For the past two weeks I’ve been digging into an exciting collection of oral history interviews. What makes the interviews so interesting for me is that they were conducted in 1981 and 1982 (so almost forty years ago!) in the same areas where I am currently doing oral history research into deeper gender history.

The 1981-82 project was led by historian Gerhard Liesegang, and he worked together with Teresa Oliveira, Mucojuane M. Vicente, and Manuel J. Bula (translating from Ciyaawo to Portuguese). Its aim was to reconstruct the history of this northern territory from precolonial times to the anticolonial struggle (1964-1974).

Interesting about Niassa is that it was relatively late, only in 1919, that the area was brought under direct Portuguese colonial control. Until then some of the Yaawo chiefs offered strong resistance against colonial expansion into their areas.