Valores e significados da prática de escarificações e tatuagens entre um grupo de mulheres do Distrito de Magude, Província de Maputo

Abstract

This work seeks to study the practice of scarification and tattoos among a group of women from the District of Magude, Maputo Province. The study aimed to understand the values ​​and meanings associated with scarifications and tattoos. To conduct this research, ethnography was used, focusing on a sample of female individuals, residents in the Magude District. Scarification is an act through which the subject intentionally cuts the skin, using a cutting instrument, in order to leave a scar on the body, without necessarily having an image or other element inscribed. In the dominant literature on scarifications and tattoos there are two contradictory lines of thought. The first, looks at these practices as being phenomena that belong to the past, things of past generations and are conceived as phenomena of “rural” areas. The second, as opposed to the first, looks at these practices as being a current phenomenon that is associated with beauty and urban spaces. Scholars in the field of social psychology and social sciences associate these practices, most of the time, with issues related to human sexuality and beauty, having in one extreme, certain studies developed in clinical psychology, associating these practices with suicide. Throughout the work it was noticed that little is explored the symbolic side of these practices, as well as the values ​​and meanings that its practitioners associate with it. Based on articulation of the ethnographic data collected between a group of women from the District of Magude, Maputo Province and the dominant theories in anthropology on these themes, it is concluded that the practice scarification among women in the District of Magude, has a crucial value in the preservation of marriages, as it is believed that it is through this practice that men can be sexually pleased, serving as a base and support in the preservation of homes and families. On the other hand, scarifications are used as a distinctive mark among women within the society to which they belong, and also as an ornament of feminine and masculine body beauty.