Ever wondered why the Mangy Dog was killed?

Lovemore Ranga Mataire
LUIS Bernado Honwana’s “We Killed the Mangy Dog & Other Mozambique Stories” is one of the texts recommended for study by the English Department at the University of Zimbabwe.After reading the book, one is bound to appreciate the rationale behind recommending such a text to students still trying to waddle through the pre- and post-African literary terrain.

It is often said that a person is a product of his/her past just as he/she is the maker of his/her present and future and thus the knowledge of the past empowers the individual to understand his present and future. The book by Honwana is thus a text relating history, a gory history of subjugation and oppression.

“We Killed the Mangy Dog & Mozambique Other Stories” is a collection of short stories reflecting Honwana’s experiences in Mozambique under the Portuguese colonial rule. While the set-up is Mozambique, any reader who has lived through colonialism is sure to relate to most of the familiarities narrated in each story

The book has seven short stories – “Inventory of Furniture and Effects”, “The Old Woman”, “Papa Snake and I”, “Hands of the Blacks”, “Nhinguitimo”, “Lunchtime” and “We Killed the Mangy Dog”, which all bear the common thread of humiliation of the native, the dispossession instituted by the settler and the nightmares of colonial experience.

Honwana’s artistic genius and clear grasp of issues is a marvel and astoundingly masterful given the fact that he was a mere 22-year-old when he wrote the book. It’s sad that this iconic collection of short stories, which formed the pioneering Mozambican narrative in Portuguese, was his first and last book.

Each story is a dissection of the Mozambican world and given the age of the author at the time of writing the book, several of the stories are told from the point of view of children.

However, the innocent and naïve characters are deliberately infused in the stories in order to expose the inherent racism of the Portuguese colonial government, giving the stories much greater purpose than amusement and entertainment.

Issues raised by the stories include social exploration, racial segregation and class stratification as each character in every story represents a different social position – a white Portuguese man, the assimilated black, the indigenous black and the mulatto.

“We Killed the Mangy Dog” is the first and longest story in the collection narrated by a young, black assimilado boy called Ginho.
Ginho is the outcast of his group, marginalised and alienated by his peers in and outside school. Other boys all have different racial backgrounds: Quim is the white leader of the gang, Faruk is an Arab, Gulamo is Indian, and Xangai is Chinese.

The story is centred on the “Mangy Dog”, a stray dog afflicted by disease, helpless, and almost dying. The narrator begins to identify with the dog, which like him is also an outcast among other dogs, and he develops compassion and sympathy for the mutt.

Ginho and his group are manipulated by Senhor Duarte into killing the dog and liken the act as a kind of hunting game. Ginho is chosen to shoot the dog. Even though he is emotionally attached to the dog, the pressure from other boys forces him to eliminate the dog for the sake of being accepted. After many pleas with the other children, he is unsuccessful in trying to save the dog. The story ends with a guilty confession despite his reluctance to participate in the crime.

The “Mangy Dog” may be likened to a sick decadent colonial system that must be destroyed in order to make way for a new reality of existence, free of discrimination and racism. “Mangy Dog” is shot to death with firearms in a symbolically pointing to the way Mozambique was to gain its independence through the use of military force.

It is through the short stories particularly the story ‘Papa, Snake and I’ that Honwana presents the mental state of both the colonised and the coloniser as victimiser and perpetrators of violence respectively.

The oppressed is pacified and rendered powerless by the brutality and intimidation of the oppressor, while on the other hand the oppressor feels vindicated and superior by the authority he stamps out using violent means.

However, the most compelling thing to note is that Honwana does not seem to wallow in despair but bestows hope in the young people, who could as well be termed the future. Another story, “Papa, Snake and I” is a tale of a black man forced to compensate a Portuguese man when his dog is bitten by a mamba while trying to fight a snake in the African’s chicken run. An excerpt of the story goes:

“Good afternoon, Senhor Castro …”

“Listen, Tshembene, I’ve just found out that my pointer is dead, and his chest’s all swollen. My natives tell me that he came howling from your house before he died. I don’t want any backchat, and I’m just telling – either you pay compensation or I’ll make a complaint at the administration.”

“I’ve just come back from work – I don’t know anything …”

“I don’t care a damn thing about that. Don’t argue. Are you going to pay or aren’t you?”

“But Senhor Castro …”

“Senhor Castro nothing. It’s 700 paus (8 pounds in the 1960s). And it’s better if the matter rests here.”

“As you like, Senhor Castro, but I don’t have the money now …”

“We’ll see about that later. I’ll wait until the end of the month, and if you don’t pay then there’ll be a row.”

Senhor Castro, we’ve known each other such a long time, and there’s never …”

“Don’t try that with me. I know what you all need – a bloody good hiding is the only thing …”

Senhor Castro climbed into his car and pulled away. Papa stayed watching while the car drove off. “Son of a bitch …”

“Papa, why didn’t you say that to his face?”

He didn’t answer.

However, the most compelling thing to note is that Honwana does not seem to wallow in despair but bestows hope in the young people, who could as well be termed the future.