Augustino Openon stands shirtless on the shore and stares at the small aluminum boat approaching the island. The long sandy beach is deserted, behind it towers a green wall of palm trees, baobabs and kapok trees. Augustino draws attention to himself. Not just because he has a bodybuilder’s physique, but because his dark skin is covered with long scars that run like cords across his chest. “He’s proud of it,” says his nephew Belmiro Lopes, who steers the boat with a small group of visitors on board. “He took part in the Fanado, the secret initiation rite that makes the Bijagos respected members of their society.” What exactly happens when the men and women of the Bijago ethnic group live in small groups for many weeks on one of their “sacred islands” and each other subjected to the Fanado is hardly known. “Anyone who takes part in the rite undertakes never to reveal a dying word, and everyone adheres to that,” says Belmiro, who himself still hesitates as to whether he should follow this archaic tradition. Because one thing is certain. Whoever returns from the Fanado bears thick scars, the men on their chests, the women on their arms.
A carpet of mangroves
Belmiro is from Eticoga, a hamlet on the island of Orango in Orango National Park. The national park is part of a UNESCO biosphere reserve proclaimed in 1996, which includes the species-rich Bijagos archipelago with 88 islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau.