Cordeiro da Matta

Joaquim Dias Cordeiro da Matta was born on November 21, 1857, in Cabiri, Icolo e Bengo. A self-taught prodigy, he worked as a journalist and municipal secretary while collecting oral tales, proverbs, and songs of the Kimbundu-speaking people.

In 1887, Cordeiro da Matta published his poetry collection Delírios in Lisbon, capturing the melancholic beauty of the Angolan soul. In 1891, he published Philosophia Popular em Provérbios Angolenses and in 1893 his monumental Ensaio de Diccionario Kimbúndu-Portuguêz, preserving indigenous African linguistic heritage against colonial erasure before tuberculosis took his life at age thirty-six.