14/04/2026
“Ohenda ya Suku”
Oil painting on silk fabric
155cm x 152cm, 2025
By the grace of the creator (Suku), literally translated from Umbundu to English.
In African traditions, names carry deep cultural and spiritual significance. They often relate to the circumstances of a person’s birth, including significant events, and may honour a reincarnated ancestor.
Original from Bié/Viye, the land of the Ovimbundu people. My great-grandmother and grandmother were both only children. When my mother was born, she was named Henda, which means “the grace of Suku,” the one who walks with adults. Her birth was a blessing that alleviated my grandmother’s loneliness.
Legally, my mother is no longer called Henda because, before Angola gained independence from the Portuguese, our language, names, rituals, educational systems, and connections to our homeland were suppressed. Western churches played a significant role in the oppression of local cultural expressions, acting as an extension of the colonial harm inflicted by the Portuguese government to erase any sense of belonging.
During the birth registration, one of the Catholic priests changed my mother’s name to Maria José Baptista, representing three fictitious figures: Mary, Joseph, and Baptiste.
Despite this, she went on to have a total of seven children, and her original name, Henda, fulfilled its purpose within our traditional beliefs. It symbolises fertility and serves as a reminder that future generations should never walk alone.
Throughout time in most parts of the continent, African beliefs(spirituality) blended with other religions for different reasons, and some of us forgot or are unknowledgeable about it, and unfortunately, they get lost in other groups’ worldview
Name helps trace ancestry and provide a sense of belonging wherever one may be in this world.
