Ritual cleansing and post-war reintegration in Mozambique

Abstract

The effective social reintegration of veterans and others involved in the Mozambican civil war took place against a background of the widespread performance of cleansing rituals described in this article. The effectiveness of those rituals, which have been reinvented in recent decades, is due in large measure to the way they are a coherent part of local systems for interpreting misfortune, the problem they seek to deal with, and known and respected procedures. They were more important than individual reintegration, and helped to reconcile former enemies, who were able to each other as «people just like others», and to establish democratic competition by peaceful means in place of military conflict.