives giving rise to the Cape Verdean version of the colonial system and started replacing Portuguese language with Kriolu (to breed, to raise, to grow) language. Though the new language is widely spoken amongst the locals, the colonial Portuguese still consider it as impure, lacking social values and literary norms, not suited to be used as an official language of the land in its texts and literature. The ban of Kriolu in schools during the 1960s led to an armed revolution under the leadership of Amilcar Cabral, which finally led to Cape Verdean independence from the Portuguese Crown in 1975. His political program encouraged Cape Verdeans to preserve their own cultural identity, their customs and languages and usage of Kriolu as the main promulgator of his ideology.
Kriolu as a language got its national identity as a means of official communication and autonomous structure after independence. Though Kriolu emerged as a national language the dialect is still divided amongst the various islands of the nation into the Satavento variant and the Barlavento variant. Due to this difference, Kriolu continues to be the informal, non-written and unstandardized language while Portuguese continues to be the official language of the country even today. Portuguese occupies spaces of formal education, diplomatic affairs and legal proceedings whereas Kriolu is restricted to people’s homes, bars, town square gossips or company of family and friends. Santiago, the seat of the Government is required to have people with the knowledge of Portuguese whereas in other islands, Kriolu is acceptable. Kriolu as a language is more used for telling jokes and stories, expressing strong emotions like love and romance, or discover one’s intimacy of soul and Cape Verdean laughter. It is also used as a comic relief in many political speeches. Finally, it can be concluded that though Kriolu emerged from Portuguese, it has taken the shape of opposition to the same Portuguese language and colonialism. This can be exemplified by the fact that Cape Verdeans have two names. One Portuguese Christian name, imposed upon them by the Church and the other house name in Kriolu.
The strange fact about Cape Verde is the freedom to have any number of children with any number of women. Since the availability of men is scarce due to heavy migration to other countries, women in fact would like to bear as many children as possible with available men in the islands. The more children a man fathers, the richer he is considered. Moreover, the responsibility of bringing up the children lies more with the mothers than the fathers. Another strange fact of the country is that the locals attend the feast of organised by the family if someone dies in the family (called casa visita) only to eat, enjoy and steal valuable items from that house, but not out of grief or sympathy.
Cape Verde, popularly referred as the nation of Emigrants can be found all across Europe, North and South America, and considered to be quite talented and skilled in various arts and music. The country is now bustling with tourism with investments from Brazil, Italy, Russia and China. Cape Verdeans consider themselves as blood brothers to Brazilians compared to any other nation as they mingle very much with their language, soccer and music. Probably that should be the major reason for them to qualify for the Football World Cup this year, albeit being from a small nation of just half a million.
Pros: The author has made an extensive research on the islands of Cape Verde exclusively focussing on the language adopted by the locals after their independence from Portugal. The reader gets to learn vast knowledge about the world wide diaspora of these amazingly talented emigrants from a very small archipelago of ten islands somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, bearing European features and African culture. Every aspect of the life of a Cape Verdean right from his birth to his death were covered beautifully with minutest detailing.
Cons: The reader might have a low opinion about the country due to its uncontrolled polygamic culture of marriage and children. There should have been a mention about some of the famous Cape Verdeans across the world.
My favourite quote in this book.
“Fidju e rikeza di pobri” (A poor person’s wealth is children), the Cape Verdeans invariably say, in Kriolu, when explaining their reasons for having so many children.
My rating: 3 out 5
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