kongodereligionàmagie

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RLBK001-Friedman March 20, 2008 20:46

Part IOTHER MODERNITIES? RESISTANCE,

CONTINUITIES, AND TRANSFORMATIONS

Modernity has returned in a most forceful way to the social sciences in recentyears. This term has filled the void left by the collapse of evolutionism. The

latter was a semantic transform or homologue of the relation between power-

ful centers of civilization or development and their peripheries. The space

separating the two was and is still a hierarchy within which individuals and so-

cieties were assumed to develop themselves from periphery to center, or via the

transformation of space into time, from primitive, traditional, and undeveloped

to civilized, modern, and developed. Modernity was usually identified in this

discourse as the social and political organization of the contemporary centers.

In the powerfully developmentalist frame of reference modernity too was as-

sumed to have emerged historically in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, linked to the English and French Revolutions, to the enlightenment,

and the industrial revolution. But, if the proliferation of modernities in contem-porary anthropology may indeed replace a former modernist understanding of

the modern, current usage of the term is not a product of the decline of the

former framework. It is, rather, related to the relativization of modernity and

a modernization of culture. This is very much a product of the dialectic that

we have explored in an earlier volume (Friedman 1994). We have suggested

that the decline of modernism, itself part of the decline of Western hegemony,

implies the rise of culturalism and a more extreme form of relativism, the

conversion of linear time into relativist space. Now one of the intellectualist

forms taken by this culturalism is textualism, an objectification of culture and

its transformation into mere difference, with no obvious roots in social ex-

perience. In the emergent postcolonial and globalization-oriented framework,

culture is identified with tradition, a dangerous and even racist term insofar

as it takes difference too seriously (Meyer and Geschiere 1999). As we live

in the contemporary, we are all modern. All culture, if one wishes to use the

word, is contemporary culture. Cognizant that we are indeed part of a world

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26 Part I

in which populations that were once referred to in terms of tradition are in-

tegrated into the global system, in which their lives are articulated with the

advanced sectors, where they consume Western goods, may work in the cap-

italist sectors of the world economy, and construct their lives using objects that

are part of this larger world, we are urged to interpret contemporary witchcraft

as modern witchcraft, contemporary kinship relations as modern kinship, and

so forth. Indeed these authors are very often keen to deny any historical con-

tinuity (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999; Geschiere 1995). In many works the

concept of alternative modernity is used to designate two facts: real cultural

difference and contemporaneity, which usually implies something from the

West like telephones or computers. Thus alternative modernity is simply an-

other term for contemporary culture and since all culture is contemporary, the

term culture can be dropped. The approach adopted here is somewhat differ-

ent. Instead of conflating modernity with contemporaneity, turning the formerinto an empty signifier, we stress the specificity of modernity as a particular

cultural form. We have suggested earlier (Friedman 1994) that modernity is a

structural phenomenon that emerges in highly commercialized societies where

a strong tendency to individualization, the differentiation of self from identity,

is a core element of a series of other transformations. In chapter 7 in the next

section we return to this issue, but in the four chapters of this section we focus

on the formation of contemporary structures and social worlds in peripheral

zones. This has nothing to do with modernity as such but with social and cul-

tural transformations that are crucial aspects of the articulation of historical

continuities and the formation of local social fields within the contemporary

global system.

Chapter 1 analyzes a curious mirage in early anthropology that has beeninherited in a great number of classic works, the supposed evolution from

magic to religion made famous in the work of Frazer and in which late-

nineteenth-century Africa plays an instrumental role. Here the argument is

reversed. Nineteenth-century Africa was precisely an example of the rise of

magic in societies in the grips of violent disintegration. Phenomena such as

powerless sacred kingship,witchcraft, and theproliferation of magic are shown

to be products of the transformation of colonial society rather than a remnant

of an earlier period. Chapter 2 examines the way in which history is integrated

into identity practices,whether in theform of nationalist and indigenous myths,

often assumed to be inauthentic by self-appointed anthropological masters of

authenticity and true history, or even in the form of just plain standard history.

The emergence of Greek national identity in the nineteenth century is part of a

massive historical construction process, one that integrates Greece as ancestor

of the West at the same time as it was becoming integrated as a periphery

within the expanding Western world system, opposing itself to its own former


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Resistance, Continuities, and Transformations 27

integration within the Ottoman empire. Hawaiian history is, on the contrary,

one, developing within the Hawaiian movement, that separates Hawaii from

the West. Chapter 3 further develops the issue of the politics of authenticity

showing how rising indigenous movements enter into a necessary structural

conflict with anthropologists who previously maintained a monopoly on the

truth of their realities. Chapter 4, finally, demonstrates the way in which lo-

cal life projects structure and simplifies what appears for distant observers as

global complexity. Real lives in global reality are small worlds, whether the

worlds of indigenous populations or cosmopolitan intellectuals.

If there is a relation to the modern in these chapters it concerns the articula-

tions between expanding Western hegemony and the populations that are inte-

grated within this hegemony. The articulations are many and diverse, and the

strategies produced are at once culturally specific while framed within larger

global contexts. The catastrophic situation within which Congolese culture istransformed is one in which its internal properties determine the nature of the

final product. The various ways in which Hawaiian life forms confront and

avoid an encompassing American world demonstrate the way in which forms

of resistance produce localization. In both examples historical continuity plays

an important role even if in different ways. Thus, alternative modernities are

better understood as alternative historical articulations.


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1From Religion to Magic

Kajsa Ekholm Friedman

Both fetishism and the ngangas practices have historically been subjected to a

massive mud-slingingcampaignon thepart of whites. As concerns the nganga1

it has been stressed that he was medically incompetent, that his minkisi were

hocus-pocus, that he was the leading figure in the witchcraft hysteria, and that

he generally played a reactionary role in the development of society. Fetishism

has been seen as idolatry in its most evil form. To keep as sacred wooden

figures and small bags of medicines instead of worshipping God, the Father

in heaven, appeared outrageously heathenish. MacGaffey says in an article

on fetishism that the actual word had such negative connotations for us that

we willingly avoided it. It implied that African peoples were too immature

to perceive the world correctly; intellectual error led them to the moral error,

in Christian opinion of Idolatry (MacGaffey 1977:172). But the Congolesethemselves use the word today without any negative connotations, except,

perhaps, in a Christian context.

In the following passage from the Swedish missionary, P. A. Westlind, the

fetishes are called gods: With the help of these gods they could find out

secrets, rule over rain and sunshine, over success and adversity, over health

and illness. They are therefore held in esteem by all (Westlind 1911:97).

However, the majority of the missionaries saw no true religious content in

fetishism. On the contrary, they emphasized that it was only a selfish magic,

and it was difficult for them to reconcile themselves to such practices. They

had come to the Lower Congo, self-sacrificing and with no desire for personal

gain, to spread the Gospel. They therefore reacted with great indignation when

confronted with fetishism which at that time was primarily directed towardpeoples immediate practical problems: health, fertility, and material survival.

Even Laman, who in many other situations showed great understanding for the

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30 Chapter 1

culture in which he worked, writes in a text of 1911: The law and desire, which

this people follow and by which it is dominated, is selfishness (1911:20).

A common view among whites was that the Kongo totally lacked religion.

The people of the Congo, as we found them, were practically without reli-

gion, the English missionary, Bentley, declared unpropitiously and continued:

There is no worship, no idolatry in fetishism, only a dark agnosticism, full of

fear, helpless and hopeless (1900 1:247).

In the turn-of-the-centurysociety (late1800s and early 1900s), fetishismwas

clearly a question of magic. I will argue here that this focusing on magic at the

expense of more religiousaspects wasan effectof colonization, nota traditional

feature. The survival problem came to overshadow all other questions about

their worldly existence, and the techniques of communicating with the gods

were used increasingly in a desperate struggle for survival.

Fetishism was thought of so negatively because it was, explicitly or im-plicitly, perceived in terms of evolutionist assumptions of the relationship be-

tween fetishism/magic and religion. Frazer thought he could discern a general

evolution from magic to religion (compare Comtes sequence fetishism-

polytheism-monotheism). But this is merely an intellectual construction, based

on the erroneous assumption that the victims of Western expansion showed

primitive characteristicsbecause theyrepresented earlier stagesin social evo-

lution. The magically inclined fetishism of the Lower Congo is not a primitive

phenomenon in a primitive society but, on the contrary, a crisis phenomenon

in a society that had been crushed and that lived under the acute threat of ex-

tinction. There is no general historic process leading from magic to religion,

but there may well have been a process, shared by a large part of the Third

World, leading in the opposite direction: from religion to magic.Religion must of course have been affected by what happened to society in

general. When the political system was destroyed, the traditional religion lost

its social character. It was simply too intimately implicated in the political hier-

archy to survive. Disease and illness, the high mortality, the extreme insecurity,

and the violence and oppression led to a situation in which fetishism became

more of a traditional medicine than a religiona magic wall (Mahaniah

1980:11), or an imaginary bulletproof vest.

After colonization the banganga became the actual power factor in indige-

nous society: It is the nganga nkisi, the charm doctor, who sways the minds

and lives of men, and possesses a power superior to that of the chiefs (Ward

1890:38). The real potentate in Mayombe is le feticheur (Van Overbergh

1907:423).

There were many different types of banganga, and when specialization

developed to itsgreatestextent, onecan saytherewas a special nganga for every

illness or complaint (see Laman 1962:17383). The nkisi cured illness and,


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From Religion to Magic 31

though it may seem bewildering, could also cause illness. When nkisi wants

to show its power, it attacks a person until a nganga, priest, averts the nkisi,

as he has the power to do so (Laman 1923:57); the nkisi-spirit attacks . . . a

person through illness, and is, at the same time, that nkisi through which the

same illness is to be cured (60). Every nkisi had its own affliction which it

also cured (Laman 1962:69). There were minkisi with quite a broad range of

activities, but in the turn-of-the-century society we can discern a tendency to a

greater degree of specialization, so that every special illness had its own nkisi.

For instance, Syadada was the name for diarrhea containing blood and also the

nkisi which was supposed to be able to cure it. Smallpox was called Bimwengi

or Sala nsamba, chickenpox Cubu-Cubu, mumps Mayititi, and so were called

the minkisi that cured these different diseases (Laman 1962:70).

It is evident that the fetishism we meet in the turn-of-the-century society is a

product of dissolution and crisis. There are several statements by missionarieswhich support this view. E. Andersson claims that the word nkisi originally

meant spirit and only later did it come to mean charm or fetish; it does

not look as though the development has gone from power-magic to ancestral

cult but rather the other way around (1958:21, 23). Even Laman describes

fetishism as a degeneration of something else. He claims that nkisi originally

referred to the first great heroes, the great clan or tribal founders, Kongo,

Nsundi, and Mbenza, who were subject to the cult during the earlier period.

It is only during recent generations, he states, that many lesser minkisi have

come into existence. Fetishism should, then, have evolved from a more original

nkisi-cult: What on the west coast is referred to as fetishism is actually

a degenerated form of nkisi cult (Laman 1962:67). In the old days, nkisi

Nakongo and several others were undoubtedly more ardently worshipped, butthis cult has graduallybeen replaced by worship of ancestral images (bankuyu),

basimbi, and a variety of other minkisi as new diseases spread in the country

(78).

Here Laman explicitly associates the change in fetishism with the appear-

ance of all the new diseases. Van Wing is also aware of this relationship: [The

problems] gave first rise to a flare-up of fetishism among the natives; they

fabricated new fetishes in order to combat the new evil (1938:128).

There was an increase in, and specialization of, fetishes in order to counter-

act and combat the new problems. Van Wing knew of more than 150 different

minkisi; new ones were created all the time. In the major centers, and partic-

ularly in Leopoldville, there emerged minkisi of foreign, exotic origin, from

Senegal, Azande, and Bangala (128), according to the Kongo principle that

things from the outside are always better and stronger than things from inside.

It is important to look at fetishism from a historical perspective. As long

as it is perceived as traditional culture it remains strange and abstruse. In


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32 Chapter 1

order to understand the specific form it had at the turn of the century we must

take into account the very special conditions that prevailed. It is not, of course,

possible to combat epidemics, sterility, poverty, and social chaos with the help

of minkisi, however sophisticatedly one goes about it. But the fantasy and

creativity is impressive.

There were already significant changes in the traditional religion during the

centuries following the first contact. Even if the general design of the system

of thought remained the same, minkisi constantly changed their character. Old

minkisi disappeared, andnew ones appeared. Certain fields of religiouspractice

lost their meaning while others suddenly became central. From the beginning

there were minkisi and amulets for individual use, just as there were minkisi

that could be hung in individuals houses. There were, further, minkisi linked

to public life, providing life and fertility and protecting the kingdom and the

political order.This type of change has not gone unnoticed. Janzen (1982) has compared

Dappers descriptions from the seventeenth century with those of the German

expedition of the 1870s. In both cases we are dealing with the area north

of the Congo river. The minkisi of the earlier period were, as Janzen shows,

primarily connected with the well-being of the king, large harvests, successful

fishing expeditions, and the accumulation of wealth in the form of trade goods

1982:53). In the 1870s the well-being of the king no longer played any role,

and the same minkisi occupied a dominant place in relation to trade, law and

order, witchcraft, protection, and the fertility of women. Janzen accounts for

the change in terms of the decline of kingship and the entire court system in

Loango. There were, in the new situation, a great number of minkisi whose

function was to judge and mete out punishment, to bring clarity and justice tothe increasingly tangled social relations present in the port city (55). Several

reservations are in order here.

The loss of interest in the king is most certainly the direct result of the fact

that the kingdom no longer functioned as a centralized political structure. But

the causal relation between general lawlessness and political insecurity and

the minkisis juridical and supervising functions does not seem convincing.

Minkisi already had such functions in the beginning of the seventeenth century

(see Battell). Nor is it the case that the Lower Congo can be described as

in a state of political dissolution in the 1870s. It was still a well-functioning

society, even if rapid commercialization and economic expansion had led to

a transformation of the power structure. Bastian talks, for instance, about the

emergence of a new class of upstarts (1874:195) which led to increasing

tensions and conflicts.

Janzens lawlessness and insecurity better characterizes the next period.

There is an enormous difference between the society of the 1870s where there


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still existed a traditional religious practice with its public cult and its fetishes

reinforcing thejuridical order, andthe turn of thecentury with itsindividualized

fetishism and magical struggle against disease. The shift in focus from general

fertility to the problem of female infertility is accounted for by Janzen in terms

of the slave trade and general political insecurity (1982:55). It might be more

profitable to consider that declining fertility was already widespread on the

coast following the path of venereal disease. The local population here was

severely affected by the presence of white traders and the imported African

workforce.

Janzen does not treat the religious system in its entirety, however, and there-

fore the changes may seem less profound than they really are. The major

change occurring toward the end of the nineteenth century, in connection with

colonization, was the disappearance of the entire public aspect of the religious

cult. Religion lost its larger social dimension and was reduced to a systemof magic to deal with disease. During the acute survival crisis of this period

all interest and energy was summoned in the struggle against epidemics and

sterility.

Bittremieux has, in his work of 1936, taken up a number of different aspects

of the precolonial cult. He begins by stating that the Nkisi tsi cult was central

in the traditional religion (1936:136) and he continues:

In a sense it controls the entire life of society and the family. It is from the nkisi

tsi that the chiefs get their power. Among the Bawoyo, the entire community

attempts to gain its favor by means of public ceremonies. And it is in its name

that the bandunga, masked men, also referred to as wives ofNkisi tsi or even its

soldiers, engaged in their so-called policing of Kabinda villages. It is apparentlyfor this nkisi that, among the Bawoyo, as in most of Mayombe, nubile girls are

made to enter the nzo kumbi in preparation for marriage . . . It is to this nkisi that

adult men consecrate themselves in the grand rite of semuka. (136)

Here Bittremieux refers to the royal coronation, the Bawoyos public cere-

monies, masked men in Kabinda, puberty rites for girls, and the great conse-

cration of adult men. Later in the same text he refers to nkimba, the initiation

school for young boys, and the relation between minkisi and the juridical

system. There existed, in other words, a true religious system, pervading the

entire society, before the advent of the modern era. Bentley is right when he

says that the people of the Congo . . . were practically without religion (Bent-

ley 1900 1:247). He is wrong, however, in assuming that this state of affairs

was aboriginal.

One of the first more detailed descriptions of minkisi is found in Battells

work from early-seventeenth-century Loango and Mayombe (Ravenstein


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34 Chapter 1

1901:48ff., 56ff., 61ff.). It is a fragmentary picture, but it reveals certain prin-

cipal traits of the religion that can be discovered for the period preceding

colonization.

In the capital of Mayombe there was a nkisi, he says, called Maramba. It

was placed in a tall basket in a house or under a roof without walls. This is

their religion. One consecrated oneself to Maramba, two marks were cut into

each shoulder, and a number of food taboos were imposed. The ordained wore

Marambas relics on a necklace. All unsolved deaths and thefts were brought

before him. When someone died, his neighbors were called before Maramba,

and if the deceased was an important person, the whole population had to come

and vow innocence. The guilty party fell dead to the ground.

There was another nkisi called Checocke. He was small and black and

stood in a little house in a village called Kinga. Offerings were made to him for

success in hunting and fishing. He was placed in the middle of the village, andwhen people passed by they clapped their hands. Among his qualifications was

the ability to make his best beloved possessed. A third nkisi was Gomberi.

His nganga was a woman who at its annual celebration gave a speech in his

honor from under the ground.

A fourth nkisi was called Imbonda. This word was later written as mbundu

and was used as one of the poisons administered to persons suspected of

kindoki. It is important, in this connection, to recall that the Kongo themselves

did not suppose that mbundu was a poison. It was a nkisi that had the power

to determine the guilt or innocence of the suspect, and it was assumed to be

perfectly harmless for the innocent. That it was deadly for the guilty was due

to the fact that it could search the suspects body until it found the material

substance, or organ, responsible for witchcraft (kundu) which led to death.The master of the Imbonda was placed in the center of the village (in the

high street), or in the market square, with his water and administered it to

all witchcraft suspects. Up to 500 people, both men and women, could come to

drinkmbundu. Afterwards they could urinate to demonstrate their innocence.

Those who could not fell dead to the ground after a moment, and the assembly

cast themselves upon the guilty party and cut him or her to bits. This is done

at the town of Longo almost every week, according to Battell.

There are many of theingredients of thenkisi cult to be found here. There was

a public cult for the great minkisi. Participants were consecrated to Maramba,

their bodies were ceremoniously carved, and theyobserved special food taboos.

The nkisi cult was central to the whole society. Its temple was located in the

center of the capital and there was a well-defined congregation with definite

rules. This is their house of religion, comments Battell.Minkisi were, further,

implicated in the political and juridical organization of the kingdom. Maramba

punished those guilty of theft and murder and Imbonda sought after witches.


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To those who were honest and made offerings to the gods, there was success

in hunting and fishing. These were typical traits of traditional Kongo religion

and indeed very different from the medical magic that we find at the turn of

the twentieth century.

Traditional Kongo religion is not easily understood. The material is frag-

mentary, often contradictory, and sometimes even incomprehensible. There are

several reasons for that. One is that the religious sphere was the most inacces-

sible for the Europeans. Certain places of religious importance were so holy

that the common man dared not look upon them, let alone set foot upon them

(see Bastian 1874:221) and subsequently they were also overlooked by the

Europeans (cf. Verly 1955:477ff.). Another reason is that the European visitor

often did not fully understand what he observed or was told. A third reason,

more interesting than the others, is the lack of a clear and consistent belief

system. And how could there be one without a group of theologians rulingover the truth? Here we have a general worldview, or mode of thought, in a

number of different shapings and a set of problems that are handled in various

ways and provided with different interpretations or solutions. There is a great

deal of ambivalence in the attitude toward the gods and for anthropological

analysis it is important to identify the contradictory statements as ambivalence

and refrain from trying to separate the true one from the false. The time per-

spective makes it even more complicated, as every piece of information must,

as far as is possible, be understood within the specific social context.

POWER AND COSMIC HIERARCHY

The spiritual world of African peoples is very densely populated with spiritual

beings, spirits, and the living dead. African religions contain, as a rule, a whole

set of different deities and spirits. R. Horton attempted to show, in his article

of 1962, that the different spirit categories among the Kalabari stood in a

certain relationship to each other and, as a whole, to the social structure. His

approach was Durkheimian and structuralist and meant, more specifically, that

every spirit category represented a specific level of the segmented social unit,

culture heroes for the larger political unit and ancestors for the descent groups.

MacGaffey has applied (1983) a similar approach to the Lower Congo.

There was, during the precolonial period, a hierarchy of spirits corresponding

to the hierarchy of political titles. At the top was Nzambi Mpungu, the most

remote and most powerful of spirits . . . the highest nzambi, the paradigm of

the series. Below him were a number of hierarchically ranked spirits: Below

him, partially localized, ranked great regional spirits (nkisi nsi) such as Bunzi

and Funza, sometimes confounded with Nzambi, and lesser bisimbi, some at


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36 Chapter 1

least of which were thought of as very old ancestors. Any of these spirits, and

also in certain contexts a human being, could be called nzambi (MacGaffey

1983:129).

The hierarchy of spirits was seen in terms of different generations, as fa-

ther, son, grandson on the model of the ideal hierarchy of all local groups,

in which each titleholder stood in a paternal relationship to his subordi-

nates. In this context he quotes Doutreloux who very explicitly expresses

this correspondence between the tata-muana-relationship in the spirit hierar-

chy and the political hierarchy. In another context, MacGaffey links local

spirits to local groups and ancestors to descent groups (MacGaffey

1977:182).

This is an important aspect of the traditional religion, but it must not ob-

scure the fact that behind this pyramidal spirit world there existed a specific

conception of God. The presence of various categories of spirits, we could say,is a secondary phenomenon, a consequence of a special idea of God, found in

clan societies.

It was basically a monistic worldview where everything hung together and

all could be traced back to a primary cause, a kind of Big Bang. This ex-

plains to some extent why it was so easy for the Kongo, and many other

African peoples, to convert to Christianity. The similarities between Chris-

tianity and African religions are obvious. The only thing the Kongo had to

do was to bypass all channels and mediums of the Force and let themselves

be persuaded that a direct contact with God was possible. The new message

was not the Christian God; He was already there, in a very similar form. In-

stead it was the idea of direct communication that was new. The transition to

Christianity was, of course, facilitated by the fact that the political hierarchycollapsed at the end of the nineteenth century. With it disappeared one cate-

gory that stood between God and the individual. Left was only fetishism. But

soon movements appeared that had the destruction of minkisi as their main

purpose.

Theirworldview was also hierarchical. The hierarchical representation of the

social world was, as we have seen, crucial for their strategies in the encounter

with the European factories during the precolonial period. The actual situation

wasinterpreted very differently by Europeansand by Africans.The Europeans

dualistic view, separating us from them, that is, where the relationship to

the Africans was interpreted in terms of a binary opposition, conceived the

factory as an enclave in a foreign environment. The Africans, however, placed,

according to their hierarchical model, the two groups higher and lower in the

flow of life-force emanating from God. The white factory was incorporated

into the political hierarchy of the area and given the position of apex since it

actually functioned as the source of power.


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Political hierarchies in the Lower Congo were based upon the control

and distribution of prestige goods (Ekholm 1972). In the precolonial period

indigenous prestige goods had been replaced by European trade goods, such

as cloth and beads. According to the Kongo mode of thought these objects,

containing political power, entered their world from above. Europe became

higher, closer to God, not just another part of the world. What to the

Europeans seemed to be a spatial relationship was interpreted by the Kongo

as a genealogical relationship.

In Lamans material, as well as in other material from the turn of the century,

we still find fragments of a more elaborate traditional worldview. But at the

same time there are clear evidences of dissolution. In an article from 1975,

M-C. Dupre presents an analysis of the Nkisi system based upon Lamans

material in The Kongo III (1962). The main purpose of her study, concerning

119 minkisi, has been to reveal the system of thought behind Kongo fetishism.As the point of departure she cites Lamans words about minkisi belonging

to three different categories, land, water, and sky, according as their nkisi-

forming medicines derive from these respective spheres. Her picture of the

cosmological field is very simple, in the sense that it contains few components.

There are forces of land, water, and sky, and the various minkisi are composed

of ingredients from these different forces (see figure 1.1).

Even if Dupres purpose was not to present a complete picture of the cos-

mological field as it appears in Lamans material, her analysis still reveals a

certain tendency in the transformation of the traditional religion. The elaborate

Figure 1.1. The Cosmological Field, based on Dupres interpretation (1975) of theCongo


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38 Chapter 1

cosmological field that we find during earlier periods (sixteenth through nine-

teenth centuries) is dissolved, and what is left after colonization are the forces

of nature and the minkisi. If she had taken up the various spirit categories and

what is said about the ancestor cult in Lamans third volume, her picture

would perhaps have been different. But on the other hand she found no reason

to do so in order to explain the fetishism of early colonial society.

In traditional Kongo religion there were two fundamental components. One

was life-force itself, which in its purest and most concentrated form is found at

everythings beginning, beyond reach, at a maximum distance from the living.

From this point it becomes increasingly diluted and diversified the nearer it

comes to the present time and the human/cultural world. The other was the

power relations through which this life-force was channeled and controlled,

and the mediums or materializations in which it was incorporated and made

accessible to man.The Kongo feel no dependence on Nzambi, says Laman (1923:23); he lives

in heaven and does not concern himself with the living and their problems:

He has created the world and lives in heaven. He does nothing really evil, is

not feared and is not prayed to. He does not usually concern himself with

the people, as he has given medicine-bags and nkisi-gods for assistance

(20).

Between him and the living there were minkisi and various spirits or lesser

gods, from which man could obtain help and protection. The deceased forefa-

thers (bakulu) were to be found in the village of the dead, living an ordinary

life like that on earth (Laman 1962:14). Basimbi is a spirit category that is

sometimes depicted as nature spirits and sometimes as ancestors who have

died twice, first in this world and then in the land of the dead. They safeguardthe country (and) man could not exist anywhere without them (33). They are

connected with mountains, ravines, stones, and water pools inside dark cliff

caves. Bankita (ancestors of the beginning) resemble basimbi in that they

are very old ancestors and also in that they exist in both a land and a water

category (Laman 1962:33, 36; Van Wing 1938:18ff.).

The Kongo used the model for the clan in many different situations. They

described the kingdom as if all started with a little group of people in the

area around the capital in a country otherwise devoid of people. The country

was thereafter, according to the myth, successively populated through de-

mographic growth and internal segmentation of this original group (Cuvelier

1930). The political relationship between king, province governor, district

chief, and village chiefthat is, between the different titleholders of the po-

litical hierarchywas, as we have seen, expressed in terms of different gener-

ations: father, son, grandson. The kingdom was in other words representedas

a clan, either in matrilineal or in patrilineal terms, emanating from the capital.


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This picture has, of course, nothing to do with the more objective construction

and development of the kingdom.

The cosmos was also conceived as a clan. Nzambi, who was the highest,

was also the oldest, at the cosmological starting point. The higher ranked was

always older. He lived in heaven, and man originated from there. Even nature

was structured as a clan; certain phenomena in nature were supposed to be

nearer the origin than others and were thought to have been created by Nzambi

at the beginning of the world. This is especially true of large upright stones

and rocks (Laman 1962:36), those places that were connected with basimbi;

Laman also mentions waters, caves, and stones as their abodes (41). Among

the Yombe it was, above all, sources of rivers and small brooks which bore

this primeval impression (Doutreloux 1967:215).

Natural phenomena like the whirlwind, thunder, lightning, and the rainbow

were also seen as more primeval and in that sense closer to Nzambi. Life-forcesaturated nature in its entirety, however, representing hidden powers that can

be of use or harm for Man (Laman 1923:23). His power is also evident in

the rain, in the growing plants, flowers, trees and fruits, in the birth of man, his

growth, his getting a beard and grey hairs (Laman 1962:55). It exists in every-

thing that lives and grows, but also, and perhaps particularly, in that which for

the Westerner appears as deadmountains, stones, collections of stagnant

water inside dark cliff caves. The primeval in nature, and consequently higher

ranked, seems to be represented by phenomena which appear as unchangeable

and eternal, which unlike human beings and plants do not die. Characteristic

of the people of the sky is that they too, unlike people on earth, do not die;

they are white, tall, and very strong (Laman 1962:56).

Nzambi is sometimes depicted as a creator god of about the same type asin Judaism and Christianity. He has created heaven, the sun, the moon, the

stars, and he has created all that which is on earthpeople, animals, and

plants (Laman 1962:53; Van Wing 1938:2425). Thus far it is the same. But

he is a deus otiosus and must be, because he is so far away from the living.

Contact was indirectly established through materializations and mediums that

were closer to man. The Kongos God was, in fact, much more a father than the

Christian God. He was notthe engineer God (cf. Jahn 1960:101ff.) who created

(that is, constructed) man in his own likeness and who thereafter supervises

his progress. Instead he was the Ancestor, the Begetter. There existed between

him and man a bond of kinship. Direct communication with an ancestor cannot

be had. The appeal must be made to the generation/s closest to oneself. This

idea of a descent relationship between Nzambi and man explains why they

could call other human beings nzambi, both the king and their parents (even

the white missionary) (Laman 1923:15). God, the Creator, is Nzambi Mpungu,

the very great Nzambi (Laman 1962:56).


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40 Chapter 1

Nzambi lives in the sky and hence he cannot visit the earth; yet he is

not totally inactive, he observes and watches everything, that nothing may

go wrong (Laman 1962:55). Here Laman lets Nzambi stand for that which

actually is represented by the minkisi of the lower levels. When oaths were

sworn, Nzambi was taken as a witness with the implication that he would

take revenge on the one who committed perjury (Laman 1923:20ff.). This

is, however, a function that was usually assigned to nkisi Nkondi (Laman

1962:88). It does not fit the concept of a deus otiosus. This lack of consistency

may perhaps be ascribed to the introduction of Christianity, which supplied

them with such a picture of God. The same description is found in Van Wing:

Nzambi est legislateur, il punit les transgresseurs de ses lois (Van Wing

1938:30). One of his informants explained to him that all laws that the elders

had left as their heritage came from Nzambi. To break the laws was un peche

contre Nzambi and led to punishment by him (31). If we consider that theconcept Nzambi actually included the whole clan pyramid (Nzambi Mpungu

is called the very great Nzambi [Laman 1962:56]), there was perhaps nothing

contradictory in this. Nzambi is a deus otiosus if we define him narrowly as

the beginning of everything, in the remote past and at a maximum distance.

On the other hand he is present everywhere with his laws and punishments

through his presence in parents, political chiefs and minkisi.

NZAMBI, EARTH GODS, AND NKISI

Nzambi was to be found in heaven and was thereby separated from man on

earth. His body was white and clean, and it was strong and unchanging as animmovable rock (Laman 1962:55ff.). On the level below, on earth, we find

the first man, the Ancestor (Mukulu) or Nzambi a nsi, Nzambi on earth,

and those primeval phenomena that represented the origin of society. The first

man was believed to have come down to earth on a rope or a spiders thread

and hada nkisi with him: Nzambi a nsi, the first human being, who descended

from heaven and paved the way on earth, brought with him a nkisi, Mukongo

or Nakongo (Laman 1962:68).

Here a distinction is made between the Ancestor and the nkisi. They are

depicted as two different phenomena. But they can also be one (figure 1.2).

There are myths in which the Ancestor is described as a nkisi. Nakongo, who

is depicted as the first nkisi, is also described as the great ancestor of the

tribe. He is the Ancestor of the kingdom of the Kongo, and after him it wasnamed nsi a Kongo and its capital mbanza Kongo (Laman 1953:10). Thus

Nakongo is both the Ancestor and nkisi. In this case the Kongo differentiated

between Nzambi, the creator in heaven, and the Ancestor/nkisi at the origin

of life on earth. In a third version the Creator merged with the nkisi. Both


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Figure 1.2. Three different versions of the relationship between the Creator, man, and

Nkisi

Bunzi and Funza were described as creator gods who, at the same time, were

minkisi (Laman 1962:78). When Funza came down from heaven he first made

his dwelling place in water. After a while he went ashore and started to create

animals, birds, fish and all, and after that he created man (Laman 1920:10).

He was described as the master of the nkisi-gods, the most superior of all

minkisi. About the same was said of Bunzi. He was, as mentioned above, both

the creator, a tribal nkisi and the chief of the basimbi. These three versions

of the relationship between the Creator, man, and nkisi are only variations of

one and the same conception of God where the three components, in the same

way as the Trinity of Christianity, can be conceived as separate at the same

time as they are one.This reveals another interesting difference between the Kongos traditional

religion and Christianity. There was a more intimate relationship between God

and mankind in the former. God was present through the elders, the chiefs,

minkisi, and nature. The novelty that Christianity introduced was not perhaps

merelythe possibility of direct contact with Godbut, instead, the general notion

that God is distant and separate from man.

The Ancestor could also be depicted as a whole group of people, the first

immigrants. In this shape he resembles the spirit category basimbi (or bankita,

Kinda). The Ancestors or the first mans house here on earth was on a

mountain or in a cliff cave: In Bwende it is thought that Nzambi a Nsis house

still exists; it is a big rock in the middle of a valley which is called Bweno.

Others call such a rock grotto Mukongos cave (Laman 1962:68).These special localities were also associated with the first immigrants.

They came, according to the myth, from the east; they walked toward the sea,

and then they turned and walked back toward the east, along the south shore

of the River Congo. At Noki they crossed the river and then continued up


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42 Chapter 1

to Mpalabala. There they stopped at Tadi dya ngo (the Leopard Cave), from

where they migrated to Kimpese, Lukungu, and Inkisi. There were several

such caves in the Lower Congo, which have been seen as abodes for the

spirits of the deceased ancestors of the tribe and which played an important

role at the installation of kings and other political chiefs (Laman 1953:10ff.).

These mountains and rock caves were also generally associated with basimbi:

The accounts of waters, caves, stones and rocks inhabited by basimbi are

innumerable. In addition to these places, they may also dwell in mountains,

woods and plains (Laman 1962:41).

Basimbi were mainly associated with water and stone, but they could also be

connected with other aspects of nature, as in the quotation above, with forests

and plains. Basimbi and the first immigrants seem to be identical most of

the time. Laman makes a distinction when he says that the caves in question

were originally inhabited by the first immigrants and later were taken overby basimbi (196). The first immigrants (The Ancestor/s) were transformed

into basimbi by the relationship that existed between the king and certain rock

caves. Even if they are conceived as different originally, they become identical.

The nature ofbasimbi is unclear. Sometimes they appear as ancestors and

sometimes as nature spirits, as a special class of being created by Nzambi

(Laman 1962:33). They are categorized in the same way as bankita, in a land

category and a water category (1962:33, 36; Van Wing 1938:19). Those as-

sociated with land are red or dark skinned, and those associated with water

are white. The actual word basimbi comes, according to Laman, from simba

which means hold, keep, preserve (Van Wing says to attack [1938:19]).

Their task was to protect land and people and to promote fertility: man could

not exist anywhere without them (Laman 1962:33). Basimbi were closer tothe people than Nzambi was and protected/punished them. As long as the in-

dividual behaved as he should, followed all rules and kept all taboos, basimbi

brought him prosperity: They never harm him, unless he has done wrong

(33). The gods occupying the level between Nzambi and society are described

in many different ways. But in spite of all the variations they all seem to have

the same significance for man. They are older and higher ranked, own the land,

supply fertility, protect the good, and punish the bad. Besides, they constitute,

at lower levels, a force that can be used by man. In Doutrelouxs description

of the Yombe, Kinda play the same role as basimbi. For each domain (tsi)

there was a Kinda who protected and gave fertility to land and people. This

deity, who cannot be described, owns on earth certain material symbols: He

possesses . . . on the earth of which he is the proprietor and protector, material

symbols, generally boulders, Tadi (Doutreloux 1967:215).

A Kinda owns and protects the land in the same way as basimbi. Stones

and cliffs are seen as his material symbols; such natural manifestations are,


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according to Doutreloux, called Nkisi Tsi (pl. Bakisi ba Tsi). They are not

dwellings for deities, he says, but rather sacred places where only the initiated

were allowed to go (215). That they can be seen as dwellings or as material

symbols is perhaps not so important. In Lamans material it seems that they are

usually perceived as dwellings. But Laman also says: The power of basimbi

is concentrated on Tadi (Laman 1962:42; my italics).

Kinda are depicted as pure nature spirits. They are not ancestors. They were

associated with the cliff caves (Tadi) but also with other natural manifestations,

such as the sources of rivers and small brooks. When occupying new land one

must try to find the original or primeval places in nature in order to bury a

nkisi there, which, then, has the form of tribute to the deity. This would be

an expression of the pact the group entered into with the deity (Doutreloux

1967:215).

Doutreloux refers to God or life-force as nkisi. The different spirit cate-gories of the Yombe can, he says, be seen as a manifestation of one and the

same Esprit which saturates the whole of nature: cette force universelle et

immaterielle porte du reste un nom, Nkisi (226). Doutreloux has, in many

respects, the same view of the structure of traditional religion as the I present

in this book. However, nkisi is not the Force itself but a materialization of it

which mediates the channel between God and man and designates the point

of control. The Force is, or comes from, Nzambi or more directly from those

deities who are located on earth, at a shorter distance from man, and which I

here have chosen to call earth gods or gods of the land.

Laman claims that the incorporated spirit in nkisi is a nkuyu, which is de-

fined as an evil spirit or the spirit of an evil, deceased person. Its evil

nature makes the connection with minkisi very confusing. If nkisi occupieda central position in traditional religion, it would logically be connected to

bakulu/basimbi bankita, not to souls of bad people. This view of the nature

of nkisi is most certainly a result of change, when higher levels of both po-

litical and religious powers had disappeared and lower spirits had taken their

place, and when the whole nkisi complex was in disrepute. It must be kept in

mind that Lamans material on this point, to a large extent, derives from newly

converted men who certainly were anxious to delineate the nkisi cult in an

unfavorable light. Buakasa, himself a Kongo, makes a very strong connection

between basimbi and nkisi:

The force invested in the nkisi object, is the force of a simbi. Thus whenever we

come to face a nkisi we also have to face a simbi. It is possible that not all simbihad a corresponding nkisi. In every nkisi, however, there is always a simbi of

which the former is the vehicle, its materialization. The name of a nkisi is the

name of the simbi represented by the former. (Buakasa 1980:242)


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44 Chapter 1

Here nkisi and the simbi beings are one. The connection between nkisi and

basimbi exists even in Lamans material. He says, for example, that the oldest

and greatest minkisi came from mysterious lakes (Laman 1923:65), that is,

from localities which were thought to house basimbi. The connection is also

made evident by the belief that there were land-minkisi and water-minkisi (also

sky-minkisi) in the same way as there were land-basimbi and water-basimbi

(Laman 1962:64, 71).

Nzambi cannot be controlled and is, therefore, never incorporated into a

nkisi (Laman 1920:10; Van Wing 1938:35). The lesser gods, however, are

possible to control and dominate, at least to some extent. Laman makes an

exception for Bunzi, who is alternately described as the creator, a tribal

nkisi, and the chief of the basimbi (Laman 1962:36, 78, 105). But the rest

of them, even the nkisi-gods of the sky, such as thunder, can be controlled

(Laman 1920:21). Buakasa, who writes in a much later period, stresses thisdominance relationship between man and his minkisi in which simbi-spirits

are assimilated to the former. The spirit is like a slave, he says; it represents a

power that is captivated and dominated(1980:242ff.). But people in the colonial

periodseem to have had their doubts about the nature of this relationship. There

are several statements in the literature about the opposite attitude, that is, the

need for respect and obedience toward the nkisi (see Laman 1923:58).

EARTH GODS AND THE KING

The person who entered into the aforementioned pact with the earth gods was

the king (the crowned chief). Among the Yombe he obtained his power andauthority from Kinda or Nkisi tsi (De Cleene 1935:67). Among the Sundi-

Bwende, Nkisi nsi does not seem to be so closely associated with natural

manifestations (as in the case of the Yombe). Nkisi nsi was rather an ordinary

nkisi. It consisted of sacred objects, including the ingredients that were used

at the installation of the king, which were needed to strengthen his authority.

But his pact is still with the earth gods.

The king himself occupied the juncture between the world of the gods and

the world of the living (figure 1.3). He was Nzambis representative on earth

(Laman 1923:15). He was also called nzambi ku nsi, god on earth (16), and

he opened up the channel between the two worlds.

The individual, as the fragile creature he is, must establish contact with the

divine, with the strong eternal being, that which never dies. One way this could

be done was through the installation of a king. The king was placed at the point

where Force flowed from the divine to the human world. In that way he was

as important to societys existence as basimbi and minkisi. The cosmos met


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Figure 1.3. The hierarchical worldview of the Kongo

the human world in the kings person and position and was then transferred

into the latter without there being any clear demarcation between them. The

king was next in line after Nzambi and the earth gods of the cosmological

clan. After him came the whole hierarchy of political chiefs. In the elaborate

political hierarchy there were several territorial levels of elected and crownedchiefs, all of whom where charged with this paternal power (Laman 1916:201;

1923:45). Farthest down was the father (sometimes Laman gives the parents

as representatives for Nzambi) (Laman 1962:58). When the father is angry

with his son and utters his curse, he says: Am I not your father na nzambi

mpungu (na expresses reverence and the other words are the name of the god).

Contained in this is a high degree of reverence and it could be translated as

God (Laman 1916:202).

There was an identification betweenGod andfather in the traditional society,

and this was imported into Christianity. Todays Tata Nzambi denotes the

Christian God. The epithet father is usually conceived as a loan from Europe

and the new religion; Nzambi est absolument bon; il est Tata, mon Pere,

notre Pere (Bittremieux 1936:132). It is, however, completely in line with the

domestic concept of God. Laman even stresses this connection. They honor

and love God, he says, in the same way as they do the father and the chief.

In their new religious life adoration and worship of God is understood in the


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46 Chapter 1

same way. God is seen as their creator and their loving father who cares for

them (Laman 1923:83).

Religion was, in this sense, inseparable from the political structure. It did

not make up a sphere detached from the social order that generated it and had

therefore no possibility of surviving its destruction. Force flowed from God,

the beginning of everything, toward the world of the living through a hierarchy

of clan ancestors, first to the earth gods in their cliff caves and thereafter to

the king and further down the political hierarchy. However, the Force did not

only flow in one direction. It had a cyclical course. There was a way from man

upward, first to the land of the dead and from there to the earth gods. In this

way the circle was closed and the Force was restored to its source. There is a

myth about a chief entering into an alliance with a simbi-spirit, which resided

in a dark pool of water inside a cliff cave:

Kidi-kidi (sound of splashing water) is the name of a water filled cave in a rock.

The water is so dark that no stones are visible on the bottom. A powerful simbi

made it his dwelling and became very influential. A mighty chief Nangoma

Neuka, allied himself to the simbi in order to hide his life in the cave . . . When

Nangoma Neuka had lived for twelve years in the sickness of old age, he was

compelled to ask his nephew to fetch six drops of water from the cave and

besprinkle him in order that he might meet his dead ancestors. The nephew did

so and the chief died. The old people said that he returned to the simbi chief, as

the two had remained friends through the years. That is why Nangoma Neuka

dwells in Kidi-kidi instead of in the land of the dead. (Laman 1962:38)

The chief makes an alliance with the simbi spirit in order to have a longlife. After death he himself becomes a simbi spirit. He does not, as ordinary

mortals, go to the land of the dead but goes to the simbi chief as they had

been close friends through all the years. Here the two categories mesh with

one another.Basimbi becomes equivalent to dead chiefs, even if they originally

had the character of nature spirits, that is, deities separate from man. This text

is also interesting for what it says about the chiefs death. He is helped to die

(ritually killed?), and the reason given seems to be that he could not otherwise

die.

Van Wing says something puzzling about bankita (which in principle are the

same as basimbi [Van Wing 1938:20, 283; cf. Laman 1962:43]), which further

seems to connect this category of spirits with dead kings or chiefs. Bankita are

white and very strong, he says, and they are associated with primeval forests

and rivers. They are also people who died a violent death. They are, more

precisely, ancestors of the beginning who either have fallen in war, been

murdered, or committed suicide (Van Wing 1938:18).


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Who are those ancestors who have been murdered or who have committed

suicide? The history of the Lower Congo is full of them. To be ritually killed

is, during certain periods, in large parts of Africa south of the Sahara, the fate

of kings.

The murder of the king could therefore be an attempt to send the dying

to the right place. According to Doutreloux ordinary people (or their mwela)

went to Vata dya Nsitu (the village in the forest) while the crowned chiefs went

to un lieu reserve (Doutreloux 1967:234). He should not go to the land of

the dead but to Nkisi tsi or the dark water pools inside the cliff caves where

basimbi lived. It is said that the paramount chief of Nanga was not allowed to

die a natural death. He was strangled just before his decease, and his body

was thrown into a ravine (Laman 1957:143). Ravines were also usual haunts

ofbasimbi and bankita. It is unclear if the sacred kings were not allowed to, or

if they could not, die a natural death. In any case, they did not go to the land ofthe dead after death but to the higher level of ancestors, to the earth gods. Here

we can distinguish two hierarchical levels of ancestors, ordinary people in the

land of the dead and extraordinary people in the dark water pools inside the

cliff caves. Those who die a Nzambi-death cannot die again, says Laman;

but those who are killed become nkita nsi or simbi-spirits (Laman 1923:22).

There is also actually one type of suicide among high dignitaries which

could be explained in this way. There is information in the early literature of

chiefs, who often ranked just below the king, committing suicide and giving

themselves as cannibalistic offerings to the king. We shall return to this subject

later and, in this context, only point out a possible interpretation of Van Wings

data. Those who committed suicide in honor of the king and in order to be

eaten by him did so for the assumptions that they thereby were assured of ahigh position in their next existence. This act extended their reach on their

upward way back to God.

THE ACCUMULATION OF POWERAFTER DEATH: BACK TO GOD

Ordinary people seem to have been able to reach basimbi after their death, but

not as easily as the kings. At death the inner person goes to the land of the dead.

Death is not an annihilating process but a transition from one body phase to

another, to a continued existence as when the snake sloughs its skin (Laman

1920:23). It is as if we, at the end of our lives, fall away and grow weaker

until we finally disappear. But that is not the case according to Kongo religion.

After death they become stronger and more vital. The dead are the living

par excellence; they have a durable life and superhuman powers (Mahaniah


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48 Chapter 1

1980:9). There is a myth which explains this apparent contradiction. It is as

follows:

In the beginning a man and his wife had a child, but it died. The man told his

wife to lay it in the interior of the house and cover it up, but she was, under no

circumstances, to look at the child until he had returned home from a projected

journey. Then one day she heard something beginning to rustle and move from

the inner room, and she got the notion that she should look at the child. When

she opened the door she saw that it was beginning to come to life and was in the

act of shedding its skin. She was glad and immediately shut the door. When her

husband came home he saw that the door to the inner room had been opened. He

looked at the child, but it was unable to come to life as it had started to do. It died

forever. The father became indignant and said: You, my wife, are a disobedient

being. See, the child had begun to change its skin, but because you looked at it

the changing of skin has failed. Now we shall die and go to another land to betransformed. Here on earth we cannot do so. (Laman 1962:14)

The impossible thus becomes possible. We die, but only in this world. The

myth asserts that life continues after death and explains why this continuous

growth process cannot occur here on earth but must take place in another

land. Due to a disobedient wife opening the door where the dead child lay, the

possibility of sloughing ones skin in this life was lost. Now, instead, it has to

occur in the land of the dead:

When the life at nseke mpanga, the prepared land, the world, has ended, the inner

person goes to the grave which also is called where we shall remain or to the

land of the dead. The body, the thrown off shell, the skin, like the snakes, is

buried. In the land of the dead they get new bodies, cleansed of illness, woundsand defects . . . .They throw off their old skin, which is left in the grave, and get

a new, white body: To die is like changing ones body or sloughing ones skin.

Death is a transition and development process, a throwing off of the body, the

outer envelope. (Laman 1923:4748)

This shedding of skin makes them stronger. The deceased excels the living

in strength and power (Laman 1962:24). By doing as the snake they can

continue to live, become stronger and stronger; it is a kind of rejuvenation

which they call oldrejuvenation (Laman 1923:49).There occurs, as Mahaniah

states, an accumulation of active force (Mahaniah 1980:9) in which they

become strong and white.

If the woman had refrained from looking at her dead child, this process

could have taken place here on earth. It was not Nzambis intention that man

would die but that he should live eternally as the heavenly beings (Laman

1920:9). The beings in question are the people of the sky who are white,


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tall, and very strong, and who, unlike humans, never die. They die during the

dry season, but it is more of a sleep, as they reawaken when the rainy season

begins and thunder starts (Laman 1962:56).

That is how people live longer in the land of the dead, and when they be-

come weak from age they shed their skin, rejuvenate themselves, and become

stronger. When they have changed their skins five to six times they are trans-

formed into basimbi or bankita (17). These have left the world of the dead

to take up their abode here and there on the earth, e.g., under stones, in wa-

tercourses and forests or on the plains etc. (68). Basimbi are described as

human beings who have died twice, first on earth and then in the land of the

dead (33). By dying once more they have gone further in their accumulation

of power and on their way back to Nzambi, the origin of all things. Thus man

becomes one with the Force, and the circle is closed.

THE TWO SPHERES OF THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEM

There are two separate spheres of traditional religion in Lamans The Kongo

III, however vaguely outlined. They are referred to as the Nkisi Cult and the

Ancestor Cult, respectively. This distinction is also made by Van Wing (1938).

The turn-of-the-century material is not enough, however, for an understanding

of this phenomenon. This is demonstrated clearly by MacGaffey (1977) who

suspects Van Wing of Christian prejudice against fetishism. He, himself, sees

no ancestors separated from minkisi. From a historical perspective on Kongo

religion, the two spheres are, however, easily distinguishable.

The ancestor worship among the Kongo within the Belgian area seems

to be nearly extinct since some time ago. This Laman wrote a bit into the

twentieth century (1923:56). In other words it disappeared very shortly after

the colonization. The ancestor cult was closely associated with the political

structure, and it is therefore intelligible that it lost much of its significance

as soon as the political hierarchies collapsed. The first sphere contained the

tribal ancestors, represented by a set of great minkisi who were subject to cult.

Laman gives the following description:

The first great heroes, the founders of the powerful tribes of Kongo, Nsundi and

Mbenza etc., are still the objects of worship and cult practices through minkisi

with these names. The first great nkisi was Nakongo. Others have in the course

of time arisen for different purposes, but it is only during recent generations that

a whole series of minkisi of minor importance have existed. (Laman 1962:67)

Here the religious symbols are minkisi, in the form of a wooden statuette or

a container of some kind, filled with various ingredients. These minkisi are said


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50 Chapter 1

Figure 1.4. The two spheres of the religious system

to have a highlypersonalcharacter andto carry the tribal or ancestralname.

Some of them had the singular prefix mu-, plural ba-, which indicates that they

were seen as persons. The plural prefix mi-, on the other hand, expresses that itbelonged to the semi-person class (Laman 1923:60) which is typical for all the

fetishes of the later period. Of these great fetishes we therefore ought to use

the word bankisi instead ofminkisi. The word nkisi or mukisi is often placed

in the ba-class, hence bankisi, in analogy with bankuyu, basimbi (78).

Below Nzambi in heaven, there were, within this sphere of the traditional

religion, a number of great tribal or clan bankisi whose character could be

compared with the saints in Catholicism or perhaps with the Greek and Roman

pantheons as their members were gods and not just extraordinary people. The

great bankisi each had a name, a special look, a special area of activity, and

they were composed in a special way. They had mwela, that is, life and soul,

and they had ngolo, strength and power (67). A similar picture can be found

in the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Cavazzi-Labats

description is from the mid-seventeenth century and concerns the southern

part of the Kongo kingdom. There is first of all, he says, an all-powerful God

up in heaven whom they call Nzambiampungu. Below him are a number


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of other gods in the form of roughly carved wooden statuettes, each one with

its own name. Some of them have the shape of men or women and some of

wild animals, monsters, and demons (Cavazzi-Labat 1732 I:24041). Proyart,

from the eighteenth century, also makes this distinction between Nzambi in

heaven and Gods ambassadors, the wooden statuettes, on earth. These great

minkisi are here situated on the level below Nzambi, as lesser gods, but they

are more precisely culturally made beings that incorporate earth gods (Proyart

1780:129).

The other sphere has to do with the same gods but usually in connection

with certain places in nature, such as Tadi dya Ngo, cliff caves, dark water

pools, and stones. In principle there are no minkisi in this sphere. Nkisi nsi (or

tsi), which belongs to this second sphere, is of a different nature than ordinary

minkisi. Laman expresses the difference between the two aspects of religion

in the following way: Earlier the great tribal ancestors were made into nkisiand were used for various purposes. Besides, there was a so-called nkisi nsi;

it is the nkisi of the land and it represents the royal or chiefly office (Laman

1923:63).

What Laman identifies as ancestor cult are the last manifestations of this

second sphere. He talks about the graves and how the living obtain the blessing

of the father by bathing in grave earth. Power can, he says, be transferred to

the living from the dead, through the grave cult, and especially through grave-

earth (kitoto). This is conceived as the medium between the living and the

dead. The grave-earth is one with the person who is buried there . . . Earth from

the grave, therefore, bestows life, health and prosperity (Laman 1962:52).

The dead were said to inhabit two different places, the grave and the land

of the dead. There are a number of different names for this latter place, kutwazingila (where we shall live), nsi a bafwa and ku mpemba (land of the

dead), and ku mfinda (in the forest) (Laman 1962:14). Van Wing says ku

masa, in the water. He also talks of an ancestor village (gata di bakulu) located

somewhere on clan land, near forest and water in the same way as ordinary

villages are. There the dead live in the same way as during their life on earth,

only much better. They had their huts and their fields, and they had both game

and palm wine and all other things that belong to the essentials of life (Van

Wing 1938:37; cf. Laman 1962:14).

The burial ground was often an old head village (capital) where the Kitomi

resided during earlier periods. It was a replica of the main village of the living.

This is one of the examples of Kongo dualism where the world is divided in two

halves, the world of the living and the world of the dead. According to Laman

the land of the dead, or the ancestor village, was located somewhere near the

actual burial place. There they came after having spent six to eight months,

sometimes up to 10 months, in the grave where they changed their skin and


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52 Chapter 1

went through a process of power accumulation. Here they change their skins

and acquire a fair appearance like albinos. Here they get strength, so that they

are soon able to go their way (Laman 1962:15). Only the good, those who

did not devote themselves to witchcraft during their lives, were accepted in the

land of the dead. The evil ones became bankuyu (evil spirits) and continued to

torment the living (Laman 1916:207; 1923:4950). The dead stayed in their

own village and did in no way trouble the living. The communication between

the living and the dead was, however, very active. The living solicited the help

of the dead, and it was the dead chief they turned to, not just to anyone. The

fathers power when deceased is not pronounced and outstanding in all, says

Laman; it was only certain Ancestors and chiefs who became the objects of

cults, depending on the degree of power they possessed during life (Laman

1923:51).

The dead were actually the owners of the land and all game that lived onit (Van Wing 1938:37). They gave the hunter his kiana (hunters luck) and, in

return, he was to give them the heart of his kill (he could also, as already

mentioned, give this to his living father). If they get meat, then they will also

give meat in return (Laman 1916:209). The graves were cared for. They were

to be hoed at the end of the dry season, so that the fires could not sweep over

them. After that, palm wine was poured as a gift accompanied by a prayer

for blessing (Laman 1962:46). This was a duty toward the dead, and if it was

omitted, there could be serious consequences. Then one had offended and

polluted them (Laman 1916:209).

The living could also make contact with thedead and the power they possess,

when the former had some serious problem. Then they also went to the graves

in order to bathe in the grave-earth. Ancestor worship is called ngioboloatobe, in the Kongo language, bathing in grave-earth (Laman 1923:51).

Here Laman seems to identify the ancestor cult with the bathing in grave-

earth. Mahaniah who writes in the later period, provides the same picture.

The grave-earth is, he says, le pointe de contact le plus intime between the

dead and the living. The grave is the door between the two worlds, through

which one can communicate (Mahaniah 1980:40). The living go to the grave

to rub themselves with grave-earth, a medium for paternal power, in order to

get health and success via the fathers blessing.

If we examine the very oldest material to ascertain the structure of the

cosmological field at that time, we find striking similarities with the more

elaborate picture of the turn of the century, indicating a significant continuity.

The terms nkisi and nganga are there from the very beginning. In Histoire

du Congo, written at the end of the sixteenth century, it is made clear that

the population had une grande veneration for their banganga, priests, and

fetishes (Cuvelier and Jadin 1954:122). The fetishes seem to have the same


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form as in later periods: plain carved wooden figures or receptacles filled with

various types of ingredients. The Europeans also observed a cult at the graves

in the old Kongo kingdom. In Histoire du Congo, from the end of the sixteenth

century, there is a description of how les enfants and les proches parents

went to the burial ground, infinda, at every new moon, to mourn and to give

food and drink to the dead (123). I will here give a brief presentation of the

pattern that can be derived from early material.

We have quite detailed information about the religious practice in the early

sixteenth century as the Kongo king, with the help of Europeans, launched a

violent attack on the traditional religion. After contact with the Portuguese,

the king converted to Christianity. The old king, Nzinga Nkuwu, who died

in the beginning of the sixteenth century, managed to revert to his former

religion, but his son Affonso, who became the king of the Kongo in 1506,

remained Christian throughout his long reign (15061543). He dedicated allof his energies to the elimination of the traditional religion. Nzinga Nkuwu

had earlier ordered, as it is reported, that all supernatural objects (objets

superstitieux) and fetish houses (huttes a fetiches) be burned (Cuvelier

1946:69, 79, 120), and the project was carried out earnestly by Affonso. The

latters name had been Mpemba Nzinga before he took on Christianity and his

Portuguese name. Now, when you have seen Gods Cross, he is to have said

to a gathering of chiefs, you shall never more pray to your fetishes nor trust in

amulets. He who transgresses against these prohibitions shall be condemned to

death (120). Fetish houses were destroyed, minkisi were burned, and Christian

churches were built in their stead. In 1514, Affonso turned to the governor of

San Tome with a plea for military assistance. He intended to burn a large

fetish house (a casa gramde dos ydolos) and as he expected resistance fromthe traditionalists, he hoped to get external reinforcements (Paiva Manso

1877:16; Brasio 1952:296).

Affonso also directed his attacks in another direction. In a letter from 1526

to the king of Portugal he tells how he had a certain grove, north of the capital,

cut down, a grove where the former kings were buried (Brasio 1952:479). He

later had a church built in this very place.

Affonso did not succeed, in spite of his heroic attempts, in eradicating the

traditional religion. His campaign was continued through the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries under the aegis of fanatical missionaries and sanctionedby

the local ruling elite. There are numerous descriptions of the way in which the

European missionaries assaulted the fetish houses, burningand destroying what

could be found ofminkisi and musical instruments (see Montesarchio, Georges

de Gheel, Luca da Caltanisetta). These houses were often called kimpasi-huts.

Kimpasi is the term that later is associated with initiation schools for youth. It is

believed that duringthe seventeenthcentury they were used as general places of


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54 Chapter 1

religious congregation and thus represent the principal equivalent of the church

and main target for the modernists (Balandier 1965:219). Montesarchio,

who worked in the northern and eastern parts of the Kongo kingdom in the

mid-seventeenth century, tells how he fought against an association called

Chinpassi Chianchita (Kimpasi kia nkita). During a visit to the capital of the

province of Mbata, he succeeded in burning six chinpassi in the environs

of the town followed by three along the road to San Salvador and, finally,

another three on returning to Mbata (de Bouveignes and Cuvelier 1951:156

60). When, on one occasion, he tried to explain to members how wrong they

were, how they were slaves of the devil who would be excluded from the joys

of heaven and would instead burn in hell, they answered him by saying that

they believed in neither heaven nor hell and that leur chinpassi etait leur dieu

(162).

Thus both rulers and European missionaries attacked minkisi and houses (ortemples) where these minkisi were kept and which seem to have been centers

of the public cult. The other strategic target was a certain wood north of the

capital where former kings were buried. At the highest ranks of the kingdom

the grave cult was directed toward the dead kings, and the burial ground was a

sacred grove north ofmbanza Kongo. From later material, especially from the

seventeenth century, we know that this grave cult wascontrolled by a titleholder

who, in some parts of the country, was called Kitomi. Kitomi ensured fertility,

and in exchange he received the first fruits (Cavazzi-Labat 1732 I:254). In

that he mediated for the fathers, or the dead kings, blessing, he was, in other

words, the representative of the dead father.

This fits well with the model of two religious spheres that can be deduced

from the material about the much later precolonial society. The public cult atthe turn of the century was focused on the earth deities. Each political unit had

its own earth gods connected with the founding of the kingdom. There could

either be a single godhead, primal father, founder, the first king, or a set of

earth deities: the royal ancestors or basimbi/bankita.

At the lowerlevel, closest to theliving and more accessible, were theminkisi,

in the form of wooden statues and receptacles filled with various ingredients.

Such gods were more individually specific in character; possessing both body

and soul and integrated in a specific way. They were usually placed in the

villages, in the cultural sphere. They had their special taboos, and those dedi-

cated to them might not transgress them for fear that their power be closed

off from them. In order to reactivate them, they had to be raised via rituals

and offerings.

At a higher level and less attainable for mere mortals we again find the earth

gods in a more primordial state. Among the Yombe the word Kinda referred

to a god or to life-force in itself, and Nkisi tsi referred to the location in nature


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where such force was materialized. The equivalent among the Vili is Bunsi

and Nkisi nsi. Bunsi existed in the earth, according to Pechuel-Loesche, and

rose to the crust at certain places where the sacred fire burned and places

of offering were established (Pechuel-Loesche 1907:27677). Fetishes are

not honored, he writes; but Nkisi nsi is referred to as follows: Ein Fetisch

is greifbar und kann vernicht werden. Kissi nssi is unantastbar und ist den

Blicken der Menschen ebensoentzogen wie Nsambi selbst (276). Nkisi nsi

also functioned as a symbol of the primordial ancestor:

The Nkisi tsi is the sacralized spirit of the primordial ancestor that occupied and

determined the territorial boundaries of the clan. It is honored in a sanctuary

(tschibila) designated by the same name as the temple in which it is located,

constituted of a sacred grove with variable dimensions and to which access is

forbidden for the Fumu (princes). (Hagenbucher-Sacripanti 1973:31)

The primordial ancestor, or the first king, is referred to here as Nkisi tsi. His

temple consisted of a sacred grove to which the princes were forbidden access.

The earth gods, too, were associated with specific natural symbols. They could

be mountain caves, water pools, springs, and so forth. Such places were also

described as ancient capitals or royal graveyards. Thus, when Affonso cut

down the sacred grove where previous kings lay buried, he truly assaulted the

core of traditional religious practice.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE TRADITIONAL RELIGION

One may sympathize in part with Hortons interpretation of African conversion

(1971). Horton starts with the general model of the spirit hierarchy of the pre-

Christian period. There was, he says, a supreme being concerned with the

world as a whole and lesser spirits concerned with the local community and

its environment. People directed more interest and concern toward the lesser

spirits, as most eventsboth fortunate and unfortunatewere attributed to

their agency. Ideas about the supreme being were usually vaguerfew events

were attributed to him, and their techniques for approaching him were poorly

developed. The reason for that, according to Horton, is that people under

traditional conditions live their lives in rather isolated communities and do not

feel affected by the wider world.

From this model he tries to

kongodereligionàmagie

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