The Ñanga was a witch, priest, therapist, medicine man, oracle, “exorcist”, middle-man between the “supernatural and the human”, “element which held the community together, both a source for the sacred and the mundane”. “The Anthropological Mission to Mozambique (MAM) was created in 1936”. “[…] It seems evident that the intention was to present a […] work which, even if submitted to the specific objectives of the Anthropological Mission, made possible the presentation and introduction to other peoples through the Empire their usages, ways and traditions”. “In the name of science and progress a whole tradition of popular medicine was forgotten, one deeply rooted within the Portuguese colonial territory, where the use of herbs, roots and popular resources prevailed, in many regions, as the only way to heal many of diseases suffered by the Portuguese themselves, to purify ‘vicious environments’ and keep bad luck and evil spells away”. “Of all these collection, materials that came from Ñanga da Matola is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting. It integrates remedies, recipes and instruments which were described, drawn and photographed, and are even accompanied by a written record of a long interview which, along three days, the chief of the Mission held with him”. “Ñanga’s intervention then appears as necessary to the re-establishment of individual equilibrium and, and therefore, of the community of which he is part and out of which he can’t succeed”.