A CAMISA DA COBRA
(THE SNAKE'S SHIRT)

Atelier Bempostinha
Lisbon, February 2020

 ...at night one tried to travel in column and preferably in the moonlight to follow a white/visible path (ephiro yottela) and thus avoid stepping on snakes. We also slept in the bush without fire so as not to betray our presence. At dawn one time it happened that one of the companions got quite frightened, because he discovered that I had slept near a snake's sapling. But he soon reassured me by saying: "It's not the snake but only its old skin, the snake itself won't be far away, but even after the moult it is sickly and doesn't attack. Besides, Father, you must know that this is the snake's moult, but we are also moult, yes God's moult: mutthu nihuwa na Muluku." The double explanation was more than suficient not only to reassure me but also to further arouse my curiosity about the snake and especially about the phenomenon of the moult and its application on the theological and anthropological horizon.

Pe. Giuseppe Frizzi (Maúa, province of Niassa, Mozambique)

Mutthu ori nihuwa na Muluku
The person is the mute/image of God.

Vamwerini enowa khenahiya malepa, nto nihuwa naya.
Each month the snake does not leave the spots, but its moulting.

Nihuwa, Ma-:
It is the snake's moult, fall, defoliation, old shirt of the snake: the archaeological aspect as well as the teleological one are patent: it is a renewal/growth of new skin, a rejuvenation of the snake;

http://centroxirima.blogspot.com/2017/01/mutthu-ori-nihuwa-namuluku-pessoa-e.html

Specifications:
drawings - grafite on paper
sculptures - painted air dry clay, wood, velvet 

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