Mozambique - people & society
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Joanna Artur cooking outside her home
Photo: Joel Chiziane/Oxfam |
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Most Mozambicans are of Bantu origin. There are also European and
Asian minorities. There are many religions in Mozambique. The 1997
census showed that approximately 50 per cent of the people are Christian,
10 per cent Muslim, five per cent animists, (who believe that everything
in nature has a soul), with the rest of the population combining
traditional faiths with another religion. Most people who live in
the cities are Christian or Muslim.
Mozambique has three main cities, Maputo, Beira and Nampula. Here
the rich can afford luxury houses, Mercedes cars and high-class
restaurants. However, most people live in rural areas, following
a traditional way of life. Four out of five Mozambicans depend on
the land for a living.
Life in rural areas involves hard work and women do most of it.
The majority of Mozambique’s farmers are women. They plant,
care for and harvest the crops and also process the food. The staple
food is a maize ‘porridge’ that is cooked over a fire
and eaten with a vegetable or meat stew. Maize has to be pounded
into flour using wooden poles - it’s exhausting work that takes
many hours.
Introduction
|| History
|| Geography
& Environment
People
& Society || Factfile
|| Oxfam in Mozambique
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