WORLD HISTORY

COLONIAL MIMESIS IN
THE PORTUGUESE
EMPIRE
A Different Perspective

Carolina Magalhães
2016/2017

Abstract

Throughout this paper a number of key issues under the Portuguese presence in the
different conquered colonial nations will be analysed. Since the XV century Portuguese
started building their empire, establishing zones of occupation in almost every continent. Yet
the challenge is to investigate the dynamic relationship between mimicry and colonialism,
with the central assumption being the idea that mimetic exchange - the reciprocal transfer of
movements of similarity and dissimilarity between European and natives - is a crucial
component of colonial relations. In this sense, this paper’s aim is to deconstruct the concept
of colonial mimesis giving a more detailed perspective that focuses on the bidirectional
interaction between colonies and its colonizers. In short, tries to look at the role played by
processes of reproduction in colonial situations from a reverse perspective, that is: as a
practice of the colonizers themselves towards the indigenous populations.
 INDEX

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 2
PORTUGUESE EXPEDITION AROUND THE WORLD AND COLONIAL MIMICRY ...... 3
FROM THE COLONIZED TO THE COLONIZER ............................................................. 4
CONCLUSION AND FINAL CONSIDERATIONS .............................................................. 8
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 9

1
 INTRODUCTION
The annals of historic practice tend to provide an historical deductive
reconstruction that assumes the world as its ultimate unit of analysis taking into
account only phenomena that had an impact on humanity as a whole, or processes
that brought different societies into contact. However, studying History should go
beyond that and there should be thus a reflective consideration of its connectivity.

In more recent years, a rejection of traditional world history has emerged and
global history have adopted the interconnected and inductive world as its larger
unit of analysis, providing historical entities, phenomenon, or processes as its
ultimate analytical context (Olstein, 2015:24-27). Therefore, studying global history
implies not only trying to question important dynamics in many different places, but
also at different periods and essentially through different perspectives.

Generally speaking, this process may well be represented by interactions between

cultures. Interactions that occurred over different epochs of history, in different
places and that can only be studied and interpreted, considering the multiple
perspectives of the involved historical actors. In this sense, a key issue for this
discussion is what Jeremy Adelman called “mimetic exchange”.
[… ] The flow and deployment of representational artefacts of global parts and
peoples. The production, circulation, and reception of these artefacts can be called
mimetic exchange, and it coursed through empires like blood through
vessels.”(Adelman, 2015: 79)

Traditionally in ancient Greece, mimesis, imitation or mimetics had a unitary, strict

and predetermined definition: the perfection and imitation of nature. But its use has
changed and been reinterpreted many times since then. More recently, Erich
Auerbach, Merlin Donald or René Girard have written about mimesis, giving it a
different sense of a more engaged notion to many historical layers of culture,
identity and ethnicity. The result was a series of theories of representation of
something or someone, theories of becoming other.
The attention given to mimesis by Homi Bhabha (1984) has as one of its main
evidences the colonial relationship. In the path of these postcolonial studies, the
colonial relationship was perceived only in terms of "difference" or "other",
emphasizing the mimetic process of imitating the forms of the “whites”.

Nevertheless, rather than recognizing mimetic forms of emancipation, this paper

tries to escape from the anthropologic reductionism of absorption of one culture for
another “inferior”. Following the lines of Michael Taussig (1993), this paper pursues
the mimetic exchange from the “inferior” culture to the “white” colonizers. Doing so,
there is an instigation of a different perspective of mimesis as a gesture, as a
materiality, and as a theory of colonization. (Saraiva, 2014, 209-227)

In the light of the Portuguese colonial study case, conquest, exploitation and
subjugation are old themes. However, here we look beyond historic controversies
of political economy and focus on the culture of colonialism. We stress a more
dynamic relationship between the two approaches, and above all an interrogation
of the relationship between the metropolitan state with the colonial state.
2
 PORTUGUESE EXPEDITION AROUND THE
. WORLD AND COLONIAL MIMICRY
The Portuguese Empire expanded during almost six centuries and it was
essentially boosted by its conquests around the world. Portuguese explorers
captured Ceuta in 1415 and since then, they started exploring the coast of Africa
building its colonial empire in the way.

Even before Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, Portugal had already
annexed the contemporary territory of Guinea, Angola and Mozambique. In 1500,
Pedro Álvares Cabral found the South American colony, Brazil, which became a
source of great wealth. The empire turned ultimately global when the coasts and
islands of East Asia were attained and Timor was finally considered a Portuguese
territory in 1702. (New World Encyclopedia, 2015)

In World History studies, there is a frequent emphasis on the economic exploitation

of natural resources and slave trafficking during the colonial penetration in the
previous conquered nations.

Colonialism is conventionally understood as a violent intrusion into the lives,

cultures, and societies of the indigenous people in the extra-European world. From
this perspective, a definitional feature of European colonization practically since the
sixteenth century has been the effort put into drastically transforming the indigenous
ways of life according to the cultural norms and social principles of the colonizers.
(Barreto Xavier, 2010:74)

The poor social and living conditions of the colonized populations and its various
forms of resistance to the colonial presence have become the centre of the colonial
discourse. As a result of these asymmetrical social and power relations, the
imagery of subjugation, domination, conversion or civilization, are all terms that
have controlled the way of thinking colonial mimicry. (Cabecinhas, Feijó, 2010,
v.4, 28-44)

Within this perspective, the notion of mimesis is typically perceived as an attribute

of the indigenous populaces alone, an instinctive property of their supposedly
‘primitive’ condition. Conversely, the Europeans were the holders of higher
civilizational standards that the Indigenous, in the face of colonial contact, could
not help but reproduce, embrace or imitate.

However, there is the other side of the coin. If at any moment one could possibly
argue that colonial mimetics stimulates cultural and identity absorptions of the
colonies, it cannot be ignored the metropolan absorption of the colonies culture. In
other words, there is a bidirectional dichotomy in the process of colonialism: a
production of similarity from both the colonizer to colonized and from the colonized
to the colonizer.

3
 FROM THE COLONIZED TO THE COLONIZER
Conventionally, the majority of the empires were known for governing the
colonized population while keeping distance and producing a dynamic of
dissimilarity that perpetuated behaviors of superiority and domination. It is true that
colonial mimicry cannot be thought without the guiding notion of mimetic
governmentality, its constitutive element of the government of others, as a place of
power and administration of the "natives". Though,
perceiving mimicry as a movement for the government of others also implies the
observation of symbolic tensions and conflicts of identity that are inherent to
colonialism. Effectively, colonial mimicry embodies, almost paradigmatically, this
tension between incorporation and differentiation that, as a result, produces some
kind of similarity. (Stoler and Cooper 1997:10).

In this sense, the Portuguese case is particularly special for representing this
bidirectional dynamic between the colonial interactions. In the same way that
Portuguese colonizers influenced the nature, culture and identity of the colony, the
reserve also happened. During the colonial era, the Portuguese have involved and
merged themselves with the native populations in several ways, often adopting
their ideas, customs and ways of living.

To demonstrate in detail this peculiar case, I believe that is necessary to

enumerate some illustrative but factual examples. For the most part, it will be
mentioned some of the publications within the project Colonial mimesis in
Lusophone Asia and Africa, under Ricardo Roque coordination.

First and foremost, Ricardo Roque contribution was essential for this study. The
author keenly explored the colonization in Timor and the relations between justice
discourses and the practice of rituals in the Portuguese colonial government.

In “A voz dos bandos: colectivos de justiça e ritos da palavra portuguesa em

Timor-Leste colonial” Roque exposes the way in which the Portuguese groups of
power governed the region according to the native’s ways.

The central role played by these groups in the colonial administration of justice
was legitimized by their native appropriations. Either for their direct connection
with the exercise of the power of native kings, or by following the colonial packs’s
principles, the colonizers inserted themselves into the colonial factions of
command, acquiring strength of law, truth or justice and guaranteeing the
obedience of the natives. (Roque, 2012:593-594)

4
Moreover, between the Timorese colonialism in the XVIII and XIX century, Roque
analysed the colonial trade between “civilization” and “barbarity” by drawing on the
case of Governor Afonso de Castro’s controversial participation in the “feast of the
heads”.1

Backgrounding his research in Michael Taussig’ “Mimesis and Alterity”, the

Portuguese writer developed the argument that the colonial presence in Timor
cannot be conceived in a non-savage or wild context. Hence, the mimetic
exchange in colonial context expresses a tension between assimilation of the
space and the reflexive preservation of dissimilarity.

When witnessing the barbaric ritual of celebration, the Portuguese governor was
simultaneously observing what would be described as barbaric and shocking, and
absorbing energies of the environment that constitutes itself mimetic signs.

Thus, by allowing and indulging in a barbaric ritual, expecting that his involvement
would increase colonial power and authority, he was assimilating the "savagery" of
this space, establishing a position in the environment and, ultimately, producing a
relation with the native ‘culture. (Roque, 2014: 159-184)

Furthermore, Cristiana Bastos ‘article “The hut-hospital as a colonial project” takes

colonial hospitals in Angola and Mozambique of XX century as the framework of
colonial mimesis.

The author grounded this reflection in one architectural replica of a tropical

hospital, stating that this odd structure was an essential tool to better comprehend
the Luso-tropical dynamics. This hospital was in every detail, an imitation of
African huts and cubatas2 with a latent scratch of the colonial governance,
inscribing in itself the formula of mimesis.

In first place, there is a clear rationalization of the advantages of imitative

techniques as a way of attracting indifferent natives to the purposes of colonial
administration. In the second place, going beyond the latter, the justification for the
construction of this hospital can be illustrated as “cultural sensitivity” with the
purpose to attend to differences of mentality and habits. For that reason, the
medical assistance of the indigenous was recommended by the Portuguese
government to be provided with tolerance for their mentality and customs.

1
A customary ceremony associated with the celebration of headhunting raids and war victories in East Timor,
in 1861
2
Rustic and precarious African shelters covered with straw.

5
Despite this fact, this incorporation also occurred in other colonies ‘medical
structures where the Portuguese planted and used lands ‘remedies as therapeutic
solution. In these cases, within the argument to conquer Africans there was a
deliberate assimilation of indigenous culture into the architecture and practice of
colonial medicine. For the most part, the processes of colonial mimesis operated
both ways and it was under this mimetic exchange that colonial medicine was
developed. (Bastos, 2014, 185-208)

The final but not the least relevant examination lies in ““They look like Indians in
their colour and feature”: the “black legend” and the indianization of the
Portuguese” article of Ângela Barreto Xavier.

This article focuses on the articulation between mimesis and the “indianization” of
the Portuguese established in India from the XVI century, and the role it played in
formulating a "black legend" about the Portuguese empire.

Pointing out the Linschoten critique of the Luso-colonialism in his book “Itinerário”
of 1596, Xavier reports how the Portuguese men were described as often married
to Indian women, generating mixed-blood children; how children born in India
looked Indian even when they did not have Indian blood or how the children of the
mestizos were "of color or feature equal to the natives of the land". This meant
that, whether by physical or cultural miscegenation, after some generations the
Portuguese settled in India hardly differed from the locals.

The Dutch author also exposes how Portuguese women were portrayed as
dressing the same way, using the same typical jewellery and having the same
general Indian habits of hygiene. The sign that best denoted this process of
“indianization” was the palanquin, an Indian peculiar mean of transport that carried
both Portuguese and Indians, in representations that appealed to the same type of
visual frame, conveying the idea of this unquestionable surrender of the
Portuguese to the Indian ways.

Linschoten's descriptions of colonial times and the conclusions they stimulate are
not merely exemplary. In its place, they constitute the main imagery indicators of
the colonizers’ process of going native. Yet, this did not come without contestation.
This precise process of going native was severely condemned by Northern
Europeans, connoting the Portuguese as the “Black Legend” of Colonialism (not in
a violent and brutal sense as Spain, but in reference to their dilution in the
colonies’ cultures).

6
On the whole, adhering to the customs of the Indians was an undesirable
behaviour that was associated with the conviction that the Portuguese were
unable to govern themselves (since they could not control their passions, their
inner nature), and therefore, incapable of governing the others.

This diffused view misleads a deeper interpretation of the phenomenon. It

concentrates on the alterity of Portuguese colonialism instead of noticing its
remarkable and unusual characteristics. Nevertheless, what could be the object of
praise for its hybridity, has contributed to a negative representation of the
Portuguese and their way of being in the world at that time.

Curiously, it was exactly their weakness of identity and their inability to self-
discipline that explained the ease with which they smoothly “miscegenate” with the
"inferiors", thus degrading their own image in the world. (Xavier, 2014: 111-113)

7
 CONCLUSION AND FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Trying to avoid the conventional and deductive historic practices that simply focus
on phenomenon that had a great impact on the humanity as a whole, the main
purpose of this paper was to ground its discussion in an alternative perspective.

In this way, it was taken into consideration the colonialism and its detailed fields of
human interactions, intending to build an argument based on a different historic
angle, centred on relevant particularities of colonial exchanges between colonizers
and colonies.

Another core idea was the notion of Mimesis that, in fact, was stolen from the
natural sciences to perfectly express these social, cultural exchanges in the form
of colonial imitation, assimilation or reproduction.

In addition, we have seen that, to better understand the processes of mimesis in

the context of colonialism, we should go beyond the above-mentioned notion of
imitation, camouflage or absorption of other’s nature. Thus, the complexity of this
concept lies in a wider and more subjective scrutiny of what can be called “mimetic
exchange”.

In the light of colonialism, mimesis was normally seen as a unidirectional process

in which the native populace capture the culture of their colonizer, whether by
compulsion or fascination. However, here we tried to deconstruct this approach
and highlight that, in the spectrum of history, there were examples that proved the
opposite.

Taking the Portuguese Empire as an empirical object, this paper intended to

analyse the European experience of ‘becoming other' or ‘going native', through
copying or embracing indigenous ideas, technologies, and customs in different
colonial circumstances.

The centrality of mimicry as a topic of the Portuguese negative imaginary through

the old idea of "black legend" of the empire was also a key point. In fact, this
unusual Portuguese tendency of imitation and miscegenation of the natives was
the object of severe critics in the past, blaming the Portuguese themselves for their
debauchery and misgovernment in the colonial empire. Conversely, it is also
argued that these fallacies should be neglected and that history should not
concentrate in the alterity of this special feature but emphasize its uniqueness.

To all intents and purposes, the Portuguese “nativization” was not related to some
kind of national specificity or historical constant; it was indeed associated to their
colonial exceptionalism.

8
 REFERENCES

Adelman, J. (2015). Mimesis and rivalry: European empires and global regimes. Journal of
Global History, 10(01), 77-98.Taussig, M. T. (1993). Mimesis and alterity: A particular
history of the senses. Psychology Press.
Bastos, Cristiana, 2014, “No género de construções cafreais”: o hospital-palhota como
projecto colonial, Etnográfica, 18 (1): 185-208.
Bhabha, H. (1984). Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial
Discourse. October, 28, 125-133. Doi:10.2307/778467
Cabecinhas. R, Feijó. J (2010), “Collective Memories of Portuguese Colonial Action in
Africa: Representations of the Colonial Past among Mozambicans and Portuguese
Youths”, International Journal of Conflicts and Violence, v.4, (pp. 28 – 44). Available at:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?Doi=10.1.1.679.7425&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Olstein, D. A., & Harari, Y. N. (2015). Thinking history globally. Palgrave Macmillan.
Portuguese Empire. (2015, May 26). New World Encyclopedia, . Retrieved 12:20, January
10, 2017. Available
at: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?Title=Portuguese_Empire&oldid=9
88257.

Roque, R. (2017). “Seria preciso que a selvageria se me pegasse”: Afonso de Castro e a

“festa das cabeças” em Timor colonial. [online] Etnografica.revues.org. Available at:
https://etnografica.revues.org/3385#quotation [Accessed 9 Jan. 2017].

Roque, Ricardo (2011) "Os portugueses e os reinos de Timor no século XIX". Oriente,
20:91-111.

Roque, Ricardo. (2012). A voz dos bandos: colectivos de justiça e ritos da palavra
portuguesa em Timor-Leste colonial. Mana, 18(3), 563-594. Available at:
https://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-93132012000300006

Saraiva, Tiago (2014) “ Mimetismo colonial e reprodução animal: carneiros caracul no

Sudoeste angolano “, Etnográfica [Online], vol. 18 (1). Available at :
http://etnografica.revues.org/3403 ; DOI : 10.4000/etnografica.3403

Stoler, Ann Laura, e Frederick COOPER, 1997, “Between metropole and colony:
rethinking a research agenda”, in Ann Laura Stoler e Frederick Cooper (orgs.), Tensions of
Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. Berkeley, University of California Press,
1-56.
Xavier, Angela Barreto (2014) 'Parecem indianos na cor e na feição': a 'lenda negra' e a
indianização dos portugueses. Etnográfica, vol. 18, n. 1, p.111-133.