Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz - Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of The Sign (2013, Temple University Press)
Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz - Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of The Sign (2013, Temple University Press)
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2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
Existing LIterature 4
Methodology 12
6 Conclusion 191
Notes 193
Bibliography 211
Index 221
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Bakongo over time and will explore in detail the traditions that shape the
systematic use of this system. We will see that these traditions demonstrate
an undeniable continuity between contemporary graphic writing systems
used in Central Africa and those used in Cuba and between these systems
and millennia-old rupestrian art found in Angola and the Democratic Re-
public of the Congo. The Bakongo examine the powerful and central role
that graphic communication has played in transmitting cultural knowledge,
values, and beliefs from generation to generation, thus preserving cultural,
social, and spiritual identity throughout periods of extreme disruption.
In Chapter 2, “The Atlantic Passage: The Spread of Kongo Belief in
Africa and to the Americas,” we provide the basic historical context for the
development of Kongo graphic writing systems. A brief description of the
physical and cultural history of the Bakongo is offered, with a focus on the
population movements and conditions that led to the formation and sur-
vival of Kongo cultural practices and beliefs and their evolution over time
and through periods of upheaval, such as colonialism and independence,
the slave trade, and emancipation.
In Chapter 3, “The Process of Meaning Making: The Kongo Universe,”
we introduce the basic cosmology that underlies Kongo culture. Here we
discuss the religious context within which the Bakongo and their descen-
dants live and investigate the manner in which they contextualize and inter-
pret the world around them. Weaving together strands of past and present
beliefs in Central Africa and Cuba and demonstrating the intertwined his-
tories and parallel development of these two cultures, we discuss Kongo
myths of origin, the spiritual role accorded the ancestors, the powers at-
tributed to and characteristics of natural and cosmic forces, and the cho-
reographed interactions between man and God at all stages of the life cycle.
In Chapter 4, “Afro-Atlantic Graphic Writing: Bidimbu, Bisinsu, and
Firmas,” we examine the ways in which the cosmological and cosmogon-
ical underpinnings explored in Chapter 3 both inform and are expressed
by two-dimensional components of graphic writing systems. Known as bi-
dimbu or bisinsu in Central Africa and firmas in Cuba, the written symbols
used by the Bakongo function foremost as a means by which to record reli-
gious exegesis, guide and shape religious praxis, and embody spiritual and
cultural principles. They provide community members a means by which
to understand and engage the world and to communicate with one an-
other and with ancestral and spiritual forces. Beginning with ancient rupes-
trian art (some known, some never previously documented), in this chapter
we trace the development of graphic writing in Central Africa, its involun-
tary transplantation to the new world, and the ongoing role it plays in Ba-
kongo and Bakongo-descended religion and culture on both sides of the
Atlantic. Rich with multilayered meanings and used for lay purposes (such
as conveying messages between hunters and demarcating productive agri-
cultural sites) as well as religious ones in Central Africa, graphic writing in
Cuba disappeared from the secular world while flourishing in the sacred
realm and became what is today an exceedingly complex and fiercely pro-
Introduction 3
tected language that requires many years for mastery. In addition to tracing
the development of graphic writing forms and exploring the range of their
uses, in Chapter 4 we delve deeply into the meanings embedded in such
forms and details as the manner in which the belief systems set forth in the
fi rst chapter are integrated into and expressed through the numerous exam-
ples provided.
In Chapter 5, “Beyond the Scripture: Physical Forms of Graphic Writ-
ing,” we look beyond conventional understandings of writing to explore
the roles played by physical objects and oral traditions. We argue that these
multi- and nondimensional modes of communication, by overlapping and
reexpressing the beliefs and meanings conveyed by written symbols, allow
the practitioners to both know and communicate their cultural and individ-
ual identities. We explore the concurrent diversity and constancy evidenced
in minkisi, or prendas in Cuba—sacred objects built to contain spiritual
forces and command their attendant powers—as well as the mambos and
other ritual words used to activate and engage these spirits and transmit
cultural and religious teachings. We examine numerous examples of these
objects—some in contemporary usage—with their various physical features,
construction materials, and other visual elements “read” to illustrate the in-
tentional precision and richness of meaning conveyed through their design.
While continuing to trace the close connections between the forms mani-
fest in Central Africa and those in Cuba, in Chapter 5 we also argue that
it is this integration of a full range of visual and oral communicative tech-
niques that both defi nes and is made possible by graphic writing systems.
This book grows out of several decades of involvement in Kongo-based
graphic writing systems. My earliest work on the topic was personal. Grow-
ing up inside the Afro-Cuban Palo Monte religion, I attempted to organize
the meanings and uses of the signs and symbols I learned during my early
religious education. Learning how to use graphic forms is a fundamental
requirement for all members of the religion. One’s level of proficiency is
related to the hierarchy within the religion. It is assumed that a higher level
requires more knowledge and fluency in the use of graphic communication.
In the early 1970s I created a notebook with a growing graphic vocabulary
that helped me practice and teach other members of the religion how to
create basic meanings using written signs. I learned that the graphic writ-
ing used by Palo Monte priests (paleros) involves more than just symbols
and includes a variety of signs and actions that are systematically organized
into a coherent process of signifying. I soon sought to expand my under-
standing of this process beyond its uses within the borders of Cuban cul-
ture. My curiosity raised many questions, such as how a tradition based
in African beliefs and practices came to occupy a prominent place in the
religious mosaic of Cuba. What specific historical and cultural conditions
existed to allow this process to develop and survive in Cuba? What role did
graphic communication play within the colonial setting and for the people
oppressed by that system? Would it be possible to trace the African sources
present within contemporary Cuban graphic writing and to understand the
4 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
process that led from one to the other? Spending two years, from 1986 to
1988, in Angola with the Cuban army gave me an opportunity to witness
practices and hear about beliefs not dissimilar to those with which I was
raised and further piqued my interest in gaining a fuller understanding of
the connections between the traditions practiced continents apart.
When I returned to Cuba from Angola in 1988, I began to study art
history at Havana University. As part of my early coursework, I read a chap-
ter from Robert Farris Thompson’s Flash of the Spirit, published four years
earlier. I immediately recognized the chapter’s importance for my future
research interest. I found the chapter “The Sign of the Four Moments of the
Sun: Kongo Art and Religion in the Americas” to be a brilliant unification
of the Kongo graphic writing tradition in Cuba with its counterpart in Cen-
tral Africa. I read the chapter many times during the next few weeks, feeling
that this was what I wanted to do—it was an essay I wished I had written.
I still do. Its comparison across primary sources and close visual analysis of
the process of making meaning in both Central Africa and the Caribbean
resonated deeply with material from my studies and from my own personal
experiences in Afro-Cuban religion. It made me view such experiences in a
new way. This fi rst encounter with Thompson’s work—exemplified by this
chapter that achieves a successful balance of interpretative insight and theo-
retical sophistication, deeply rooted in Kongo material culture—has come
back to me frequently over the years as I have deepened my studies, con-
ducted my own research, and developed classes for new students of the sub-
ject. Thompson’s scholarship remains a cornerstone of the literature across
those fields in which he is a pioneer, and his work, as well as the training I
received from him as my doctoral adviser, continues to inspire and inform
my own work, including this book, which attempts, among other goals, to
answer my own early questions about my religious upbringing.
eXiSting LiteratUre
As we will explore in detail in subsequent chapters of this book, graphic
writing among the Kongo is not an imitation of speech and its meaning is
not phonocentric, that is, dependent on interpretation of specific sounds. It
is a system of communication that is not derived from, but that interfaces
with, multiple forms of meaning notation, including symbols, pictographs,
ideograms, morphemograms, and logographs, as well as more complex
three-dimensional figures, gestures, and actions. A classic example of the
adage that a sum is greater than its parts, Kongo graphic writing is best
understood systemically rather than through a cataloging of the meanings
underlying distinct, alphabetic signs. Integrating belief systems with cosmo-
gonical structure, Kongo graphic writing serves a recording, storytelling,
and constructive role and goes far beyond picture theory, in which specific
symbols or images serve as direct representation of concepts and speakable
meanings. Theories based on linguistic paradigms rooted in Western tradi-
tions will not lead to an understanding of Kongo graphic writing systems;
Introduction 5
nor will they assist in the examination of the continuity between such writ-
ing systems in Central Africa and the Kongo diaspora.
Given the breadth of usage meaning and form of graphic writing sys-
tems among the Bakongo, multiple and diverse strands of scholarship con-
tribute to our understanding. However, little academic work exists that
examines forms of graphic communication in Central Africa or the Ca-
ribbean in great depth or in a social context. Historian Giovanni Anto-
nio da Montecuccolo Cavazzi in 1687 documented detailed descriptions
and images of Kongo daily life and religious practice, and missionaries and
ethnographers Karl Laman, Joseph van Wing, and Efraim Andersson docu-
mented vast amounts of information on the cultures and religions they en-
countered while living in Central Africa. These reports, however, like other
travel accounts and missionary writings emerging out of early European
contact with the region, were informative but did not focus on or even ap-
preciate the forms and uses of graphic expression and, as Wyatt MacGaffey
notes, reflected their authors’ status as observers rather than practitioners
or academics.1 Indeed, many of the earliest studies of writing in Africa fur-
thered the idea that African people are without writing. Value was attrib-
uted only to writing that conformed to classic Western print culture, that
is, writing built from a single alphabet and resulting in the publication of
books and other literary endeavors, and no effort was made to understand
African forms of graphic expression on their own terms. Other publications
on the subject, including those by prominent explorers David Livingstone
and Henry Morton Stanley, were written in the nineteenth-century colonial
context, and their portrayal of Africans as cultureless and uncivilized was
consistent with the political and religious aims of the day. Like the other
so-called benefits of a civilizing European colonial regime, the introduc-
tion of the “technology” of writing was believed to be the result of West-
ern influence.
Early scholarship on African writing focused mainly on northern Africa,
including Egyptian hieroglyphics, generally examined as part of a Western
discourse on antiquity, Christian examples such as the Coptic religious texts
in Egypt and Ethiopia, and Islamic writing among the Berbers in Morocco
and Andalusia, Spain. Other African sub-Saharan writings, such as Vaï in
West Africa, Mum script in Cameroon, and the Nsibidi script of the Efi k
and Ekoï in Cameroon and Nigeria, received less attention.2
Exceptions to this general lack of attention include Lucien Lévy-Bruhl’s
work on African cultural references, which influenced the work of C. G.
Jung, particularly the latter’s glossary of signs, but ignored culturally specific
constructed meanings and described African graphic expression as lacking
consciousness.3 Publications by H. Jensen, J. H. Greenberg, J. DeFrancis,
D. Dalby, and C. Geertz reviewed and catalogued certain examples of Afri-
can writing in encyclopedic fashion and reinforced the idea of a universality
of writing in which Africa is represented in a manner that lacks both histor-
ical and geographic contextualization.4 Monographic publications of more
culturally specific case studies have been made by scholars including K. F.
6 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
graphic expression and oral accounts related to cosmogony are a vital com-
ponent of the foundation of cultural principles such as memory and other
forms through which knowledge is conveyed, such as wall paintings and
decorative motifs. As discussed in Chapter 4, Griaule also recognizes the
continuity of graphic symbols over time and has produced a groundbreak-
ing compendium of rupestrian signs and symbols in Le renard pâle (The
Pale Fox), which Griaule published in collaboration with G. Dieterlen. Gri-
aule’s work successfully counters the Western demands for permanency and
readability and breaks new ground in part because of the extensive field-
work on which it is based and its use of a multidisciplinary methodology.
Although they are generally not studied in the context of writing de-
spite their role in complex systems of graphic communication, three-dimen-
sional art forms in Central Africa have been documented and examined in
traditional African art history texts, including those by Cheikh Anta Diop,
Monni Adams, Muhammad Ali Kahn, Louis Brenner, Donald Jackson,
Gaston Maspéro, David Dalby, Victor Y. Mudimbe, Jacques Fédry, Joseph
Greenberg, Georges Meurant, and William Warburton. Many of these texts
contain conventional, speculative, and idealistic interpretations of the object,
but they provide little insight into the social and spiritual context of art and
do not discuss the manner in which such objects are used in conjunction
with other forms of visual art or graphic expression. As Wyatt MacGaffey
argues in Custom and Government in the Lower Congo and Astonishment
and Power, the consideration of Kongo material culture across disciplines
has generally been done in one of two ways.6 The fi rst is derived from the
nineteenth-century disciplines of anthropology and ethnography, which al-
though distinct fields at the time, studied the same objects and “reduce[d]
the totality of the phenomenon to an aspect selected for its consonance
with a particular Western institution.”7 Characterizing a second approach,
one still favored by many museums and private collections, MacGaffey as-
serts that general Western assumptions and associations with the notion of
primitivism align to endeavor to produce a theatrical visual pleasure, such
as through “an object haphazardly selected as representative of a given nkisi
and subsequently labeled ‘fetish’ in a museum collection.”8
Scholars who have studied and defi ned graphic expression more broadly
than as a collection of traditional objects or conventional visible marks and
have considered the societal role of both two- and three-dimensional visual
forms include Costa Petridis, Zoe Strother, Evan M. Maurer, Allen F. Rob-
erts, and Mary Nooter Roberts, particularly through their studies of how
forms of graphic expression are used in divinatory strategies as a mechanism
for the visible notation of the divinatory records. Such work has expanded
the defi nition of graphic expression to include systems of signs, numerology,
forms of religious exegesis, rites of passage, initiations, and kinetic and sonic
events such as ephemeral masquerades. This more expansive defi nition al-
lows one to understand complex graphic expression as distinct from a system
that merely functions to record language. Maurer and Roberts’s arguments
are presented in Tabwa: The Rising of a New Moon: A Century of Tabwa
8 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
Art, where they explore the social, political, economic, and religious histor-
ical context, the cosmology, the specific geographic and ecological environ-
ment, and the cultural function of Tabwa art.9 Also making a substantial
contribution to the field of visual communication in African art is the work
by Mary Nooter Roberts among the Luba people in Central Africa. Like
Allen Roberts, Mary Roberts endeavors to create a methodological frame-
work to facilitate a better understanding of graphic expression and the epis-
temological implications of the African notion of art. Both scholars defi ne
and categorize graphic expressions in specific cultural and religious practices
such as divinatory and initiation rites and explore the relationships between
power and form and between changes in form and changes in society.10
A number of other scholars from a variety of disciplines have been sim-
ilarly interested in the religious and other cultural practices of the Kongo
and related cultural groups and have contributed to an understanding of
some of the components of graphic writing systems, although they did not
study the subject practices in this light. Anthropologist Wyatt MacGaffey
conducted extensive fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
and has published numerous pieces on Central African history and cul-
ture, focusing on social and political organizations and the history and
formation of religious practices. Among MacGaffey’s most significant con-
tributions is his work on the Kikongo language and its influence on and
reflection of cultural and religious beliefs. Other writers, including Broni-
slaw Malinowski, Pierre Verger, Fernando Ortiz, Lydia Cabrera, Argeliers
León, Roger Bastide, Yeda Pessoa de Castro, Jan Vansina, and John Thorn-
ton, have also touched upon certain of the more visible religious practices.
Farther afield, but interesting in its attention to ritual practices, the work
of Luc de Heusch and Victor Turner uses traditional anthropological and
ethnographic methodologies like those used by Daniel Biebuyck, Rik Ceys-
sens, Filip De Boeck, Renaat Devisch, Dunja Hersak, and Pierre Petit to
explore confl ict, social drama, and the formation of political and social insti-
tutions among the Kongo and Ndembu people in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo and Zambia.11 In particular, de Heusch’s and Turner’s stud-
ies of social relationships and development of a framework from which to
understand how knowledge is created and exchanged in a large sociopolit-
ical context provide a useful foundation for the study of the development
and spread of graphic writing systems and the meanings embedded therein.
The two scholars who delved into Kongo religious and cultural com-
munication systems in the most depth are linguist Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji,
in Arts africains: Signes et symboles, and African art historian Robert Far-
ris Thompson, in The Four Moments of the Sun, and it is from their work
that this book most directly follows. Faïk-Nzuji introduces the notion of
bidimbu as a mode of expression and graphic tradition in Central and West
Africa, critiques the concept of symbol in the context of African culture
and language, and attempts to explain the semantic complexity of the tra-
dition through the exploration of basic linguistics. Robert Farris Thomp-
son explains the use of basic Kongo graphic writing while exploring the
Introduction 9
methodoLogy
To address the gaps in the existing literature on Kongo graphic writing sys-
tems, I have conducted field research in Angola and Cuba. Over the past de-
cade, I have worked directly with residents of Mbanza Kongo, the former
capital of the Kongo Kingdom in northern Angola, including local priests
Alfonso Seke, Paulino Dulandula, Joan Paulino Polar, Mayifwila Rafael
Rivals, Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, Nsenga Alabertina, Pedro Savão, and Fran-
cisco Lusolo. My research has included work with village chiefs, the local
ethnographer and museum director, local historians, and members of the
state and city governments. Field research data were obtained through in-
terviews with these and other individuals and through personal observation
of religious practices and daily use of graphic communication techniques
in the town of Mbanza Kongo and in the surrounding villages as well as
through extensive documentation of rupestrian sites containing rock paint-
ings and carvings discussed in Chapter 4. I also traveled across the border
into the Democratic Republic of the Congo to explore a series of caves in
the region and was able to observe historical evidence of graphic writing in
local cemeteries and on fragments of pottery found in the area.
In addition to working with religious figures, community leaders, and
Bakongo elders in Angola, I have worked extensively with Afro-Cuban
priests of Palo Monte for most of my childhood and adult life. In Havana, I
worked closely with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, a respected palero in the El
Cotorro district. With him I came to deeply know the religion and learned
to both create and interpret an enormous range of graphic communica-
tion. I have also studied with Francisco de Armas, a palero from Matanzas.
Finally, I have been working closely with Felipe Garcia Villamil for the past
decade. Garcia Villamil is a Cuban palero as well as a priest of Abakua, an
Afro-Cuban religion developed predominantly from the southern Nigeria
culture of Cameroon, and Ocha (Lukumi), an Afro-Cuban religion with
roots among the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin. Garcia Villamil now resides
in the United States and remains actively involved in the Afro-Cuban reli-
gious communities of New York City and Los Angeles. More generally, I
have worked with multiple paleros and Palo Monte groups in New Jersey
and Miami. I am enormously indebted to the individuals in both Angola
and Cuba who have taken the time to work with me and have trusted me
Introduction 13
with their recollections of, experiences in, and insights into their respec-
tive traditions.
As is true to a certain degree for any scholar and researcher working
with cross-cultural material and conducting fieldwork, my own cultural and
religious background has influenced the manner in which I have compiled
and interpreted the source material for this book. Because I grew up within
Palo Monte, I have had unique access to paleros and other members of the
Afro-Cuban religious community, and my experience working with them
has been affected by this in several ways. My shared knowledge of this tradi-
tion has facilitated immediate discussion with senior paleros and equipped
me with the religious and social tools necessary to navigate the hierarchy of
knowledge and power within the religion. In my dual role as a practitioner
and scholar, I am cognizant of both the advantages and dangers associated
with the subjectivity of the former. As a result, I have sought to balance
these identities, maintaining a focus on gathering information about the
development of Palo Monte, on issues of temporality and on local and re-
gional variations in practice, and have consistently probed and questioned,
unwilling to accept assumptions or take matters on faith.
In a similar vein, my personal background and experience have had an
impact on the manner in which I have been able to establish relationships
with, develop access to, and engender the trust of Bakongo groups and re-
ligious authorities in northern Angola. As a veteran of the Cuban army’s
extensive involvement in Angola’s civil war, I have, generally speaking, en-
countered enormous gratitude for my service among both the local popu-
lation and individuals in positions of power, although in certain remote,
rural areas in northern Angola that were once strongholds of the principal
rebel group against which Cuba fought (UNITA), the opposite has been
true. On a practical level, appreciation by and trust of government officials
have proven a double-edged sword, in some cases facilitating access—at
least logistically—and in others engendering further suspicion regarding my
motives. As a more general matter, I have not found that my military expe-
riences have come into discussions with local religious and cultural authori-
ties or influenced the degree to which individuals have been willing to share
information with me. What has likely had a more significant impact, as on
my work on Palo Monte, is my own religious and cultural background. The
ability to share similar stories, proverbs, music, and rituals with Bakongo
practitioners as well as a common foundation of reason and logic has en-
abled me to frame questions and elicit answers in an effective manner.
C H A P T E R 2
The Bakongo people are found today in northern Angola, southern Dem-
ocratic Republic of the Congo, southern Gabon, and the Republic of the
Congo. A subset of broader Bantu culture that today stretches across much
of eastern, central, and southern Africa, the Bakongo first settled in Central
Africa as a result of larger migrations across the continent. It is generally be-
lieved that the Bantu originated in the vicinity of the Cross River Valley, an
area covered by present-day Chad and Sudan. Archaeologist John Desmond
Clark, in his book The Prehistory of Africa, calls the spread of Bantu-speak-
ing people “one of the most intriguing and challenging problems in Afri-
can studies today” and asserts that its route and full impact on the peopling
of the continent will only be known “through a correlation of many lines
of evidence,” including tracing the genetic similarities between groups and
mapping the linguistic variations measurable today.1 According to the geog
rapher James L. Newman, two major streams of expansion and migration
began approximately five thousand years ago. The first spread south from
regions presently comprising Chad and Sudan toward and through present-
day Cameroon before turning slightly eastward and spreading across and
down to cover present-day Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Repub-
lic of the Congo, and northern Angola. The second stream tracked farther
to the east, also moving south, to present-day Kenya, Uganda, and Tanza-
nia.2 Bakongo oral history identifies Ntunu Nzaku Nevunda as the founder,
hero, warlord, bearer of civilization, and creator of the Kongo Kingdom.3
Georges Balandier and Joseph van Wing mention the importance of the
Nevunda family name in the growth of the kingdom. The following leg-
end cited by van Wing speaks to the direct relationship between expansion
and migratory routes that originally facilitated the acquisition of neighbor-
ing lands.4
15
16 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
It is I, Mpungu.
It was old grandmother Nkumba-Nkumba who gave
birth to us all.
When we left the Kongo
there were nine caravans,
nine leaders’ staffs
The bone of our ancestors,
we brought, we use them to anoint the chiefs,
and the grass rings as well.
The roads were sure,
the villages where we slept were peaceful.
We arrived at the ford of Nsimba.
We stayed together,
We did not separate.
We came to many rivers, to waters of all kinds.
A woman, the mother of a clan, stayed
at the ford of the Mfidi.5
protein sources were secured through hunting, fi shing, and the domestica-
tion of goats, pigs, and cattle. Trade in food, raffia, woven and bark cloth,
and medicine was also prominent, and there was limited mining of iron
ore and copper.25
While useful in their recorded detail, travel narratives and missionary
accounts must be read and understood within the context in which they
were created: to serve the narrow ideological purposes of furthering the
expansion of the Portuguese colonial empire and spreading Catholicism in
the region. Primary sources of this ilk include those by Giovanni Anto-
nio da Montecuccolo Cavazzi, Jaun Garcia Mateo de Anguiano, Filippo de
Pigafetta, Girolamo Montesarchio, Giovanni Francesco Romano, Fra Luca
da Caltarnisetta, António Brásio, J. Cuvelier, L. Jadin, O. Dapper, David
Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley.26 Such sources, held in locations
including the Propaganda Fide archive in Rome, the archive of the Over-
seas Council of Lisbon, and the Archive of the West India Company at The
Hague, provide material on several aspects of Kongo religion, social struc-
ture, and political development and on the early exchanges between the
Kongo kingdom and European colonial powers.27 Later accounts, such as
those by Jan Vansina and Kajsa Ekholm Friedman, focus on what West-
ern historiography refers to as secondary historical materials such as oral
accounts and other nonwritten or otherwise undocumented sources. Van-
sina, a prominent historian, was among the fi rst to recognize the value of
such sources and to argue that oral history is a valid and valuable way to
build a historical argument.28
Despite the shortcomings of much of the early published material, the
Kongo social history of the period from the fi fteenth century through the
late nineteenth century has been extensively examined by historians John
Thornton and Joseph Miller.29 In attempting to present a more complex
view of social history and address larger issues such as cultural and political
economy, social changes, ethnicity, and other markers of identity, Thornton
and Miller explore the tension between tradition and modernity. However,
these authors generally omit discussion of the role of cultural brokers in
contributing to modern cultural practices and devote limited space to creat-
ing an understanding of local cultural negotiation and the development of
mechanisms through popular culture to reflect and shape new social phe-
nomena. Specifically, the role and encompassing nature of Christianity have
been overstated, with the effect of erroneously viewing certain religious
practices as extinct and overlooking the emergence of new forms of tradi-
tion-based practices.
European interest in the Bakongo soon developed beyond curiosity
about the exotic and a desire to spread Christianity into explorations of
the potential for resource extraction and other economic benefit as a center
of the slave trade. By the end of the fi fteenth century, diplomatic relations
had been established with the Portuguese. From this time to 1884, when
Angola formally became a Portuguese colony, the Kongo alternately fought
T h e A t l a n t i c Pa s s a g e 21
and established various trade agreements with Portugal, including the lim-
ited export of ivory and beeswax in exchange for Portuguese imports.30
Also during this period the Portuguese introduced Catholicism and an edu-
cation system. In addition, from 1650 on, the Kongo established relations
with the Dutch crown31 and expanded Kongo exports to Holland of iron
and high-quality textiles, including linen and a textile made of tree bark.32
The sixteenth century was characterized by heightened foreign control
and increasingly widespread religious, cultural, political, and economic in-
fluence, including the spread of Catholicism, the introduction of new forms
of government and administration inspired by the Portuguese, changes in
the ecology resulting from the introduction of domesticated plants, crops,
and animals, the development of a new economy based on European com-
modities, and the establishment of the slave trade.33 Shifting economic mo-
tivations and internal political maneuvering conspired to create a dramatic
shift within the Kongo kingdom in the second decade of the sixteenth cen-
tury. Increasing levels of direct trading with the Portuguese colony of São
Tomé had the double effect of leading certain Kongo traders, eager to ac-
quire European goods, to “kidnap people to sell as slaves,” thus feeding
a growing global appetite for slavery while also “threaten[ing] to destroy
[Kongo King] Afonso’s hard-won position at the apex of the Kongo re-
distributive system.”34 Partly in response to the perceived threat to his po-
sition, Alfonso I introduced Catholicism as the official religion, using it
to legitimize his position as a Christian convert and enhance his power as
well as that of his elite circle.35 This manifestation of Alfonso I’s geopoliti-
cal ambition had an irreversibly deleterious effect on traditional Kongo reli-
gion, Nkadi Mpemba, known in the present day as Ma Kisi Nsi.36
The contemporary relevance of these historical events in the Kongo
kingdom is, of course, in the manner in which the global slavery industry
brought vast numbers of Kongo slaves—and their cultural systems, beliefs,
and aesthetic practices—to Cuba and other ports in the Americas. But the
complex history of the Kongo is also important insofar as it can inform an
understanding of early methods of hybridity, creolization, and syncretism,
concepts essential to an understanding of the development of African dias-
pora studies in the Americas. Work by Georges Balandier and John Thorn-
ton highlights the importance of Catholicism as an early form of cultural
exchange and an avenue to creolization.
By 1512 the exploration and enslavement of the Bakongo and related
peoples had become a substantial industry for the colonial states.37 Through
a combination of trade and war, Europeans forcibly uprooted between four
and five million people from Central Africa, the vast majority of whom
were brought to the Americas as slave labor for plantations throughout the
British, French, Portuguese, and Spanish territories in the Caribbean and
Latin America.38
Together with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and the United States, Cuba
was one of the countries to absorb the largest number of slaves. According
22 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
were large numbers of slaves imported from present-day Benin and Nige-
ria (including the Yoruba, Fon, Popó, and Nupe),48 with cultures from Mo-
zambique (Macuá), Cameroon and eastern Nigeria (Ibo, Efi k, and Ibibio),
and Sierra Leone (Mandinga, Fulbe, and Susu) also represented. Also no-
table is the fact that, although the Kongo are believed to have accounted
for between one-quarter and one-third of all Africans in Cuba, their arrival
rates relative to other groups of slaves fluctuated, with numbers of newly
imported slaves of Kongo origin particularly dominant in the sixteenth cen-
tury but falling off sharply by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The
early Kongo domination of the slave trade began in the 1560s as a result of
confl ict between the Kongo kingdom and neighboring kingdoms that led
to Portuguese military invasions of the Mbumbu kingdom to the south and
the establishment of a Portuguese military settlement at the port of present-
day Luanda.49
The enormous costs of forced migration on this scale are clear, and sig-
nificant scholarship has been devoted to both the immediate impact of slav-
ery on West and Central African communities and its lasting legacy in such
areas and in the Americas. Less thoroughly studied are the degree to which
the slaves brought their rich cultures and complex belief systems with them
and the lasting impact these heritages had on music, religion, and over-
all culture throughout and beyond the Caribbean. Much of the existing
literature on slavery in the Americas overlooks the continued importance
of the concept of community among the transported slave population and
the development of various kinds of communities upon arrival, either along
lines of social class and proximity or defi ned by a common experience of
marginalized social groups such as slaves, farmers, and artisans. Particu-
larly damaging to the understanding of communities and cultural practices
in the diaspora is the idea of the “Middle Passage” as a universal expe-
rience of deculturation, alienation, and trauma that flattened and erased
all African cultural traits. As Thornton notes, “Historians have sometimes
seen the passage of slaves across the Atlantic on the slave ships as a fi rst
and crucial step in their deculturation. . . . The passage was a psychologi-
cal shock from which they never recovered, rendering them docile and pas-
sive and thus receptive to whatever limited culture inputs their master or
the slave situation might provide.”50 This strong emphasis on the role of de-
culturation implies an inability of the African population to negotiate cul-
tural survival and leaves little room to articulate or explore the sociocultural
mechanisms through which African traditions were developed and main-
tained in the Americas. In fact, the African slaves were skilled at negotiat-
ing memory and developing strategies of cultural survival and were able to
bring their belief systems, religious practices, and cultural structures with
them, and to rapidly rebuild social and cultural agencies such as cabildos
and develop forms of popular religious practices and public events in metro-
politan centers throughout the Americas. Appreciation for these skills, to-
gether with the related understanding of the value the Kongo place on the
24 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
Complex belief systems are used across cultures to help individuals and
communities identify themselves and understand their place in the world.
While varied in their substances and outward expression, such systems serve
a similar purpose in that they create a narrative through which culture is
formed and transmitted to later generations. This narrative engenders a
sense of both identity and purpose, helps individuals understand where they
came from and how they got here, and defines the role of forces that exist
to guide them through life and beyond. Understanding any such narrative
requires the exploration of several interrelated strands that include cosmol-
ogy, the study of the origin of life and its meaning;1 cosmogony, the study
of God and the human condition; 2 and mythology, the history of a people
told through the collection of stories and characters that preserve collec-
tive memory.3
By studying the ways in which the Bakongo understand their origin,
their creator, their world, and their place within it, we can explore the cul-
tural and spiritual context necessary for an understanding of the graphic
writing systems that act as vehicles for these beliefs. In addition, an initial
analysis of Kongo cosmology, cosmogony, and mythology allows us to see
and appreciate the conceptual parallels between Kongo culture in Central
Africa and in Cuba.
Three primary scholars whose work has contributed to the study of
Kongo religion are Karl Laman, Wyatt MacGaffey, and Kimbwandende Kia
Bunseki Fu-Kiau. Karl Laman’s extensive research on Kongo religion in
the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries has been compiled in The Kongo, Volume 3, in
which the author covers much ground, starting with a chapter on Kongo
conceptions of the soul and moving through dreams, reincarnation, notions
of death, Bisîmbi spirits, the cult of the ancestors, and the notion of God.
The second part of the book documents examples of religious ceremonies,
shrines, sacrifices, prohibitions, types of worship, and “magic” before con-
cluding with an examination of initiatory societies, Kongo notions of good
and evil, and an overview of oral literature. MacGaffey, whose primary field-
work was conducted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1960s
29
30 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
and 1970s, also documents a wide range of Kongo “ritual practices” and
the religious beliefs that guide them in Modern Kongo Prophets: Religion
in a Plural Society. Fu-Kiau, a Kongo priest, provides the most complete
account of Kongo cosmology, cosmogony, mythology, and moral philos-
ophy in his manuscripts Kongo Religious Philosophy and Mukuku Matatu.
As mentioned in Chapter 2, numerous features of Kongo philosophy, cos-
mology, and cosmogony are shared by neighboring Bantu-speaking cul-
tures, including the Pende, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and Tabwa, and work by
other scholars on the belief systems and ritual practices of such cultures has
also informed this book. In particular, the extensive research of Allen Rob-
erts and Mary Nooter Roberts among the Tabwa and Luba, respectively,
has provided a wealth of information on philosophy, mythology, and rit-
ual among these groups, much of which points to similarities with Bakongo
beliefs and practices.
Fu-Kiau describes Kongo religion as a basic triangulation of interac-
tive parts. The fi rst part is the spiritual realm that concerns “God,” a force
conceptualized as the source of creation and universal power (Nzambi a
Mpungu or Kalûnga) and the ancestors (bakulu); the second is the physical
realm that concerns manifestations of God’s power (bisîmbi); and the third
is the emotional realm that concerns specialists in bisîmbi powers (nkita),
experts on nkisi worship (banganga), and other humans. These three realms
defi ne the basic notions of Kongo religion expressed through its history,
cosmogony, and mythology.4
The counterpart in Cuba to Kongo religion as practiced in Central
Africa is Palo Monte. With roots in the memories of the Bakongo slave pop-
ulation, Palo Monte developed as a religion in its own right. Its tools for
organizing knowledge and understanding the world have retained tremen-
dous continuity with those used in Central Africa, while also successfully
evolving to formulate unique responses to a different environment. Palo
Monte fundamentally strives for harmony between humans and nature, and
in this quest requires a dialogue among humans, nature, and the cosmos.
Kongo-Cubans, like the Bakongo in Central Africa, engage in this dialogue
on three levels: spiritual, physical, and emotional.
In the balance of this chapter we explore these three levels with the
dual aim of better understanding the philosophies and religious beliefs that
underlie the graphic expression used by the Bakongo and tracing the con-
tinuities and disruptions of these philosophies and beliefs in Central Africa
and Cuba.
bidimu signifies a superior being in the sky who resurrects the dwellers of
the sky from their deathlike slumber during the dry season. . . . Nzambi,
Mpungu is often used to signify something large, supernatural or wonder-
ful and likewise for the dead.23
ˆ ˆ
Sîmbi. This site is still used by religious figures in and around Mbanza
Kongo for the most sacred religious ceremonies. Thompson refers to its
location in his book Le geste Kôngo and describes the Manianga elevation
of the spirit of the dead performed there. The Tadi dya Sîmbi cosmogram
is known as the “roads of God” (Zinzila a Mpemba) and is employed to
ensure a spirit’s smooth elevation and transition into its new function as a
guardian spirit of the dead (Mpeve ya Nlongo). A more detailed discussion
of this cosmogram is given in the next chapter, but it is particularly notable
for purposes of the present discussion of sîmbi because of its name, and its
spiritual importance for understanding a religious theory capable of describ-
ing nature’s forces within a single all-encompassing, coherent framework.
Bisîmbi are also represented in the funeral art and Mabôndo terra-cotta
figures found in the Bakongo burial grounds at Boma, Matadi, and Noki,
dated to the 1500s.34 When Thompson took up R. L. Wannyn’s archaeo-
logical fi ndings, he advanced the idea of funeral art as a source and medium
of language. Thompson’s work recognized in the graves’ design a sequence
of meanings that corresponded with Bakongo beliefs, religion, and philos-
ophy. Most importantly, Thompson noted that the mabondo figures were
believed to be machines used to fly over sîmbi’s realm and cross his frontier
on the way to the world of the living.35
Bisîmbi have also been represented in the writings of scholars and mis-
sionaries working among the Bakongo as early as the seventeenth century.
Most extensive in his documentation was Laman, whose work, though now
recognized as partially inaccurate, demonstrated a recognition of the im-
portant role played by bisîmbi in Kongo culture. Laman wrote that bisîmbi
are called “the Countries of the Water” and are used as a metaphor for the
ocean.36 The ocean was also seen, Laman stated, as sîmbi’s “indestructible
town, his eternal realm under the water.”37 Although he appeared not to
understand that numerous bisîmbi existed in all parts of nature, Laman did
make reference to other habitats and symbolic representations beyond the
central notion of sîmbi as embodied by water. For example, Laman wrote
that sîmbi’s land on earth, named Vunda, or resting place,38 is located on,
or symbolized by, hills surrounded by road-crossed plains.
While the concepts of kalûnga and bisîmbi shape Bakongo understand-
ings of the creation of the universe and the shaping of the world, a separate
myth tells of the origin of humanity.39 The Bakongo believe that Muhungu,
the fi rst human, grew out of a palm tree, “muti-mpungu” or the “tree of
God.”40 Because palm trees are believed to have witnessed the moment of
conception, they are considered to house the ancestors and thus serve as
sources of information about the past.41 The role of palm trees in the story
of creation ties into the Bakongo belief in the power of the forest. God and
humanity are believed to be connected to the forest, which is in turn seen as
the source of all things.42 As such a single source, the forest is at once con-
fl icted and balanced; for example, the forest contains illnesses and evil while
simultaneously providing all that is needed for healing and protection.
The Process of Meaning Making 37
Muhungu was both male and female, in itself a complete being (muntu
walunga). In this sense, Muhungu mirrors the conceptualization of Nzambi
a Mpungu, or God, and is reviewed as both a great positive force and a neg-
ative one. Fu-Kiau describes a double-faced statue that represents the idea
of Muhungu and is used in the fi rst stage of initiation (nkulumukunu ku
Lemba) into Lemba or Kinkimba societies.43 Understood by the Bakongo as
complete in itself, Muhungu was happy and full of pleasure, it did not show
any signs of suffering, and it did not know jealousy or hatred. God saw this
joyful being as too simple, as incapable of recognizing the complexity of life
or changing in response to it. To remedy, this failing God ordered the sep-
aration of Muhungu into two separate sexes. The separation created lûmbu
(male) and muzita (female), each with attributes to distinguish it from the
other. So distinguished, the new gendered beings were able to experience
the richness of life and learn from one another. They were able to respond
to things and change as they progressed through life. However, in this life-
long journey, neither one was complete alone. For the Bakongo, the mean-
ing of marriage is the rejoining of the two parts. It is an achievement and
symbol of Muhungu’s perfect union, the fulfi llment of joy and pleasure
through the coming together of the two complementary genders.44
The following categories of forces, powers, and beings represent the
ideas that form the foundation for Bakongo cosmogony:
These forces, powers, and beings fulfi ll roles that are neither static nor
unitary. Instead, they are marked in their duality—with each having two or
more complementary sides that, while in opposition to one another, when
balanced are synthesized into a representative whole that manifests the core
essence of the entity. The various concepts and categories are mapped in Fig-
ure 2 as they relate to one another and fit into the broader religious context.
Neighboring cultures, including the Pende, Luba, Lunda, Kuba, and
Tabwa, share a number of key concepts of Bakongo belief, including kalûnga,
notions of powerful yet unpredictable forces like the Bakongo sîmbi and
ndoki, and the concept of the duality of human existence in physical and
spiritual life created by the union of moyo (soul, spirit) and mvuanda (force
of life).45
38 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
A Palo Monte proverb expresses the central role of water in the moment
of creation, holding that “everything comes from the water.”46 Water is
emblematic of power and renewed as the source of life, the beginning of
humanity, a human’s fi rst home and fi nal resting place, a mirror of spiritual
vibration, the source of ancestral calls, and a key component of the sacred
nature (malongo) as medicine (bilongo).47 The story of life’s origin from
water is told through the mambo literary tradition in Cuba and is recounted
here as in the words of Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller in 1989 in the munici-
pality of Cotorro, Havana City province.
Life was a light form that traveled through the universe until it found the
surface of the earth. The light crossed the atmosphere until it arrived at
the bottom of the ocean, where it crystallized into quartz and soon petri-
fied into stone. This stone generated other forms of life and gave origin to
the power of Kongo religion.48
As in Central Africa, the water that is the source of life and power is
known as Kalûnga, more commonly called Mama Kalûnga, and is a cen-
tral concept in Kongo-Cuban cosmology. Analogous to the Yoruba God
of the ocean, Yemaya, and the Catholic saint, La Virgen de Regla, Mother
Kalûnga represents the sea.49 Kalûnga is often represented in Cuba as a
prenda, a religious object inhabited by a spirit, named Baluande, which lit-
erally means “Mother Ocean” or “Great Water.” This meaning parallels
the Central African use of the term Nsadi, or Great River, as a synonym
for Kalûnga. Alluding to its role dividing the world of the living from that
of the ancestors, kalûnga in Cuba is also conceived as Suku kia Kalûnga, a
type of spirit that represents the power of death and the abyss.
Palo Monte priests, or paleros, Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller and Felipe
Garcia Villamil describe kalûnga as a perfect being and a fundamental prin-
ciple of life. Fresneda Bachiller describes the concept as having two com-
ponents: as Baluande, it represents the oxygen on earth and the beginning
of life; as Lugambe, kalûnga has the opposite meaning and is a destructive
force that causes everything to end and start over after death. For Kongo
descendants in Cuba, kalûnga represents the ocean as the fi rst cemetery,
the resting place of thousands of their ancestors in their journey to the
Americas. Fresneda Bachiller describes these two components of kalûnga
as operating in constant tension, opposed, yet balancing one another. Any
alteration that upsets their balance is believed to have negative effects in
nature, such as frequent natural disasters and increased abnormalities in the
weather and climate.50
Overlapping to a large degree with the concept of kalûnga in Cuba
is that of sîmbi. As in Central Africa, bisîmbi play a crucial role in the
beliefs and practices of Palo Monte and related Kongo-Cuban religions
(Palo Monte Mayombe, Palo Luango, Palo Kimbisa, and Palo Kriyumba).
Bisîmbi in Cuba take countless forms, but are most prominently thought
of as water. Frequently, one kind of sîmbi (Sîmbi dia Maza) is used inter-
changeably with kalûnga to mean the ocean, and both terms are understood
40 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
to conjure the division of the world of the living from that of the ances-
tors. Both are represented with the prenda Baluande and were used among
the slave population in Cuba as a description of the fi rst graveyard. Chola
Nguengue is another sîmbi in Cuba that is associated with water generally
and with rivers more specifically. These bisîmbi are represented by the mo-
tion of the current, pools of water inside caves, waterfalls, and stalactites.
The association of bisîmbi with the earth is also commonly expressed in
Cuba. Kikoroto is a term used to refer to a sîmbi in earth form. Kikoroto are
represented by, among other things, termite hills near water or on the plain
and earthquakes.
Defense and protection are two major functions of sîmbi spirits in Cen-
tral Africa also seen in the mythology and cosmogony of the descendants of
the Bakongo in the diaspora. Palo Kimbisa is one variation of Kongo reli-
gion in Cuba that uses a main spirit sîmbi, or water force, as bilongo (medi-
cine). Kimbisa comes from the same root verb as sîmbi, meaning “to hold,”
“to keep,” and “to preserve.”51 Kimbisa also means “human beings who
died twice and were then transformed into earth forms.”52 In Palo Monte
Mayombe, sîmbi is the ocean and is the realm that gives the protection nec-
essary for the survival of the fi rst living beings on earth.
Kongo-Cuban myths tell of Mambe, the fi rst ancestor (nkulu),53 who
flew over the country of sîmbi and offered his life, coming to represent life’s
fi rst change. In a similar story, Kuruma is the mythical warrior character
who is remembered, not for sacrifice and offering his own life, but for his
bravery in the hunt. Kuruma’s spirituality as a community member is hon-
ored and celebrated in religious practice because he represents a paradigm of
a perfect person and is used as an example of what people should aspire to
be. Together, Mambe and Kuruma represent the fi rst travelers who crossed
over the ocean, over sîmbi, and made possible other, subsequent spiritual
journeys of the Bakongo-descended people in the diaspora.
Like water, the forest plays a crucial role in Kongo religion in Cuba.
Palo Monte Mayombe takes its very name from the forest. Palo is a generic
term popularly used in Cuba to refer to the roots and trunk of a tree,
whereas el Monte translates from Spanish as “forest.” As a unit Palo Monte
signifies the strength and power of a tree in a forest. Mayombe, a Kikongo
word meaning “forest,” is added to emphasize its importance.54 True to the
name, the practitioners of Palo Monte, like their counterparts in Central
Africa, base their religious practice in the powers and energies of the trees,
plants, elements of nature, and cosmic forces. Whereas Fu-Kiau equates the
Central African Kongo notions of water and the forest and sees both as fun-
damental to life’s origin, in Palo Monte the forest is conceptualized dis-
tinctly. Rather than being viewed as the origin of life, the forest is seen as a
source of medicine necessary for life’s continued existence.
Other naming practices of religious objects in Cuba further under-
score the importance of certain concepts while also providing a genealogi-
cal map that enables us to trace the development of these objects. In Palo
Monte, religious objects are categorized by generation, with each “genera-
The Process of Meaning Making 41
One day Ngo was divided by the approaching death of the hamlet; when
the ancients knew the delicate news, they decided to consult with the el-
ders of the community, notable men, and the Tata Nganga 61 (priests)
42 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
as modified by the prefi x ma, which can either indicate the plural form or
function as a possessive,69 Ma-Mbele may indicate one who can sacrifice or
one who can authorize hunting season or punishment by killing, such as a
paramount chief.
Another fundamental figure in the myth, marked by his ritual and lit-
erary importance, is that of Ngo,70 the leopard guardian of the community
whose role is to maintain equilibrium in the mutually protective relations
of community and nature. As part of the Kongo-Cuban triangular myth,
Ngo’s importance and metaphoric significance are exceeded by the figure of
Mambe, the principal figure of the myth whose metaphorical, conceptual,
and ritual significance is the result of his role as the human archetype, the
fi rst human. Mambe has all the ritual and symbolic attributes of the great
ancestor, Mambele, whose religious importance is emphasized only in refer-
ences to religious oral literature.
In religious liturgy, all the mythological figures participate equally in
the invocations of power within the religious practice. Only Mambe has a
double significance within the myth, and this significance is evidenced by a
mambo, or prayer, said during a feast to the spirit that acts upon the magic
recipient Nganga.71
The Garcia Villamil family of Matanzas, Cuba, tells the second widely
used version of the myth, known as Lwangu (Loango):
Lwangu72 (Loango) was the brother of Tangume who fulfi lled the func-
tion of Tata Nganga in the community. During a day of hunting, Lwangu
died fighting with a wild animal, so Tangume gathered together the com-
munity in order to choose a new Mayordomo.73 After long hours of pre-
dictions, he decided that the one who was able to capture the great leopard
of the jungle would be initiated74 as the Mayordomo of the community.
All the members of the community went in search of the great leopard,
but it was the warrior Kuruma that was able to capture the fierce animal.
The council met in a cave called Sîmbirico la Krillumba that guarded
a pot75 which contained the head of Lwangu, and here initiated Kuruma
as Mayordomo. In the moment of initiation, the spirit of Lwangu ap-
peared saying I am Sarabanda Cuye. In order to care for the path to the
Sîmbirico cave where the nkisi/nganga “Batalla Congo”76 was, the deci-
sion was made to look for the Congo Diamlunqueto77 (personal name of
a member of the religion). Afterward, the Congo Malangume78 (another
member of the religion) appeared and sanctified the foot of the Nganga,
and later, for greater security, initiated the youngest son of Tangume as
guardian of the council.79
Both versions of the myth illustrate that death and the consecration
of the spirit of death are basic components of all forms of Palo Monte.
With the deaths of Mambe and Lwangu we see the representation of the
birth of the fi rst nfumbe 80 (a Kongo ancestor who lives inside a prenda and
talks through it). The Lwangu version locates the practice of Palo Monte
44 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
stand and practice these beliefs. Bakongo conceptions of the world they
inhabit inform and instruct the way they interact with that world. Graphic
writing is believed to enable the communication between the world of the
living and the departed ancestors and spiritual forces that promote healing
and assist practitioners in understanding and shaping their lives.
C H A P T E R 4
of visual signs, Kongo graphic writing systems are complex codes of shared
knowledge that develop and communicate cosmology, mythology, and phi-
losophy and defi ne aesthetic realities. They perpetuate and validate collective
memories, epics, legends, myths, and ancient knowledge and play an integral
role in the defi nition and development of African and Kongo-Caribbean
cultures and in the practice of traditional and contemporary African-based
religions. The ancient Bakongo called graphic writing Sinsu kia Nguisami, a
phrase that translates as “communication by code and symbol.” Still in use
today in many parts of Central Africa, graphic writing includes signs known
as bidimbu (symbols) and bisinsu (codes).
Although numerous scholars have studied the use and design of graphic
traditions across a range of cultures, including pre-Columbian (Mayan scrip-
ture), Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese calligraphies), and
North African (Egyptian hieroglyphs), there is a relative dearth of academic
work that examines African graphic writing systems in great depth or in so-
cial context. The imprecision of available historical documents and the lack
of clear reference to graphic writing in Africa before the nineteenth cen-
tury result in limited solid ground on which to build a study of the role of
graphic writing in Kongo culture. Early works on the subject, such as schol-
arship by Joseph H. Greenberg, David Dalby, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Marcel
Mauss, Paul Rivet, Georges Balandier, J. K. MacGregor, Jacques Fédry, and
J. Lacouture, have demonstrated the diversity of graphic designs but have
neither explained the way graphic writing can be read nor imbued this tra-
dition of communication with an understanding of its religious context.
Although several contemporary writers have made reference to religious
forms and uses of minkisi and fi rmas, only a couple have begun to systemat-
ically explore the meanings and uses of these communicative forms.
The most complete references to Kongo graphic writing are found in
the works of linguist Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji, in her book Arts africains:
Signes et symboles; African art historian and anthropologist Robert Farris
Thompson, in his book The Four Moments of the Sun; and priest and philos-
opher of Kongo culture K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, who has written extensively
about Kongo writing, most notably in Self-Healing Power and Therapy: Old
Teachings from Africa.
Faïk-Nzuji introduces the notion of bidimbu as a mode of expression
and graphic tradition in Central and West Africa and explores the concept
of symbol in the context of African culture and language.6 Faïk-Nzuji’s most
important contributions are her attempt to explain the semantic complex-
ity of this graphic tradition through an exploration of basic linguistic ques-
tions such as the formal structure of the graphic system and her explanation
of the manner in which graphic elements and symbols are used within the
semantic and syntactic structure. However, while her work successfully
introduces a range of forms of visual expression found among Central Afri-
can cultures, it does not adequately explore the relationship between these
communicative forms or situate them within the broader cultural context
in which they exist.
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 49
K e y:
1 lovo
2 Kiantapo
3 Caninguiri
4 Tchitundo-hulo
well as the manner in which graphic expression was part of the very founda-
tion of Dogon cultural principles.
More recently, Fu-Kiau and Thompson built on the work of the ear-
lier scholars documenting rupestrian signs in the Kongo region and made
the fi rst attempts to understand their meanings and explore their relation-
ship with and implications for the study of Kongo morality, philosophy, and
religion. Both authors argue that the rupestrian signs represent the early
history of present-day Kongo graphic expression, but Fu-Kiau contextual-
izes the signs within the Kongo cultural system and uses religious beliefs
and moral philosophy to distinguish between them while Thompson situ-
ates his analysis of the rupestrian signs within a study of art, viewing their
use in a plural system of graphic codification and aesthetic form. Impor-
tantly, Thompson also attempts to link the symbols to present-day signs
used in the Bakongo diaspora. A more detailed comparison across the rup-
estrian symbols documented at Lovo and other regional sites and between
such images and varied forms of contemporary graphic communication fur-
ther highlights their similarities in form and function and traces the devel-
opment of this Kongo language form.
Geometric shapes figure heavily in the designs documented in Lovo,
leading Thompson to characterize the graphic expression as “geometric of
the spirit.”11 As seen in Figure 4, the designs encompass a range of geomet-
ric forms and features, including squares, rectangles, and circles; straight,
convex, and concave lines; and notched, serrated, rounded, and pointed
shapes. These geometric forms and the composition style that dominates at
Lovo are also seen in the decoration of ceramic work unearthed around this
same area and, as discussed later in this chapter, across a variety of graphic
expressions documented in the Mbanza Kongo region in the present day.12
Unfortunately, given the importance of the link these paintings repre-
sent in the history of Central African graphic writing systems, precise in-
formation on their age is unavailable. Raymaekers and van Moorsel noted
aesthetic parallels between the Lovo drawings and cave paintings in Alta-
mira, Spain, that date back approximately twenty thousand years, but no
tests have been conducted to corroborate or disprove such speculative age.
Raymaekers and van Moorsel also argue that the Lovo drawings were made
during the evangelization of the Kongo kingdom, which began with the
conversion of the Mani Kongo Nzinga a Mvemba (Nkuvu) and his wife
in 1491 and continued with the role of their son Mvemba a Nzinga I
(1507–1542).13 To support this argument, the authors reference multiple
fragments of ceramic unearthed at the Lovo site during archaeological ex-
cavations that scientific testing dates to around A.D. 1600.14 Archaeologists
have noted the existence of burial yards containing ceramic remnants, pre-
sumably of funerary character,15 similar to those found at rupestrian sites
in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which indicates that
further study of the objects encountered in and around the Lovo caves will
be a critical component of any investigation into the history of the rupes-
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 53
f i g U r e 4 lovo rupestrian painting. (adapted by the author from paul raymaekers and
hendrik van moorsel, “lovo: dessins rupestres du Bas-Congo,” Ngonge, Carnets de sciences
humaines, nos. 12, 13, and 14 [léopoldville, 1962]. image courtesy of paul raymaekers/
hendrik van moorsel.)
trian sites and the role they played for the region’s people. Scientific dating
of other rupestrian sites in Angola discussed in this chapter may provide
some insight into Lovo’s history, but even with the lack of proof of the age
of the rupestrian drawings in Central Africa, their antiquity is undoubted.
More importantly, as discussed later in this chapter, the deep history of
54 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
these drawings can be directly connected to symbols that today form part
of a complex system of graphic communication that is informed by Ba-
kongo religious beliefs and moral philosophy.
Before focusing on the actual symbols found in Lovo and more recently
cataloged sites in its immediate vicinity discussed later in this chapter, it is
worth exploring briefly the similarities between these symbols and paint-
ings and carvings discovered in southern Angola and the southern Demo-
cratic Republic of the Congo. Principal sites include Tchitundo-Hulo and
Caninguiri in southern Angola and Kiantapo in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo.
The sites in southern Angola have been dated more precisely than their
northern counterparts, with the Caninguiri drawings found in the Alto
Zambezi zone in southeastern Angola believed to be 7,840 ± 80 years old
and those documented at Tchitundo-Hulo believed to be 2,596 ± 53 years
old, perhaps indicating the time period during which production of rupes-
trian art began to be widespread in Central Africa.16
More importantly, the sites in southern Angola demonstrate continu-
ity with the Lovo site in the subject matter that is portrayed, the relational
positioning of visual vocabulary, and the manner in which the drawings
are conceptualized. For example, all three sets of images contain numer-
ous depictions of figures striking poses and making gestures. The common-
alties in the gestures themselves are informative, as is the common theme
and apparent importance ascribed to body language, an importance that
continues in contemporary Kongo communities, as detailed in Chapter 3.
Another critical area of overlap between the images documented across the
different cave sites is the utilization of single, contained signs as well as
groupings of integrated images that combine different types of communica-
tive elements or linguistic components in the same frame.
The symbols documented at Kiantapo in the southern Democratic Re-
public of the Congo also share important aesthetic traits with those re-
corded at Lovo. Several signs involve arrows indicating directions; others
appear to involve planetary symbols; and the designs at Lovo and Kian-
tapo both contain numerous animal and human images. The primary dif-
ference between the two is the mode of composition: in Lovo the symbols
are drawn with steady solid lines and are painted on the cave wall, whereas
many of those in Kiantapo are created using dotted lines carved into the
stone surface, as seen in Figure 5.
Table 1 compares a wider range of key symbols found in Lovo, Tchi-
tundo-Hulo, and Kiantapo.
Except for Lovo and selected sites in the south of Angola, Central Afri-
can rock art has rarely been incorporated into the broader discussion of
African prehistory, colonial history, and postcolonial history, and no recent
works have been published that document new sites, explore the historic
functions of rock art, or investigate its present and historical relationship
with religious and cultural practices in or beyond Central Africa. The lack
of recent documentation of and research into rock painting and carving in
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 55
ta b L e 1 (continued)
ta b L e 1 (continued)
ta b L e 1 (continued)
Anthropomorphic
anthropomorphic The human figure is 4 25 1 4 1
represented in its entirety
Fragmentary Only a portion of a human 2 12 2 1
anthropomorphic figure is depicted, e.g.,
torso, headless figure
human foot The figure depicts the 5
human foot, positive or
negative image
Zoomorphic
mammalian figure The figure seemingly
represents a mammal 18 2
mammalian “tracks” The foot (or feet) of a
mammal is represented
Bird figures The figure seemingly 2 6 2 1
represents a bird
Bird “tracks” The foot (or feet) of a bird 2 2
is represented
reptilian figures The depiction suggests 3 6 6
a reptile, e.g., snake, lizard
Geometric;
Body Ornaments;
Incised Stones,
Bowls, and Tools;
Architectural
Decorations
rectilinear nonrepresentational figures 15 23 17 3
characterized by straight
lines; formed or bounded
by straight lines
Curvilinear nonrepresentational figures 1 25 37 14 5
consisting of or bounded
by curved lines
Concentric Figures having a common 18 30 27 12 2
center or common axis,
e.g., circle, spiral
abstract geometric motifs or outlines that are 50 9 40 40 28 3
characterized by both
straight and curved lines but
that bear no resemblance to
natural form
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 61
ta b L e 2 (continued)
Narratives,
Dancing Scenes,
Painting,
Drawing
simple composition The depiction is charac- 12 12 5 13 2
terized by a combination
of a few figures and signs
as part of a whole
Complex narratives The depiction is charac- 6 17 3 8
terized by an elaborate
combination of figures
and signs in order to
suggest a story or storyline
palimpsests motifs or outlines that 3 2 2 3 2 2
are characterized by
being redrawn over a
previous form
subject matter and is one of the most complex and well-preserved sites doc-
umented. The images and signs depict numerous Bakongo concepts and are
best described as the material expressions of local oral traditions, including
proverbs, songs, and funeral and wedding chants. For example, an abstract
depiction of the dikenga cross at Tadi dia Mfuakumbi represents the order
of things in the cosmos and the human world and symbolizes the soul. It
is further understood to refer to the proverb “Where it is closed, it cannot
be opened.”18
The location of the Tadi dia Mfuakumbi site is itself culturally signifi-
cant; the site is associated with a local myth that tells of
a young couple a long time ago who liked to swim in the river. Soon after
they were married, they went to the river to celebrate the almighty union.
The village elders learned during the traditional council that the couple
must die in order to honor the spirit who empowered the river. There was
a specific Sîmbi spirit that controlled the river who had requested these
young lives in an appearance in the dreams of the village chief. Accord-
ing to the village priest, the couple had to drown themselves in the water
as a gift to this Sîmbi spirit, but they would later be honored and remem-
bered for their sacrifice and would return in the afterlife as manifestations
of yisimbi themselves.19
f i g U r e 7 miguel moises at the mouth of the nemongo cave performing the libation
necessary to authorize the proposed research. right in front of miguel moises is clearly
visible an example of the graphic form depicting a dikenga cosmogram made out of
kaolin (luvenva). palm wine and cola for the libation were critical components of the
performance used to call the spirit of moises’s uncle during my visit to the site. The
dikenga cosmogram is the most frequently observed symbol in Central africa. Tadi dia
nemongo site, angola, 2004.
similar ceremony over a clear example of the dikenga sign (discussed in the
next section).
Sites also continue to be used by initiation societies active in and around
the Mbanza Kongo area, with signs indicating certain societies depicted in
various locations. For example, the flower symbol pictured in the Mfi nda a
Ntuta site (Figure 8) is the emblem of the Lemba society and is frequently
depicted on a range of objects used by and symbolic of its membership.20
Many of the signs carved into rupestrian sites documented near Mbanza
Kongo represent local proverbs and form part of a broader fabric of oral tra-
ditions and local religious practices. Two clear concepts in graphic writing,
inventory, and complex narrative are visible in the rupestrian sites and cor-
respond to two phases in the development of Kongo culture. The building
of inventory was the pooling by Bantu agricultural settlers of visual tools
for conveying meaning in early rupestrian sites. In addition to the simple
pooling of symbols, the gathering and organizing of visual concepts facil-
itated the development of complex iconic narratives, which in turn played
an essential role in the religious cognition and further organization of soci-
ety through the extended family, the creation of specialized societies, and
the later formation of the Kongo organizational hierarchies. The location
of the graphic writing at specific, presumably strategic sites in the rain for-
est, gallery forest, and savanna highlights the central role of graphic writing
in early Bantu cultural and social organization and suggests the impor-
tance of such sites to the Bantu of the region, and it may indicate potential
migratory routes. The use of increasingly complex graphic expression rep-
resented a communication breakthrough and required a more significant
degree of coordination and contextualization. Its fi rst stage required a con-
ceptual leap that permitted users to connect a common set of abstract and
pictographic representations to a unique meaning grounded in Kongo cul-
tural principles. The distinct geometric and pictographic signs and symbols
were later contextualized in a broader visual narrative that incorporated the
objects and ritual practices discussed elsewhere in this book.
The examples shown in Figures 9 through 21 are representative of the
manner in which the symbols depicted both incorporate and reference ele-
ments from such traditions and highlight the richness of meanings embed-
ded in and conveyed by graphic writing. Although precise dating of the
specific sites has not been done, the choice of signs, along with the knowl-
edge regarding their meanings among members of the community, speaks
to a continuity in understanding and use of the practice as a mode of com-
municating community concerns and cultural lessons.
Other scholars interested in the social and historical context surround-
ing the production of rupestrian art have explored alternative theories to
explain the use and meaning of documented signs and symbols. David
Lewis-Williams and Thomas Dowson, in connection with their work on
rock art in southern Africa, have posited that geometric motifs found across
a range of rupestrian sites are representations of images seen in the dis-
sociative state of a divinatory or similar trance. Although such a thesis is
intriguing and can be helpful in understanding basic prehistoric human
biology, I believe that this notion of an “altered state of consciousness” is
limited insofar as it makes a generalized assertion that all humans can and
will understand the specific meanings of early rock painting iconography
in the same manner because we share the same basic biology and brain cir-
cuitry. Furthermore, an inquiry into Kongo culture in Central Africa and
the diaspora requires an understanding of the process of cognition and the
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 65
f i g U r e 11 Zoomorphic motif.
“O nsusu vokelaya nga makiko ngola
negola” is a proverb meaning, “The
hen that does not warm up its eggs
will lose its chicks.” Tadi dia mfuakumbi
site, angola, 2004.
17 18 19
f i g U r e S 17–19 17: “nduakilu za mbote,” Welcome and hospitality. 18: The universe is just one,
everything is connected. 19: Futumuka, resurrection. mfinda a ntuta site, angola, 2005.
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 67
f i g U r e 21 The triangle that joins the right edge of the ladder represents the
ancestors in relation to the family. The ladder represents a family or a family’s history.
The ladder represents people. Tadi dia lukingu site, angola. (drawing in situ by Bárbaro
martínez-ruiz, 2006.)
The most powerful example of the graphic continuity between the Lovo
paintings, the engravings at the newly documented sites, and contemporary
symbol usage among the Bakongo in Central Africa and their descendants
in Cuba is the frequent appearance of dikenga. Dikenga is a cosmogram
considered crucial to Kongo cosmology in that it represents the conception
of all living beings in the universe.21 In addition, dikenga is itself believed
and understood to be the energy of the universe, the force of all existence
and creation.
The basic graphic structure of dikenga is four cardinal points at the tips
of two lines arranged in cross formation, similar to a compass. The tremen-
dous diversity in the documented representations of dikenga illustrates sub-
stantial design flexibility, but the consistent inclusion of the cosmogram’s
basic principles confi rms the central meaning and use of the cosmogram.
Fu-Kiau highlights the diversity in representations of dikenga in Figure 22.
Like Fu-Kiau, Thompson has illustrated a range of dikenga represen-
tations, as seen in Figure 23. Thompson perceptively includes a diamond-
shaped dikenga, arguing that the dikenga’s meaning is maintained with or
without dots in the corners and holds constant whether depicted in cross,
circle, or diamond form. In Kongo culture, the diamond shape is used to
signify Nzambi Mpungo, God, and is used as the heart of sacred objects.22
24 25 26 27
The core signs that build on the dikenga cosmogram are Sînsu kian-
gudi kia nza-kongo,30 described as the general symbol of Kongo cosmog-
ony, and Dingo-dingo dia Luzîngu,31 which represents life’s spiral motion
and the manner in which a “human being’s life is a continuous process of
transformation, of going around and around” and “being in continuous
motion through the four stages of balance between a vertical force and hor-
izontal force.”32
Thompson, in Faces of the Gods, explains the meaning of dikenga in
terms similar to those used by Fu-Kiau. Describing its function in moral
and philosophical terms, Thompson writes that dikenga
charts the soul’s timeless voyage. Soul cycles as a star in heaven. To the Ba-
kongo it is a shining circle, a miniature of the sun. [Dikenga marks] the
sun’s four moments—dawn, noon, sunset, and midnight (when it’s shining
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 71
in the other world)—by small circles at the end of each arm of the cross,
mirroring the immortal progress of the soul: birth, full strength, fading,
renaissance. The four corners of a diamond tell the same sequence.33
The dikenga cosmogram and the complex set of meanings it conveys also
play a central role in Kongo-descended religious and cultural practices in
Cuba, where it is known as nkuyu and is referred to by Palo Monte practition-
ers as “the abstract thing from Congo.”41 It is used to depict the belief in
powerful spirits of nature and to represent cosmological elements, and, like
dikenga in Africa, nkuyu is itself understood to be a spiritual force. It is a
manifestation of the power of creation and the energy of the universe, thus
becoming the ultimate affi rmation of God, the ancestors, and other spiri-
tual forces. The term nkuyu itself comes from Kikongo, although its precise
etymological origin and meaning are unclear. Laman describes nkuyu as a
kind of nkisi among the Bembe and neighboring cultures and writes that
the term nkuyu is generally used to refer to “the spirit of a deceased person
that has been captured and incorporated into a sculpture.”42
Nkuyu has similarly been associated with an nkisi in Cuba, with Lydia
Cabrera describing an nkuyu as “a wooden doll of about sixty centimeters
into which the priest makes the spirit enter.”43 Cabrera notes that the main
function of nkuyu in Palo Monte is to protect the worshiper, but recognizes
that other forces intervene in the religious performance.44 Describing a sim-
ple cosmogram, Cabrera writes, “The circle signifies security. In the cen-
ter of the circle, the cross is the power; the power of all the spiritual powers
called by the priest (nganga).”45
Building on references provided by Fernando Ortiz in the early 1950s,
Wyatt MacGaffey writes about dikenga in Cuba: “Across the Atlantic,
Kongo ritual experts in Cuba represent the cosmos as a circle divided into
four segments by a cross inscribed in it.”46 MacGaffey’s account is consis-
tent with those of other scholars and experts on Cuba, including Cabrera,
Argeliers León, and Thompson. It is also confi rmed by Palo Monte priests
Fresneda Bachiller and Garcia Villamil, who describe contemporary styles
of nkuyu depiction. Whereas the basic form is the circle and cross, shown
in Figure 36, numerous design modifications are made that add fi nesse or
detail to the cosmogram in different contexts, as explored in further detail
later in this chapter.
The circular shape of nkuyu is significant insofar as a circle is a par-
ticularly meaningful sign in Palo Monte; it is most closely associated with
the world of the ancestors. It symbolizes protection, time, perfection, the
receipt of energy, balance and existence, and the realm of initiation. Like
dikenga, the circle is the pathway through which spiritual fl ight crosses the
frontier that divides the living from the dead. For this reason, nkuyu is
also known by the term lucero, which means “star” or “circle of new life.”
The lucero is believed to be a gateway through which change occurs, and
it is used within the religion to represent the crossing from one world to
another and the beginning of a new life.47
Like their counterparts in Angola, graves in Cuban cemeteries display
numerous depictions of dikenga to mark the passage from one world to the
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 73
next. The use of dikenga at grave sites has also been recorded in other parts
of the Americas. Robert Farris Thompson writes about the grave-marking
tradition in the southern United States in Faces of the Gods. He specifically
references African American graves in Virginia, Florida, and southwestern
Mississippi, writing:
The circle of the soul around the interesting worlds—the rhetorical point
of the Kongo cosmogram (dikenga, “the tuning”)—echoes throughout
the black Americas. The circle is “written” in a curved length of green
garden hose on a headstone in black Austin and echoed by other exam-
ples. Another instance of cryptic sparking of the soul and continuity, with
an image of the sun in motion, is an object-studded inner garden built
around a cedar tree.48
The cross within the lucero’s circle maps the forces of the universe,
dividing the space into four parts that represent the cosmos, nature, the
atmosphere, and humans and human creation. The four positions them-
selves are symbols of power: the north represents God or the almighty
forces of creation; the south represents animals; the east represents plants
and trees; and the west represents minerals.49 These positions are collec-
tively called “The Four Winds” by Fresneda Bachiller and Garcia Villamil,
who describe the unity of the four parts as responsible for the creation of all
existence and describe the parts collectively as the principles of the universe.
As noted earlier, while the circle and cross form the basic structure of
the lucero, a wide range of different designs have been documented as being
used across Cuba. The fourteen examples in Figures 28 through 41, drawn
by Fresneda Bachiller and Garcia Villamil over the past two decades, illus-
trate this range.
28 29 30 31
32 33 34 35
36 37 38
39 40 41
figUre 42
example of a lucero,
provided by Osvaldo
Fresneda Bachiller.
(photograph by lisa
maya Knauer, 2000.)
ta b L e 3 in the fourteen examples in Figures 28–41, the modification of the design reflects the
cosmogram’s partner force, its function, and the location where it is used. This table gives the distinct
characteristics and uses of each figure.
figure description
28 The most basic form of lucero. marks the place where the spirit will land. Generally used under a
prenda, under the bed, or under a glass of water.
29 Used to interact with the spirit using gunpowder or sulfur. To clean and protect physical locations,
such as the four corners of a home or the crossroads.
30 Used in the course of a graphic narrative, as part of a larger firma. Used in war or to defend against
a spiritual threat, to win the battle.
31 Used to convey a treaty or partnership between nkuyu and sarabanda and Gurufinda.
Joins together the healing and communication powers of all three spirits to be expressed
through nkuyu.
32 Used to resolve situations related to housing, to bring harmony and protection to a home.
33 lucero partnered with Tiembla Tierra, or “earthquake.” Used to cool down or relax a person.
34 Called Cuatro Vientos (Four Winds) Kangome Nfuiry, it is made out of vegetable fibers and
functions as a guide for the prenda spirits.
35 Used for marking the location of the prenda inside the religious room and to anchor or ground
the power of the prenda. also means a graveyard; used to call spirits resting in a graveyard.
36 represents long life, peace, and living in harmony. Used to protect the longevity of humans.
37 Used in the course of a graphic narrative, as part of a larger firma. Used to invoke the power of the
four cardinal points as one.
38 Used in the course of a graphic narrative, as part of a larger firma. Used only at night. When
rituals are performed outdoors, used to prevent disruptions or interference from other spirits or
problems and keep concentration focused in the ritual.
39 represents the earth and all its forces.
40 Used in the course of a graphic narrative, as part of a larger firma. represents the earth and all
its forces.
41 Used in the course of a graphic narrative, as part of a larger firma. Used “to take the corner of
the enemy,” to target a rival location, and to take control of that place. palo monte practitioners
believe that the corner is what protects an individual. To take control over a person’s life, it is first
necessary to take possession of this corner and then to penetrate the spirits that command the
individual’s house.
figUre 44
example of a
sequence of different
representations of
the sun, provided by
Osvaldo Fresneda
Bachiller. (From
Bárbaro martínez-
ruiz, personal
collection, 1989.)
representing different times of day, can be used in one of two ways. First,
the suns serve as a form of announcement, a mode of displaying when a cer-
emonial event will take place. Second, when they are drawn within a divi-
nation ritual, the suns inform the subject the time of the day at which an
important approaching event will occur.
From left to right, the fi rst, Lemba, represents from 6:00 A.M. to 10:00
A.M.; the second, Cuna Lemba, from 10:00 A.M. to noon; the third, Dia-
lemba, from noon to 1:00 P.M.; the fourth, Ndoki Lemba, or Brave Sun,
from 1:00 P.M. to 5:45 P.M.; and the fi fth, Vasco, or Winter Sun, from 5:45
P.M. to midnight. In addition, each representation of the sun is related to a
series of numbers that add further meaning in the context of a divination
ritual. In this case, the picture represents God as officiate of the transaction
of energy through the graphic. It also means that an extraordinary thing
will happen in one’s own home by order of God.
dikenga’s journey
46 47 48
49 50 51
Example 1
The Lovo dikenga shown in Figure 46 includes several important features.
The horizontal line is sharply drawn, with three lines that cross in the cen-
ter and two concentric circles at each endpoint. The vertical line is crowned
by multiple smaller circles at its two endpoints, a set of three circles at its
north end and two more at its south end. It is believed that three circles
control one’s life, so safety is found in three circles. The image of three cir-
cles is related to the Bakongo proverb that holds, “If something will hap-
pen, you will be told three times.”51 The idea of three is also associated
with love, truth, and justice. Marking the southernmost point with two cir-
cles in this example indicates completion or an ending. The placement of
circle pairs in this design shows the counterclockwise motion of the circle
from this point to its resting place in the west. Two other elements in this
cosmogram are clearly emphasized: the demarcation of the northern point,
which represents the moment of physical, spiritual, and intellectual growth,
and the emphasis of the horizontal kalûnga line reaching beyond the main
circle. The emphasis on the northern point suggests that this represents a
dikenga in the Tukula position, symbolizing the moment of growth, forma-
tion of society, and the highest moment of spiritual and physical develop-
ment. This dikenga shares features with two contemporary representations:
the example in Figure 52 also emphasizes the circular endpoints and is con-
tained within a double circle, while the example in Figure 53 illustrates the
singling out of one cardinal point.
Example 2
The example from Lovo in Figure 48 has a much larger center than other
representations. A large center, emphasizing the center point of the dikenga,
represents perfection and is seen frequently in Chokwe culture. This Lovo
image also differs from the others in that in this position it is not aligned
with a traditional cross, but is instead rotated 45 degrees. Despite this shift,
it is likely that the meaning is the same.
Example 3
The diamond shape in the center of the Lovo dikenga shown in Figure
49 is a sign of God. A diamond signifies Nzambi a Mpungu, and its loca-
tion inside the dikenga indicates protection. The oversized triangles that
f i g U r e S 52 – 53 Two examples
of dikenga sign. (adapted by the
author from K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau,
Cosmogonie Congo [Kinshasa:
52 53 Onrd, 1969].)
80 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
represent the dikenga’s cardinal points in this example are notable in that
triangular shapes also represent God and imply perfection, a message of
accomplishment emphasized by their size. The large triangles also suggest
a propeller wheel, indicating motion of the sign in the counterclockwise
direction of the ancestors. The propeller is formed by two combinations:
one is composed of the two triangles joined vertically across the diamond’s
center, representing the joining of humans and ancestors with God; the
second is made up of the horizontally facing triangles, which also indicate
motion, dialectic change, and transformation. Together the two axes allow
humans and ancestors to spin and move together as one, protected by God
as they move toward the underworld.
The example of dikenga in Figure 54, from Kuba, shares these char-
acteristics. The diamond center indicates God, and the oversized cardinal
points, although not triangular, form propellers and indicate collective mo-
tion toward the world of the ancestors. The dual spirals in the center of the
diamond also demonstrate centripetal and centrifugal movement. Clémen-
tine Faïk-Nzuji explains the spiral, stating that coming up to the center
from below conveys positive evolution, progress, and growth, and the com-
ing into the center from outside indicates regression and fleeing.52
Example 4
The Lovo dikenga in Figure 50 emphasizes, through its absence, the north
cardinal point. As described earlier, this position on a dikenga represents
maturity or adulthood and can also be used to indicate a warning of dan-
ger.53 The vertical mukula line is depicted here as a tunnel from the world
of the ancestors opening up into the realm of the living. The large circles
representing the remaining three cardinal points indicate protection. Fi-
nally, as in the above depictions, the diamond structure and the emphasized
four triangles represent the force of God. The dikenga in Figure 55, pro-
vided by Robert Farris Thompson, also involves four large, prominent cir-
cular points framing a perfect diamond comprising four triangles.
Example 5
The depiction of a Lovo dikenga in Figure 51 is also unique in a couple of
respects. First, it emphasizes the western cardinal point by making it larger
and farther from the center. The western point indicates death and regen-
eration, the reincarnation of living beings, and is also emphasized, through
its absence, in the Cuban dikenga in Figure 32, drawn by Osvaldo Fresneda
Bachiller. Second, the Lovo example strongly demonstrates its counter-
clockwise motion through its streaming, curving points. This sense of mo-
tion is echoed in Fresneda Bachiller’s example as well as in the dikenga
examples by Thompson (Figure 55) and Garcia Villamil (Figure 56).
Although the sign of dikenga may be the most important of the signs found
in Lovo that are widely used in the present day, it is by no means the only
such example. Table 4 illustrates forty-eight signs found in Lovo and com-
pares them with signs used today in Mbanza Kongo, Angola, and by Palo
Monte priests in Cuba.
A fi nal rupestrian site worthy of mention is Tadi dia Sîmbi (or Ntadi dya
Simbi) (Figure 57). According to Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, Tadi dia Sîmbi is
a large rock shelter located in the Lovo mountains near the Angola–Dem-
ocratic Republic of the Congo border. Unlike other rupestrian art found
in the Lovo region, the written symbols found in Tadi dia Sîmbi have not
been seen elsewhere. This site is mentioned here for contrast and to further
emphasize both the role played by graphic writing among the ancient peo-
ple of Central Africa and the complexity of its form and use evidenced in
the archaeological record.
Tadi dia Sîmbi is also known as Kuna Mboma (Two Bells) and, accord-
ing to surviving members of the royal family and to local traditional priests,
it was the location used to prepare the body of the deceased king before
passing his power on to the new king. The ceremony in the sanctuary is
called Mpindi a Tadi and is used to elevate the spirit of the king through
a mummification process that takes between five and seven years. It is only
82 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
ta b L e 4 Forty-eight signs found in lovo compared with signs used today in mbanza Kongo,
angola, and by palo monte priests in Cuba
ta b L e 4 (continued)
ta b L e 4 (continued)
ta b L e 4 (continued)
57.1
57.7
57. 5 57. 6
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 87
after the process is completed that the body can be interred in the ground,
at which point the lemba ceremony is performed to crown the new king
and connect him with the traditional spirits. The complex graphic writing
engraved on the surface of the rock in the cave contains instructions for the
performance used to elevate the spirit through the seven levels of existence
of the human soul and both guides and expresses the community’s wishes
for the rule of the new king.
The design is subdivided into seven major parts (see Details 57.1
through 57.7), corresponding to wishes that are expressed during the cere-
mony and are expected to be satisfied during the fi rst year of the new king’s
government. The seven parts symbolize the seven levels of existence, and,
taken as a whole, they represent the constant changes in the two worlds (the
worlds of the living and the dead). The meanings associated with each level
are as follows:
1. Rebirth in reference to the king’s soul crossing into the other world,
compromise
2. Good guidance, offering
3. Long life and health, intimacy
4. The center cosmogram that activates the whole drawing and links all of
its parts
5. Good agricultural season, seriousness
6. Maturity, wealth, prosperity, and generosity
7. Death, protection
Thompson describes in more detail the meaning and use of the center
of the Tadi dia Sîmbi cosmograms (Detail 57.4), writing that the four rect-
angular compartments of this part represent the journey of the spirit of the
dead person during his previous life and into his future as mwanda. The
symbolization
Their ornate design, complexity, and continued use, and the systematic,
narrative manner of reading, make the carvings in Tadi dia Sîmbi unique
among known rupestrian sites. Although their age is unknown, their exis-
tence demonstrates a substantial history of complex graphic writing in the
Lovo region. Deserving of far greater study, Tadi dia Sîmbi is particularly
interesting for its foreshadowing of the complex systems of graphic writing
that would later be seen in the New World.
88 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
in the designs on carved pot lids to represent the contrast between female
and male identities. When the symbols of the moon and sun appear in the
same frame, they also mean a personal encounter and indicate the differ-
ences between husband and wife. The contrasting yet complementary sym-
bols are seen in the following proverb recorded by José Martins Vaz in his
book Filosofia tradicional dos Cabindas.
Ntangu i Ngonde: The Sun and the Moon:
ba mana dengana, When they are to meet,
bi kundama va mbata. They are in the highest point.58
Contemporary usage of dimbu and sinsú symbols in Central Africa has not
been thoroughly cataloged or examined, and, with the exception of work
published on Sona writing among the Bachokwe people of eastern Angola
by scholars including Gerhard Kubik, no scholarship has addressed the con-
tinuing role of graphic writing in Bakongo communities. This lack of de-
tailed study has led some to believe erroneously that no comprehensive
graphic writing traditions other than Sona writing remain. Although John
90 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
Desmond Clark, Carlos Ervedosa, Camarate França, Henri Breuil, Jef Mor-
telmans, José Redinha, Joaquim Martins, John Turkey, Mário Fontinha,
and Paul Raymaekers and Hendrik van Moorsel have documented archaeo-
logical evidence of sign usage, and Faïk-Nzuji, Fu-Kiau, and Thompson
have recorded the contemporary existence of numerous graphic symbols
in Central Africa, no work has attempted to fully document the systematic
usage of such writing by modern Bakongo.
Research conducted between 2002 and 2010 in Angola’s Zaire province
and part of Bas-Zaire province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
has documented the use of a wide range of graphic writing forms and dem-
onstrated their systematic organization. There is widespread continued use
of, and community enthusiasm for, graphic writing, particularly among the
elders and other members of contemporary religious organizations in and
around Mbanza Kongo, and the research demonstrates that graphic writing
has long been, and continues to be, an important part of the religious and
political lives of members of the royal family, religious leaders, and laypeo-
ple in the wider Mbanza Kongo community.
This research on contemporary uses of graphic writing among the Ba-
kongo has involved close work with numerous traditional political and reli-
gious figures near Mbanza Kongo. These include surviving members of the
former royal government of the Kongo kingdom who, despite official de-
struction of the Kongo kingdom by Portuguese colonialists and the banning
of public religious and social organizations under Angola’s socialist regime,
have continued to safeguard traditional cultural and religious knowledge and
today form a self-described “Traditional Group.” They include Ntinu Nzaku
Nevunda, a priest who was once the royal councilor to the king; Alvaro Bar-
bosa, head of the traditional council; Alfonso Seke, the court’s oral histo-
rian; Paulino Polar, chief of Kwanza Maya (village); and Pedro Savão, chief
of Kinzau Niemo Maya. Other holders and institutions of traditional knowl-
edge in the area include the religion Bundu dia Kongo (BDK), whose priests
include Ne Lisimana Zola, Ne Wanzinga Mpangu, Ne Nzinga Wasiwadimbu,
Ne Keva Difua, and Ne Katembo Zola; the religion Mpeve ya Nlongo and its
prophet, Mayifwila Rafael Rivals; the Botanical House of Spirit and Tradi-
tion and its priest (nganga nkisi), Francisco Lusolo; the Church of Black Peo-
ple in Africa and its prophetic mother (ngudia nganga), Nsenga Alabertina;
and the Kimbanguista Church. These local churches fuse traditional beliefs
with elements of Catholic or Protestant religious scripture.64
Fu-Kiau defi nes communication in the Bakongo world through the con-
cept “Bidimbu ye Nsonokolo za Kongo,” a phrase that translates roughly as
“symbols and ancient Kongo pictographs.”65 Residents of Mbanza Kongo
use a similar concept, “Sinsu kia nguizami,”66 or writing signs, when asked
to defi ne or describe their notion of communication. A fuller translation of
the term nguizami incorporates the concept of symbols of understanding,
the willingness to listen to each other and be reasonable, and friendly dis-
course.67 A less formal term used to refer to graphic writing is “Ndinga i
Sinsu” or “Ndinga Bisinsu,” which literally means “graphic language.”
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 91
ta b L e 5 Comparison of meanings for a selection of signs, as offered by local priests and members
of the traditional Kongo government in mbanza Kongo, angola
ta b L e 5 (continued)
.
.
.
(continued on next page)
94 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
ta b L e 5 (continued)
ta b L e 5 (continued)
ta b L e 5 (continued)
ta b L e 5 (continued)
ta b L e 5 (continued)
59 60 61
64
figUreS 62– 64
distinctive pink flower and
the graphic writing that
62 63 represents it, 2003.
100 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
65 66 67
mbanza
Kongo bisinsu meaning
ta b L e 6 (continued)
mbanza
Kongo bisinsu meaning
Three ways without exit. The necessary road zigzags, but must be followed
to the desired destination. There is no shortcut.
Two straight ways without curves and with no exit. The main road does
not have shortcuts.
.
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 103
ta b L e 6 (continued)
mbanza
Kongo bisinsu meaning
A way that always rises and crosses water and rivers. A river throughout
the way.
ta b L e 6 (continued)
mbanza
Kongo bisinsu meaning
figUre 68 figUre 69
drawing on drawing on
the front door the floor inside
of mpeve ya the mpeve ya
nlongo church, nlongo church,
mbanza Kongo, mbanza Kongo,
angola, 2003. angola, 2003.
106 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
circle, believed to symbolize and confer the power of the earth. This circle
grants access to the meaning of the symbols that constitute the image.
The sign comprises several interdependent parts that the observer must
look at in turn, reading the sign from the bottom toward the top. At the
base is a symbol in the form of a large letter M. This signifies compromise,
commitment, and meetings or gatherings. Above the M is a large V-shape,
which signifies the union of all practitioners and is a sign of life. Together
the M and the V mean initiation and symbolize belonging to the church.
They also indicate the arrival of Mpeve ya Nlongo, the primary guardian
spirit. Each arm of the V is capped by a five-pointed star, and a third star
is nestled where the two arms meet. This middle star symbolizes the reli-
gion’s youngest generation, its recent initiates, who are protected in the
arms of the faith. The star capping the right arm symbolizes strong, wise
leadership by the elders and spiritual guidance, while the star atop the left
arm represents a strong and powerful priest with a great deal of experience.
Seen together the three stars represent the illumination of knowledge, the
brightness of the entire congregation, and the basic pillars of the religion.
Indicative of the syncretic belief structures in the region, the stars are also
associated with the Christian belief in the trinity.
In the center of the V is a circle that represents the earth. Framed by
tiny rays, the circle is associated with the Christian crown of David and
is intended as a symbol of authority. Finally, as a perfect geometric form
within which all occurs, the circle is believed to offer protection for the
soul, a concept illustrated further by the depiction of the bird within the
circle. The figure of a bird is a metaphor for the fl ight of the ancestors, who
are believed to make possible the continuity between their world and the
world of the living, and whose presence implies the protection of life and
health. The bird is further associated with Christian notions of peace, often
represented by doves in churches and on robes and tablecloths. At the very
top of the sign is a cross depicted in what looks like a glass, also resplendent
with Christian overtones. This symbolizes Nzambi a Mpungu, or God, and
replicates the common traditional practice of placing a crucifi x in a glass of
water. Water is a symbol of life’s creation and is believed to empower the
spirit of God. In this context, the crucifi x is used as dikenga. Once activated
through its location in the circle, the image is central to religious practice
within the church. Practitioners position themselves to the south (at the
bottom) of the sign, facing north. Praying with the arms open is a pose
known as nevuanda, a way to open one’s body to receive spiritual energy.
While praying, practitioners chant religious songs (mambos) meant to call
forth the spirit.
Another representation of this sign in Mpeve ya Nlongo hangs from
the building’s rafters in the center of the church, above the sign’s depic-
tion on the floor. This structure is constructed from flowers, leaves, and
branches, tied together and arranged in a pattern. Each part of the design
is made up of elements carefully selected for their medicinal value. In addi-
tion, flowers are arranged by color to reflect and correspond with the mean-
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 107
ings of the symbols on the ground. For example, palm fronds are used in
the hanging version in place of the letter V, and yellow flowers are linked to
the star symbols.
Nganga Nkisi Francisco Lusolo of the Casa Botanica de Espiritu e
Tradiçao (Botanical House of Spirit and Tradition) 77 in Mbanza Kongo
describes how the notion of graphic writing as used by his practitioners
encompasses two practices. The fi rst, ndinga a ntima,78 which translates
as “the language of the heart,” involves the signs that are provided by the
spirits (nlongo) and ancestors (bakulu). As such, this sign system is used for
divination, revelation, and the decoding of religious messages. The second
kind of graphic expression is called ndinga i sinsú79 and involves the draw-
ing of unique signs that represent individual people on interior walls, doors,
and flags and on the ground.
A type of the highly individualized ndinga i sinsú signs that represent
personal identity and an individual’s spiritual strength is called muntu ya
kuluzu,80 which means that each person has his or her own cross (Figure
70). Because each sign is drawn slightly differently, a practitioner is able to
identify his or her own cross and see within it his or her own soul or per-
sonality. To use his or her cross, an individual must touch it and receive
its energy.
Another sign with specific meaning is called ovo bata didi and is used to
indicate a marriage through the joining of two crosses, the symbolic union
of two people becoming one (Figure 71). Divorce is similarly represented
through movement of individual crosses.
A third example of ndinga i sinsú graphic writing is seen in the sign for
the Botanical House (Figure 72). The sign comprises a heart enclosing a
cross and the letter S. The heart (ntima) is a symbol of generosity, humility,
and spiritual cleansing. A related proverb in Mbanza Kongo alludes to the
vast generosity of the heart: “The heart of a Bakongo cannot be touched
f i g U r e 72 divine sign on the front wall of the f i g U r e 73 divine sign of the Church
Botanical house of spirit and Tradition, mbanza of Black people in africa, mbanza Kongo,
Kongo, angola, 2002. angola, 2003.
by a fi nger because you will never reach its bottom.”81 The heart also rep-
resents human beings in their mortal condition, as people without super-
natural power. The cross (muntu ya kuluzu) within the heart represents
individual people, and the overlapping S, called sadisa, calls upon the power
of healing or curing. Together these three graphic elements are intended to
illustrate the power of the religion.
Teachings of the Igresia de Negros en Africa (Church of Black People
in Africa or INAF) in Mbanza Kongo, as described by Nsenga Alabertina,
the Ngudia Nganga or priest, use graphic writing in the church’s mix of
traditional beliefs with those of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The sign
shown in Figure 73 is located on the exterior of the INAF church and is
used to indicate what takes place inside. At the bottom the circle with a dot
in the center represents the beginning of all existence, the source of all life.
It implies strength, security, and protection. Two bold lines stretch upward
from this point, forming an arrowhead at their tip. This arrowhead indi-
cates the route humans have traveled and the way of life in Mbanza Kongo.
Practitioners believe that this city was created by twelve families, each rep-
resented by a triangle around the central circle. These triangles are seen
as cardinal points that encircle and protect the city. They reference similar
markings—fountains providing fresh water—located at each of the four car-
dinal points of the actual city of Mbanza Kongo. The S in the center of the
sign’s circle and overlapping the two vertical lines represents people empow-
ering the guardian spirit (mpeve ya nlongo). Above the circle a wavy line
indicates water, which, in INAF, represents the sîmbi spirit and conveys
the belief that sîmbi has the power to hold the city together and ensure its
survival. The sign above the water line contains a triangle used to symbol-
ize the fertility of women and the earth. Finally, the image as a whole has
meaning: the sign on top and the central triangle-ringed circle both repre-
sent stars and together are believed to represent all of Bakongo civilization.
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 109
of the deceased, and the smaller triangle symbolizing the ancestors already
departed. Collectively, the tree’s symbols illustrate the Bakongo belief that
humans are incomplete if they do not have ongoing interaction with their
ancestors. The sequence of symbols implies that in order to become whole,
humans must cross over kalûnga to meet with their ancestors.
In addition to the religious understandings and uses of graphic writing
documented in Mbanza Kongo and described here, Fu-Kiau has provided
a large amount of information on spiritual uses and meanings of graphic
symbols among the Bakongo in the southern Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Table 7 illustrates a selection of his work.
comparison of bisinsu
ta b L e 7 a selection from the work of K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau (1962–2003), including the meanings of
the signs shown (“Bidimbu ye nsonokolo za Kongo” [symbols and ancient Kongo pictography], 2003)
bidimbu meaning
ta b L e 7 (continued)
bidimbu meaning
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 113
ta b L e 7 (continued)
bidimbu meaning
114 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
ta b L e 8 Comparison of the strong similarities among different but related systems, emphasizing
their common genesis
ta b L e 8 (continued)
ta b L e 8 (continued)
ta b L e 8 (continued)
ta b L e 8 (continued)
during ceremonies and weekly worship but lack a full understanding of all
the symbols or their relationship to one another. Instead, it is the religious
leaders and priests who have the requisite specialized knowledge for the
selective use of graphic writing.
To study Kongo cosmogony at the highest level, one must be a mem-
ber of an initiation society. Within the social and religious structure of a
society, initiates learn the location of the symbols; their position, form,
color, and direction; and the way they relate to the specific society.86 In Self-
Healing Power and Therapy, Fu-Kiau discusses modes of transmission of
this knowledge, writing, “Because of the lack of printed material, teaching
constituted passing down of key principles of life through bikûmu (repeated
mottoes), ngana (proverbs), n’kûnga (songs), and nsonokono zabândulwa
(iconographic writing).”87 This dialectic is described as a kinzônzi pattern,
the “process in which the master enunciates one portion of a given principle
and the audience in chorus completes the rest. Everything is either repeated,
sung, bândulwa (iconographically written), or proverbialized (sokwa mu
ngana).”88 Although originally only secret society initiates learned the use
of graphic writing in a religious sense, the advent of syncretic religions in
Mbanza Kongo and the gradual shifting of cultural roles have resulted in a
wider use of graphic writing. For example, it is not uncommon for uniniti-
ated priests and prophets of syncretic churches such as Bundu dia Kongo,
the Kimbanguista Church, and Mpeve ya Nlongo to incorporate a range of
graphic writing into their practice, as detailed earlier in this chapter.
Among those who have gained access to restricted religious and phil-
osophical knowledge, certain individuals take responsibility for the writ-
ing and reading of bidimbu and bisinsu. Priests exclusively hold the right
to write with graphic signs, but while there are a number of different kinds
of priests, all of whom have access to graphic writing, some types are more
actively engaged in using it. In particular, the Ngânga-Nkôndi takes on this
role. The title Ngânga-Nkôndi means “priest of the notebook,” indicating
this priest’s role as the religious recorder. This type of priest is a specialist in
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 119
fi nding and implementing solutions for all spiritual issues that arise within
Kongo religious institutions such as the Lemba society.89
In addition to religious figures, there are social and political counter-
parts who are responsible for administering the use of graphic writing in a
secular setting. One such position, which Fu-Kiau describes as a “scribe,” is
someone whose role is to archive information inside the traditional govern-
ment (mbôngi).90 This person is called Na-Makolo or Makolo and is charged
with keeping for the community records of government decisions, agree-
ments (mandaka) with other traditional governments, such as economic
contracts and political alliances, and other important events.91 The Makolo
does this by braiding a cord and tying knots onto this rope (n’sing’a makolo)
or simply by cutting marks (makènko) into a piece of wood made for the
purpose.92 The Makolo also has the related obligation of decoding the mes-
sage symbolized by each mark or knot on his ropes.
Another important figure in the process of codifying and deciphering
graphic writing is the Mabika (announcer), whose function is to speak to
the community and notify the public of the resolution of particular prob-
lems. The Mabika does this by untying or cutting the knots that represent
the date on which the problem was discussed by the Mbôngi or that indi-
cate known events such as anniversaries, the signing of agreements, and
other important events in the community.
It is not possible to generalize about the extent to which these traditional
roles are still being performed in Central Africa. The Angolan government’s
attempts to systematically break down the structures of the traditional Ba-
kongo government have been more successful in more densely populated
towns and cities. As a result, in Mbanza Kongo itself, although only a mid-
size town, the traditional information-providing responsibilities of the Ma-
kolo and the Mabika are rarely seen. Only when the members of the last
traditional government are assembled, usually for national cultural awareness
events,93 are these figures active. Outside of Mbanza Kongo, however, the
traditional responsibilities of the Makolo and Mabika have been preserved to
a greater extent. The same is true among the Bakongo of the southern Dem-
ocratic Republic of the Congo, where during the past fi fty years the national
government has been less overtly hostile to traditional roles.
The foregoing is intended to illustrate, through a selection of detailed
examples, the degree to which graphic symbols continue to be used by Ba-
kongo residents in and around Mbanza Kongo, Angola, and, by exploring
the range of contemporary secular and religious uses of bidimbu and bisinsu,
to demonstrate that the approach to graphic writing is at once complex and
fluid, allowing the system to remain strong throughout changing times.
The word firma literally means “signature” in Spanish, and its use can be
traced back to colonial times. No available information indicates how or
when the term firma began to be used to describe graphic writing in Cuba,
but there is a clear association between the Kongo understanding of graphic
writing and the notion of a signature. A signature is something personal, a
graphic representation of what is unique and distinctive about the person
making it. This individual notion suggests connections to the spirituality of
the person and can be seen as an example of overlapping the literal mean-
ing of the word with a deeper functional dimension within the intercul-
tural social context. Firmas are more abstractly understood in the religious
context, where they are used to depict and call forth spiritual forces, com-
municate with ancestral spirits, and facilitate divination. In this sense, the
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 121
concept links immediate human destiny with worlds beyond our own and
serves as an emblem for the expression of metaphysical ideas.
Though most commonly referred to as fi rmas, Cuban graphic writ-
ing is also known as fimba,96 engángo, or anaforuana.97 Engángo and
anaforuana, terms used within Cuban Abakuá initiatory societies of Efi k
and Ekoi origins, mean literally “the passageway of the mpúngu (force or
energy).”98 Engángo comes from the word ngango, which means “intelli-
gence” or “knowledge” in Kikongo.99 Interestingly, the African-descended
population in Cuba chose to describe a communicative medium and form
of religious and cultural transition using the term intelligence instead of
the seemingly more logical choice ndinga, which means “language” in
Kikongo. The term for knowledge is certainly a more accurate expression of
the Bakongo concept of communication—the holding and sharing of cul-
tural information—and can arguably be seen as a celebration of this orig-
inal meaning within their Kongo culture rather than a literal translation
of what would have been expected within the colonial language imposed
upon them.
Just as there exists little information on how fi rmas got their name, so
too no conclusive evidence yet demonstrates from where or what the graphic
system developed, or how such a process occurred. Many Cubans, even
those who use fi rmas in their religious life, know little about the writing’s
African origins. Similarly, scholars of Cuban history have paid little atten-
tion to African communication modes and have focused instead on catalog-
ing and describing pre-Columbian graphic traditions and daily life rather
than on the cultural tools of the African population brought to the island
after conquest. A similar lack of attention is notable in traditional linguis-
tic studies within Kongo-based religious practice by Afro-Cubans, in which
scholars nearly uniformly disregard fi rmas as an actual form of language.
According to oral accounts, graphic writing appeared for the fi rst time
in Cuba around the eighteenth century.100 The earliest documentation of its
use came in the nineteenth century, ironically in the form of Spanish cigar
labels, when the tobacco company Susuni used fi rmas in its label designs,
seemingly without any awareness of their meaning or use.101 It was not
until the beginning of the twentieth century that this graphic tradition
caught the attention of scholars, most notably Fernando Ortiz and Lydia
Cabrera, whose pioneering work has provided a foundation for subsequent
analysis. Ortiz’s work cataloged signs and symbols, songs, poems, and oral
history as specific cultural markers but did not fully connect these markers
to a wider tradition of religious practice. Cabrera collected oral traditions
that she believed related to an understanding of religious and cultural prac-
tices of African peoples and their descendants in Cuba and openly empha-
sized her aim of recovering the memory of Africans and their contributions.
Subsequent work by a range of writers continued to note the existence
of graphic writing in the practice of Kongo religion in Cuba but, with few
exceptions, added relatively little to the basic knowledge established by
122 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
Ortiz and Cabrera. One exception is the work of the musicologist Argeliers
León in his classic essay “De paleros y fi rmas se trata” (About Paleros and
Firmas), published in 1986 in the Revista Unión (Union Journal). León ac-
knowledges at the beginning of his essay that fi rmas comprise “an outline
system,”102 with its origin in Africa, and notes the religious and social func-
tions of the tradition. León describes the development of fi rmas by slaves
and their descendants as a response to their new circumstances in colonial
Cuba and asserts that this development was enabled by the grouping of
Africans into social and fraternal organizations called Cabildos. León de-
scribes fi rmas as being used “to perform religious work, spiritual cleaning,
and protection, [and] to fight witchcraft” and emphasizes the importance
of understanding the system from within, from the perspective and culture
of the practitioners. He notes that the process for learning the meaning of
the signs takes a long time and involves detailed religious education, and he
goes on to characterize the fi rma tradition as “signing sets”103 that can be
understood only among a restricted social group that has been educated to
decode the signs’ meanings: “The decoding of this sign system responds to
a semiotic pragmatism that becomes oscillating, personal, conventional, and
ultimately idiosyncratic, compact, and delimited.”104 León’s greatest contri-
bution is his documentation of a wide array of fi rmas and his attempts to ex-
plain a select few, but while his work is informative in its description of the
performance of fi rmas, it is limited by his failure to fully understand fi rmas
as a complex language, a form of communication that goes beyond the sim-
plistic system used only to “represent” mystical forces.
Other than general acknowledgments of the African character of fi rmas
and occasional, noncontextualized references to their usage within Afro-
Cuban religious practice, information on the way African culture informed
and continues to shape the use and meaning of graphic writing in Cuba
has been largely absent from existing literature on the subject, as have been
discussions regarding the importance of the writing form to Afro-Cuban
identity. Instead, the tendency has been to treat the pictorial tradition as
a minor form of graphic expression, an art form barely meriting explana-
tion within the understanding of other art practices such as the colonial
academia, “Cuban vanguardia” in the early twentieth century, and Cuba’s
postrevolution artistic movements.
In contrast to this general absence of such an understanding, Robert
Farris Thompson’s work has celebrated the strong link between Kongo be-
lief and communication systems in Central Africa and the use of fi rmas
in Cuba and has added significantly to the foundation laid by Ortiz and
Cabrera. Thompson argues that the Kongo culture of Central Africa was
the main source of the Palo Monte tradition, writing, “Kongo metaphys-
ical writing provides a hidden impetus behind African-American writ-
ing systems [such as] fi rmas in western Cuba.”105 Although his focus is
on the Kongo influence, Thompson also recognizes the inevitable influ-
ence of the Spanish language during colonial times, as well as other Afri-
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 123
can influences in Cuba, including Abakuá and Yoruba, and the peripheral
effects of numerological systems from Cabala Hebrew and Chinese astro-
logical understandings.106
Consistent with Thompson’s work, the following close examination of
the role fi rmas play in Afro-Cuban culture, the way they are written, and
the forms they take demonstrates the close and continuing cultural ties to
Kongo belief and practice, proves that fi rmas in Cuba serve a purpose that
goes far beyond mere representation, and has significant implications for
wider Cuban belief systems and cultural identity. The continuities between
the graphic writing systems in Cuba and Central Africa should not, how-
ever, obscure the contrasts, and it is worthwhile to take note of the pro-
cess of adopting and learning the tradition in the New World, a process
with parallels to the adaptation of sacred Chinese writing in India described
by John Stevens in Sacred Calligraphy of the East: “Every letter is a sacred
symbol, yet [it is] understood that each people must recreate the symbol
and sound in their own idiom.”107 The resulting Palo Monte religious be-
liefs and the fi rmas that express them are at once deeply rooted and unde-
niably unique.
Among practitioners of Palo Monte, the fi rma system fulfi lls a number of
roles that collectively highlight the variety and depth of its relevance to past
and present Cuban culture. At their most basic level, fi rmas, or single sym-
bols, are used as a mode of identifying facts such as practitioners’ names or
roles inside the religion, family, or spiritual association and the location of
the religious house. The primary role of a signature is to facilitate the inter-
action between peoples and, in more secret spaces, the interaction between
the priest, spiritual forces, God, and practitioners. As noted earlier, the
fi rma system is also known as Ngángo, literally “the passageway of mpungo;
the signal and the essence of God are working down on the earth.” As such,
the signatures function as a type of map or electrical circuit whereby the
electricity and force of God, like the cosmic vibrations manifested through
religious objects, circulate and materialize. Signatures are used to convey
feelings, intentions, and desires to spiritual forces and serve as a means for
a practitioner to visualize and communicate with the powers of the spirits.
Like a text that conveys holy scripture, signatures enable both aesthetic and
conceptual understandings of religious values.
Signatures are also used to energize people with the forces summoned
by the signature. When the people supplement the motion of the fi rma
through dance and gesture, the result is a graphic in motion that becomes
a perfect symbol of God as a unifying and active spirit. Similarly, fi rmas are
used for healing and meditation and for the facilitation of mutual transac-
tions of energy between priests, practitioners, and God or the forces rel-
evant to a particular religious experience. Firmas are also used to teach
124 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
practitioners religious values and the history of Palo Monte and to pro-
vide outright instruction in the organization of time and the sequencing of
ritual components within the religious ceremony.
In yet another capacity, fi rmas exemplify the manner in which writing
as art and scripture is utilized in Kongo-Cuban culture in the resolution of
confl ict between individuals and within and between communities. When
a confl ict arises, an individual goes to a priest for assistance. The priest cre-
ates a unique signature, and a ceremony is performed to bring the issue to
the attention of the ancestors and deities. The signature in this case is not
just a representation of the problem but instead becomes the vehicle for its
resolution, as it has the ability to engage the problem and identify the spiri-
tual energy or force necessary for a solution.
In addition to the many religious roles fulfi lled by fi rmas in Cuba, there
are social motivations for the use of graphic writing that can be traced from
its inception to the present. As distinct from usage in Central Africa, there
is no clear and absolute way to distinguish between religious and secular
uses because of the extent to which religious beliefs and moral philosophy
have fi ltered into the daily life and understanding of society. Firmas origi-
nally provided the Kongo-Cuban people with a sense of belonging to a new
space, became vital to social-religious consciousness, and, in placing the
individual at the service of the group, increased the power of the group as a
whole. This heightened group consciousness became visible with the emer-
gence of Palo Monte in Cuba.108 In the face of the social repression during
colonial times, the social prejudice of the Cuban society during the era of
the republic, and the intolerant ideological extremism of “Marxism” in the
present day, the fact that fi rmas have survived intact from colonial times is a
testament to the effectiveness of the structure of the graphic system and the
social forces that preserved it.
76 77 78
79 80 81 82 83
85 86 87
f i g U r e S 8 5 – 87 examples of three firmas: siete rayos (85), sîmbi (86), and remolino
(87), provided by Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, personal documents, havana, Cuba. (From
Bárbaro martínez-ruiz, personal collection, 1989.)
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 127
bols used for divination. Besides location and broad purpose, a number of
other contextual factors related to a fi rma’s creation are also critical to its
meaning. Several of these are discussed in detail in Chapter 5 and include
the words spoken, accompanying music, the gestures and positions of those
involved, and the type of religious objects with which the fi rma is designed
to interact.
It is also important to highlight the variety of forms the signature
itself can take and note the wide array of mediums through which it can
be employed. In general, signatures are made with white chalk (luvemba or
cascarilla), though other colors may be used depending on the function of
the graphic. These signatures are influenced by location and material and
can vary depending on whether they are drawn on the floor, on the wall, at
a point of entrance or exit, in a path, on wood, paper, metal, or stone, or on
religious objects or a person’s body.
Finally, the styles of the stamps and fi rmas vary depending on the art-
ist or priest making them and the Palo Monte branch within which they
are used. For example, in Matanzas province, fi rmas are written in what
is known as a “sharp style,” so named because of the practice of holding
the chalk very fi rmly against the surface in order to make every angle or
geometric form as straight as possible. The angular shape of the regular
character is then alternated with emphatic lines and some circular forms.
In contrast, the “soft style,” favored in Havana province, results when the
stamps and fi rmas are written with more circular shapes that are occasion-
ally interrupted by sharp geometric figures. The difference between the
styles is evident in the examples of complex signatures shown in Figures
88 and 89.
88 89
for the use of the fi rma and making that spirit a tangible force for the dura-
tion of the fi rma’s use. Activation can take place in a number of ways. Lydia
Cabrera documented this basic way to activate a simple graphic sign:
In order to know if the spirit (nganga) accepts, fi rst place seven piles of
gunpowder in a straight line in front of the Prendas, and ask “If you are in
agreement lift them all to the foot of . . .”—say the name of the Nganga
and light the gunpowder. If all are swept up, the spirit is understood to
be in agreement, but to confi rm the answer in a more affi rmative manner,
the Ngagulero (specialized priest) reorganizes the gunpowder and draws
a cross next to the last little pile. The drawn cross is that of Nzambi, a
cross of God that is believed to be a fi rm word by which to swear. The
ngagulero says “Holy word, if you are in agreement take seven and leave
me one. Gunpowder, do not pass the cross.” Lit, six piles explode, and that
of the cross, the seventh does not, a result in which the nganga expresses,
without a doubt, its acceptance.110
Access to Firmas
Although fi rmas are widely used within Afro-Cuban culture, relatively few
people can actually read and write this form of graphic writing. Their rar-
ity is in part a result of the system’s complexity, which demands a profes-
sional religious education; close work with a Tata nkisi (priest) to learn the
range of symbols, the syntax, and structural components; and many years
of practice. Secrecy regarding the uses and meanings of fi rmas further lim-
its who has access to the requisite religious education in the reading and
writing of the signatures. Unlike in Central Africa, where members of lay
society learn select elements of graphic writing, in Cuba the information
130 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
is found and used exclusively within the religious realm. Religious knowl-
edge in Palo Monte is held and protected by Tatas (Fathers) and is made ac-
cessible to practitioners in adherence to a certain hierarchy. Occupying the
lowest rung of the religious hierarchy are guests, who are permitted only
to witness certain activities and benefit from the rituals performed. These
guests are generally related in some way to others deeper within the reli-
gion. The second level, called ngueye, is reserved for individuals who have
been initiated into the religion. At this level, individuals are able to climb
higher by taking the initiative to learn more about the religion and by
showing their knowledge through interactions with priests and other mem-
bers of the religious society. As more knowledge is gained by initiates on
this track, they are given greater access to sacred knowledge. Progression is
also marked by ascension to positions of power and the assumption of their
accompanying responsibilities. From highest to lowest, these specific posi-
tions include Tata, Mayordomo, Baconfula, Manzanero, Guardiero, Pati-
fula, Talanquero, Sabanero, Guatoco Sambe, Ensila, and Lindero Kongo.113
It is not necessary to progress through all stages in order or according to a
rigid schedule, and individuals often skip ahead as soon as they are consid-
ered prepared.
Among the individuals occupying such positions with access to fi rmas,
there is a further specialization insofar as certain individuals are responsible
for writing and reading fi rmas in their ritual context. Whereas graphic writ-
ing and reading functions are distinct in Kongo society in Central Africa
(performed respectively by the Makongo and Makâba), in Cuba the roles
were combined and one religious position became responsible for both writ-
ing/recording and reading/decoding fi rmas. In Palo Monte, the baconfula
(spelled bakonfula in Kikongo)114 is such a figure. The title bakonfula is a
combination of two Kikongo words, bako and fula, which were fused dur-
ing colonial times.115 The word bako refers to a stimulus, sting, tingle, or
throb, or something that causes smarting pain.116 Fula means “gunpow-
der,”117 the substance that has been used for centuries in Kongo-Cuban
divination. Together, in the Kongo-Cuban way of thinking, bako and fula
imply the action of divining through fi re, decoding spiritual communica-
tions using flames, engaging the forces through the body, and understand-
ing through sensation.
Another possible meaning of the term bako is related to the term boko,
the root in the verb bôka, which means “to break, to cut” in the sense of
deciding and solving problems.118 The term boko is central to the proverbial
tradition used in divination and by the village council in Kongo society in
Africa. Examples of some of the proverbs about boko compiled by Fu-Kiau
in his book Mbôngi are given in Table 9.
According to Garcia Villamil and Fresneda Bachiller, the baconfula has
the full right and responsibility to use the graphic writing system and to
draw the signatures used during Palo Monte ceremonies. In addition to the
physical act of writing, which is believed to be the conduit for the release
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 131
Kikongo english
mbil’a boko ni beto kulu. The call of boko belongs to all of us.
Boko wabôka mu kânda. it is the boko that calls up everything in the community.
Boko wabokula mâmbu mu it is the boko that “breaks” (solves) the social problems
(ma) kânda. within the community.
Boko ka ditûngwanga ku The boko is not built “aside” (from the physical
lutèngo ko. and spiritual community).
Source: K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Mbôngi: An African Traditional Political Institution (Omenana, d.r.C.: nyangwe-
roxbury, 1985), pp. 2–7.
manual of Stamps
The scope of the stamps that make up the fi rma system is far too vast to
be explained or documented in a single work. Instead, Table 10 presents
a collection of the more important and most commonly depicted graphic
signs currently in use in Palo Monte. The stamp depictions and meanings
included here were represented by Garcia Villamil and Fresneda Bachil-
ler. In addition, depictions of stamps as published by Cabrera are included
to provide a comparative historical perspective. With meanings consistent
across the sources, the strong similarities in stamp design are informative.
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 133
osvaldo felipe
fresneda garcia Lydia
bachiller villamil cabrera meaning
ta b L e 10 (continued)
osvaldo felipe
fresneda garcia Lydia
bachiller villamil cabrera meaning
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 135
ta b L e 10 (continued)
osvaldo felipe
fresneda garcia Lydia
bachiller villamil cabrera meaning
ta b L e 10 (continued)
osvaldo felipe
fresneda garcia Lydia
bachiller villamil cabrera meaning
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 137
ta b L e 10 (continued)
osvaldo felipe
fresneda garcia Lydia
bachiller villamil cabrera meaning
ta b L e 10 (continued)
osvaldo felipe
fresneda garcia Lydia
bachiller villamil cabrera meaning
9 0 .1
90.2
90.3
90.4 90.5
stamp marks that this ceremony must be made in a vititi menso so the par-
ticipants can visualize and confi rm the arrival of the divine messages in
the crystal.
Detail 90.4 represents the entrance of the bandoki, which controls the
bandoki of the enemy. The stamp in Detail 90.5 signifies protection, ensur-
ing that the enemy does not touch the paths or change the character of the
work that is being done. This stamp can also be inverted and used to sur-
round the course or prevent the enemy from following the trail. It also rep-
resents the map of where the greatest ancestors descend, the spirits of plants
and animals (the flora and fauna). This symbol also alludes to the piedra de
rayo (kind of rock that can be found under a palm tree after being struck
by lightning) and the piedra iman (magnetic rock), which must be present
over this signature to give it strength.
Detail 90.6 represents earth in all its manifestations. The circle is di-
vided into five parts:
The fi nal part of this stamp consists of the lines that come from the
lower part of the circle (Subdetail 90.6F). These lines represent the radia-
tion of energy from the prenda (nganga) toward the godsons. For example,
the straight line crossed with multiple diagonal lines represents the spirit of
Mambe, a principal spirit that must be called in order to give strength to
the work. The irregular line represents the rest of the ancestors who protect
the cave, and in the center of the base of the circle (Subdetail 90.6G) is a
cross, illustrating both the division between the two realms (the earth and
the sky) and the connection between them.
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 141
90.6a 90.6b
91. 2
91.1
92 . 2 92 . 3 92 . 4 92 . 5
foretold in the fi rma will take place on the earth, between the sky and the
ground, not beyond. It should also be noted that the number of small ar-
rows at the base of each of the stamps is significant, as each marks the pres-
ence of a spirit. For example, Nzazi is represented by six arrows, Nzambi a
Mpungu (God) by two arrows, and Chola Nguengue by five arrows.
The second stamp (Detail 92.2) is represented by an arrow and an
S-shaped figure marked by alternating circles and crosses. This stamp rep-
resents the thunder that signifies that the spiritual force of Nzazi is behind
the action of the fi rma. The third stamp (Detail 92.3) is represented by a
simple arrow that indicates the time when the fi rma’s action will be exe-
cuted. The nine marks in the upper left portion of the arrow mean that it
will take place within nine days. The fourth stamp (Detail 92.4) represents
the religious community and all the members who are blessing and autho-
rizing the fi rma’s action.
The fi fth stamp (Detail 92.5) comprises two arrows, between which
is a representation of a human skull. At the skull’s base is a cross with four
S’s entwining the arms. The arrows to the left and right of the fi rma rep-
resent the guardians that are protecting a benevolent spirit. This spirit, or
ndoki,125 is represented by the skull itself and has the power to control the
enemies of the stamp’s owner. The four S forms stand for the stars that will
guide the ndoki during this activity. The cross and the circle to the left
and right, respectively, are also for protection, while the crosses and cir-
cles that form a vertical line below the skull signify that this ndoki comes in
the form of a spirit of the community and arrives by crossing the kalûnga
line, the line that represents the separation between the living and the dead.
Finally, the sixth and last stamp in the upper part of the fi rma represents the
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 145
92 . 6 92 .7 92 . 8
92 . 9 92 .10
92 .11
92 .12
only Kongo ancestors to cross the line and fi nd rebirth. This stamp also
indicates that action must be taken by creating a specific medicinal for-
mula from a specified combination of plants and performing an animal
sacrifice.
The fi fth stamp (Detail 92.11) represents the cemetery, the space where
the ancestors rest. In the context of this fi rma, its inclusion means that the
ancestors will be reborn in the cemetery, so the fi rma must be used in a
cemetery. The fi nal stamp (Detail 92.12) is the center of the cross that re-
sults from the entwining of two principal lines. The fi rst of these is the hor-
izontal kalûnga line, the division between the two worlds, the frontier, the
point of encounter between the living and the dead. This line creates on its
top flank a triangle divided into two equal parts that symbolize the ances-
tors. The lower side of the kalûnga line contains another triangle, an in-
verted version of its counterpart above. This mirrored image signifies the
multiplicity of many ancestors. The second line is mukula and represents
the path from under the water to the surface of the world. This central
stamp tells the story of this entire third part of the signature by indicating
the quantity of ancestors called upon and echoing the fi rma’s name.
When we read the story of this part, we are able to interpret the dialogue
between different stamps and see how the meanings of graphic elements
can change as they relate to one another. For example, the skull, when un-
derstood in conjunction with the central stamp, signifies that multiple spir-
its are coming to assist and are of Kongo origin. We can continue reading
the stamps, complementing their meanings with that of the central stamp
in order to gain a more complete understanding of the fi rma’s meaning.
The detailed overview of the ways in which fi rmas are understood and
used in contemporary Afro-Cuban religious practice articulates the differ-
ences and highlights the overwhelming similarities between this graphic
writing system and its counterpart in Central Africa. Firmas in Cuba contain
a reservoir of Kongo knowledge and beliefs that were brought to the coun-
try over a period of more than three centuries. In the signatures remain the
memories and beliefs of these ancestors and the evidence of lasting spiritual
links with Central Africa. Yet, despite the substantial congruity between
A f r o - A t l a n t i c G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g 147
fi rmas and the bidimbu and bisinsu of past and present Central Africa, the
ways in which the practices have diverged and the complex manner in which
fi rmas are now constructed, employed, and understood demonstrate high
levels of creativity and cultural adaptation. That this dual process of preser-
vation and transformation has been documented by graphic writing systems
demonstrates the power and strength of innovation.
C H A P T E R 5
funza. Funza originated in God and “in order to help the people . . . came
with a great number of minkisi which he distributed throughout the coun-
try, each with its respective powers, governing over its particular domain.”2
Like Thompson, early scholars who observed the use of a range of
minkisi recognized the objects’ critical importance in Kongo belief systems
and documented their varied forms. In doing so, they offered different def-
initions for, or explanations of, the concept itself. For example, Joseph van
Wing writes, “The Nkisi . . . is an artificial object thought to be inhabited
or influenced by a spirit; in any case, endowed by it with a superhuman
power; and that spirit is under the domination of a man.”3 Karl Laman
came into much contact with the use of minkisi in Central Africa during
his tenure in the early twentieth century as a missionary in what is today
the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, he acquired a complex
and nuanced understanding of the concept. For Laman, minkisi are mani-
festations of God’s power. Created by God, minkisi become living beings
whose energy serves as social and physical medicine (bilongo). The spirits
exist as living beings with breath (mwela), eyes and ears, a life to exchange
for another, and the power to both cure and punish.4 Laman also describes
minkisi as ancestral images:
Nkisi thus refers to the spirit of the deceased, who wish to appear in the
one form or the other to be worshipped and invoked. Thus the fi rst great
heroes, the founders of the powerful tribes of the Kongo, Nsundi and
Mbenza etc., are still the objects of worship and cult practices through
minkisi with these names. . . . An nkisi is an ancestral spirit that has taken
shape in a sculpture or some other object, with or without medicine bag,
so that through its presence and power it helps the owner if he has learned
how to use the nkisi, has dedicated himself to it and observes the rites pre-
scribed by its nganga.5
Minkisi have subsequently come from man’s spirit, for according to the
native theories of the soul, the deceased have lived to pass over nkita and
simbi spirit. These have left the world of the dead to take up their abode
here and there in and on the earth, e.g. under stones, in watercourses and
forest or on the plains etc.6
Although Laman’s account differs in many ways from the story of nki-
si’s origin told by Thompson, the two versions impart the same core mes-
sage—that minkisi exist everywhere.
In addition to existing purely in spirit form, an nkisi can inhabit a phys-
ical object and, as a result, can be used as medicine, or bilongo. An nkisi is
transformed into a physical shape through the performance of a religious
Beyond the Scripture 151
f i g U r e 9 5 postcard showing a priest holding a bag shared with the family of nkisi
nkita mutadi and a series of different kinds of minkisi. The nkisi on the ground on the
far left represents the family of nkisi lemba while the others represent the family of
nkisi nkondi ya ntilumuka (on the right). (From the postcard “Feticos de angola” [men
with minkisi], date unknown, african postcard Collection 1575, 3½ × 5½ in., yale sterling
memorial library, manuscripts and archive [angola]. photograph by alex Contreras and
susan Cole, yale University art Gallery. image courtesy of yale University art Gallery.)
f i g U r e 97 minkisi in bottle form used for the f i g U r e 9 8 nkisi in the form of a bottle,
Bascule ceremony (spiritual weighing). (adapted Botanical house of spirit and Tradition, mbanza
from efraim andersson, Messianic Popular Move- Kongo, angola, 2002.
ments in the Lower Congo [Uppsala: almqvist and
Wiksells Boktryckeri aB, 1958]. image courtesy of
efraim andersson.)
next to several varied minkisi. On the far left is an example of the cauldron-
like Nkisi Lemba; the other anthropomorphic figures are known as Nkisi
Nkondi ya Ntilumuka.
Unlike the human-like figures in Figures 95 and 96, Figures 97 and 98
show collections of minkisi in the form of glass bottles. MacGaffey cited the
use of glass jars and bottles in his discussion of the myriad nkisi forms.14
Similarly, Andersson noted bottles being displayed on the altar fi lled with
water and other ingredients used as medicine and for meditation during
his field research in the Bas Zaire region of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo between 1945 and 1949.15 Figure 97 shows an example provided by
Andersson of the type of bottle used in a ceremony called bascule (balance).
Bottles and jars similar to those depicted by Andersson and described
by MacGaffey16 continue to be used among the contemporary Bakongo and
their descendants. Figure 98 shows an example of an nkisi in bottle form
used in an altar at the Botanical House of Spirit and Tradition in present-
day Mbanza Kongo.
Minkisi bottles, known as ntutu a nlongo in Kikongo, are also used in
Palo Monte religious practice in Cuba, where they are referred to as chamba.
The word chamba developed from the same etymological root as the name
for the spirit Sîmbi: sîmba or samba, which means “elements.”17 Also lin-
guistically related is the term nzamba, which is used in present-day Mbanza
Kongo to describe a religious drink or secret drink that is frequently used
for family-related religious matters or to honor an important actual or spir-
itual guest. This in turn links back to a secondary meaning of chamba in
Cuba, the name of a medicinal drink made from rum commonly used to
awaken the ancestors in Palo Monte ceremonies.
Beyond the Scripture 155
102 103
f i g U r e S 102 –103 Two types of amulets known as makuto. (From Felipe Garcia
villamil, personal collection, los angeles, California.)
An mpaka19 is an impor-
tant type of makuto used in both
Central Africa and Cuba. Two
mpakas from Cuba are pictured
in Figure 104. Unlike other Cu-
ban makutos, mpakas are made
from the bull horns and are used
to ensure the protection of the
mpúngu, or energy and medi-
cine, inside it. To protect this en-
ergy and the person who bears it,
an mpaka has the power to con-
trol the twenty-one spirits that
f i g U r e 10 4 Type of minkisi known as mpaka (a horn
inhabit the prenda to which it is
without a crystal on the wider part). (From Felipe Garcia
linked. Note the complex bead
villamil, personal collection, los angeles, California.
patterns on the two examples. photograph courtesy of C. daniel dawson, 1995.)
In the following passage, Fe-
lipe Garcia Villamil describes the
process used to make an mpaka
as it occurs in Cuba (Figure 105).
Gather the ingredients, light a candle, make a fi rma
of the prenda, or the fi rma of the force to which the
mpaka is dedicated, on the floor. Put the ingredients
on the fi rma, evoke and ask the blessings of all the
spirits, ancestors and living priests and priestesses.
Feed one rooster to the ingredients, mix together
and make a paste of the ingredients. It should have
a heavy consistency such that if you threw a clump
of it on the wall, it would stick. Then clean the horn
with holy water, fi ll the horn almost to the top with f i g U r e 10 5 Cross-section of an
ingredients, cover and seal the ingredients with wax, mpaka. (From Felipe Garcia villamil,
cover and seal with cement and decorate and/or personal collection, los angeles,
bead the mpaka.20 California. drawing by C. daniel
dawson, 1995; published courtesy
Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo, of C. daniel dawson.)
writing in the seventeenth century, also documents
a performance associated with the preparation and
use of an mpaka in the (Figure 106). The main figure on the right is an
nganga named Nganga–ia-mbunbi-ia nvula, depicted at the moment of rit-
ual performance.21
Details within the picture confi rm Cavazzi’s description. For exam-
ple, the gesture the man is making with his right hand shows outstretched
fi ngers forming an emblem of God and sign of respect. In addition, the
cords that are tied around the figures’ hips are looped twice, which indi-
cates protection and also means that what is being performed is stable or
158 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
f i g U r e 10 6 early
representation of an
mpaka. (From Giovanni
antonio Cavazzi da
montecuccolo, Descrição
histórica dos três reinos
do Congo, Matamba
e Angola, trans. and
ed. Graciano maria de
leguzzano [lisbon:
Junta de investigações
do Ultramar, 1635].)
irreversible. Elements relating to the figure shown to the left indicate that
he also is an nganga. These elements include the skirt made of cat pelts,
symbolizing an nganga, which both figures are wearing, the two feathers
on their heads, the use of the flag in the left hand to repel evil forces, and
a type of sansi (rattle) used to keep the rhythm during the religious perfor-
mance. When the priest assisting the performance makes a circular move-
ment, that movement is used to mark perfect intervals that correspond to
the verbal part of the ceremony. The three feathers atop the sansi and the
bowl are emblems of the three levels of Bakongo existence: spiritual, physi-
cal, and emotional.22
In Cuba, a vititi messo, which literally translates as “eyes of the leaves,”
is a type of portable prenda very similar to an mpaka. An example of a vititi
messo is shown in Figure 107, except with the addition of the mirror on the
top. Like an mpaka, a vititi messo serves as an instrument capable of con-
trolling the twenty-one spirits that reside inside the prenda to which it is
linked. It also, however, has the power to be used for divination and is thus
referred to as a “magic eye.”23 Although they are designed for portability,
many mpakas and vititi messo spend the majority of time atop the prenda
they control, serving as its head and, in the case of vititi messo, the eyes of
the prenda.
The second broad type of nkisi found in Cuba takes the form of ves-
sels or cauldrons known as prendas or ngangas (see Figures 42 and 108).
Energy and spiritual forces are believed to inhabit these vessels or contain-
ers, which are generally made of iron or ceramic. As described in greater
detail later in this chapter, each vessel holds twenty-one spirits, but one—
in each case a human ancestor—is understood to be the object’s dominant
spirit. This is the spirit that is responsive to the practitioners’ requests and
Beyond the Scripture 159
f i g U r e 107 a type
of minkisi known as
vititi messo (a horn with
crystal on the wider
part). (From Felipe
Garcia villamil, personal
collection, los angeles,
California, 2000.)
f i g U r e 10 9 early
representation of
a pottery nkisi that
became a prenda in
the Cuban palo monte
religion. (From Giovanni
antonio Cavazzi da
montecuccolo, Descrição
histórica dos três reinos
do Congo, Matamba
e Angola, trans. and
ed. Graciano maria de
leguzzano [lisbon:
Junta de investigações
do Ultramar, 1635].)
f i g U r e 111 nkisi in
the form of a doll named
yaya Bilongo, havana,
Cuba. (photograph by
lisa maya Knauer, 2000.)
Later in this chapter we discuss in detail the latter, the written signs
used to communicate with the spirit, but we focus fi rst on the former, the
physical medicinal elements used to empower and activate an nkisi’s domi-
nant spirit.
In the course of his work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
turies, Laman documented the use of a wide array of objects thought to
have medicinal powers. Figure 112 illustrates the range of Laman’s fi nd-
ings regarding the elements that can be placed inside nkisi Mbenza.34 Fig-
ure 113 illustrates a similar range of elements used in the present day for the
construction and ritual use of minkisi in the Mbanza Kongo market area.
An equally broad and largely similar
range of materials to those found in Central
Africa is used to make prendas in Cuba. Lydia
Cabrera studied in detail Palo Monte usage
of religious objects in her book El monte.35
Her work introduces the process of making a
prenda and provides descriptions of the pro-
cess, the materials, and the songs that form
part of the prenda’s development. In Cuba,
an array of medicinal elements like those pic-
f i g U r e 113 Contents
of Kongo nkisi, mbanza
Kongo, angola, 2004.
Beyond the Scripture 163
tured as being used in past and present Central Africa can be found in the
homes of yerberos (traditional herbal healers); elsewhere these can be found
in botanicas, stores devoted to the selling of religious merchandise and tra-
ditional medicine.36
Critical to the functioning of an nkisi is the nganga, or priest, who pre-
pares the material, inserts the bilongo (medicine) into its container, and
activates the object’s power.37 MacGaffey notes the role of the nganga in
forming the link between an nkisi and its medicinal properties, describing
a process of manipulation and intervention by a priest or specialist.38 Once
an nganga has activated an nkisi, its energy will forever be contained within
the object. However, the nkisi must be continually reinvigorated by one of
several methods in order to retain its potency. As we will discuss in greater
detail later in this chapter, these methods include the use of music, song,
gesture, and bidimbu.
Once complete and activated, minkisi vary greatly in their spiritual
power and in the purpose for which they are used. In their attempts to bet-
ter understand Bakongo uses and meanings of minkisi, scholars have tried
to create systems for classifying the spiritual objects. These systems do not
necessarily reflect Kongo world views. Laman classified minkisi according
to natural phenomena, each of which is linked to the power of ancestors.
His groupings broadly distinguish among forces of the earth, the air, and
the water,39 but Laman does not provide details about what specific fea-
tures or purposes are taken into account or otherwise factored into such
a classification. In addition to classifying minkisi according to the type of
spirit, Laman distinguishes nine types of minkisi according to their pur-
pose. These types, which reveal society, as well as political, legal, and reli-
gious spheres, are as follows:
• The pepper nkisi (bag with pepper and other strong medicines) for
the taking of medicine, for the diagnosis of disease, and for the un-
covering of criminals
• Protective nkisi for protection in war, from certain maladies, and
from evil spirits
• Restorative nkisi to guide the soul back to the sick body
• Suction nkisi to suck out stones, hail
• Reviver nkisi for fertility and productiveness
• Nkisi nkondi for the swearing of oaths, the conclusion of treaties,
the pronouncing of blessings or curses
• Awakening nkisi for love
• Nkisi nkula for the subjugation of spirits
• Coronation nkisi for the hunt
Like Laman, Georges Balandier established groups of minkisi on the
basis of their intended end use. Balandier’s groups include Nkosi (the Lion),
who inspires terror and protects against theft of property or souls, protects
health, guarantees success, maintains the fecundity of women and the fer-
tility of the earth, and defends against evil, and Ntadi, a small figure with
164 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
a human face and a feather on top of his head, who represents a messen-
ger or guardian and warns of danger through dreams. Other types of nkisi
described by Balandier include Kunya, Mpindi, Nkondi, and Mavena.40
Although these classifications can be useful in demonstrating the di-
versity of purpose for which minkisi are created, they do not represent the
Bakongo classificatory system and instead impose artificial and arbitrary cat-
egories. In practice, an nkisi contains all of the spirits at once. In Cuba, as in
Central Africa, each prenda contains twenty-one spirits, although only one
of these is the controlling force. The dominant spirit of a prenda is called
Nfumbe. The term nfumbe comes from the Kikongo word mfumbi or fumbi,
which means “death” or “murder.”41 As used in connection with a prenda,
the term nfumbe alludes to the soul of a deceased person, an ancestor. Al-
ways a human spirit, a spirit of the ancestors, nfumbe organizes the other
spirits and enables the priest using the prenda to access its energy. Which
particular spirit is dominant for a given prenda or nkisi is evident from the
object’s form, and it is to such spirits that ritual maintenance of the nkisi is
directed. Although only one spirit is the controlling force of the nkisi, the
others may be called upon as needed; these may include additional ances-
tral spirits as well as spirits from the worlds of plants, animals, and minerals.
To demonstrate the forms, meanings, and uses of minkisi, I will exam-
ine in detail several diverse examples. In addition to showing the complexity
of each individual nkisi, the following examples illustrate one way in which
minkisi are themselves a form of graphic writing. Each object is made up of
materials, symbols, shapes, and poses that collectively form a narrative that
informs the object’s identity and range of powers. As with any art form, the
meaning and cultural interpretations with which they are imbued are nec-
essarily a product of the cultures in which they are constructed as well as
the artists and religious leaders involved in their production and use. So
too is their “reading” a further product of the information available today
and the manner in which the uses of such objects have been documented.
Nonetheless, the complexity and richness of meanings that can be expressed
through such objects are illustrative.
In addition to their social and religious role, the minkisi in Central
Africa and in Cuba constitute a system that has acquired other character-
istics of a communication medium. With strong parallels to the construc-
tion and use of signatures in Cuba, Kongo minkisi design evidences clear
composition in which single characters, each with individual meanings, are
recognizable. Furthermore, the interdependent manner in which minkisi
and prendas are used in relation to the two-dimensional bidimbu or fi rma
demonstrates shared underlying meaning and is critical to a complete un-
derstanding of religious practices on both sides of the Atlantic. While writ-
ten symbols form composition on an external surface, the physical materials
contained inside the nkisi or prenda communicate instructions for the dom-
inant spirit and serve as transmitters of precise, empirical religious knowl-
edge. Such materials must be gathered, assembled, and activated in an
exacting manner by a religious expert trained in the practice.
Beyond the Scripture 165
the rope is a fragment of textile and the eyetooth of a lion. These drape over
the body and protect the nkisi from the actions of evildoers (bandoki).49
The belly is the location of perhaps the most important contract in this
nkisi, as it is where the mpungo and bilongo are located. A rectangle over
the abdomen made of crystal as transparent as water represents the spirit of
Kalûnga, with the horizontal line dividing the crystal into two equal parts
the way the Kalûnga divides the two worlds (the land of the ancestors and
the land of the living) (see Figure 116).
The horizontal line in the center of the rectangle and the imaginary
vertical line from head to feet together symbolize the cosmogram yowa or
dikenga in Central Africa, or “four winds” in Cuba. As discussed in de-
tail in Chapter 4, this cosmogram represents the power of reincarnation
and the power of death, of change, of mediation of the forces, and of bal-
ance. Finally, the nails embedded in the figure represent the agreements
or commitments made by the nkisi. Each nail stands for a distinct prob-
lem (mambo), and collectively the nails cover vastly diverse aspects of daily
life. Each nail is added to the nkisi as part of a ceremony performed by an
nganga in response to a request by a practitioner who comes looking for a
solution to a problem. The term for nail in Kikongo—nkonso—also means
“strong emotion” or “deep thoughts and feelings,” and the nail becomes a
physical manifestation of these psychological processes.
Robert Farris Thompson’s essay “The Grand Detroit N’Kondi,” in
which he quotes K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau extensively, provides the clearest
explanation of the mechanics involved in the religious empowerment of
minkisi as practiced by the Bakongo and related peoples. Thompson de-
scribes several piercing techniques used on an nkisi as part of a process of
recording religious activities such as wishes, desires, protective actions, de-
fense tactics, and empowerment. He lists nine basic iconographic forms and
describes their functions:
The mpungu seen in Figures 117 and 118 clearly illustrates the use
of mazita as a signifier of power. The mpungu a nkisi (more commonly
referred to in existing literature as nkisi nkondi) shows five of the basic
forms of knotting in the Kongo tradition. The large knot on the base of
the mpungu, known as zita a nkita, represents the dialectic process of cod-
ing and recording through knots, and becomes the unique signature that
identifies this mpungu. The second type of knot, located on the left side of
the crossed legs, is known as nkeka kanga and represents unique cases or
an entire family as a whole. The third type of knot is the cluster of multiple
knots found on the navel, known as mazita a tatu, which represents difficult
issues that also appear elsewhere on the mpungu’s body. The fi nal form is
seen most clearly on the mpungu’s back and is made up of the braided knots
170 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
f i g U r e S 117–118
nkisi nkondi, angola.
(arrocha-miranda
Collection.)
117 118
the “dead saver” because it is believed to have the power to rescue a person
who has fallen unconscious or is in a kind of dream state just before passing
over to the world of the ancestors, a characteristic alluded to by the baboon
skull used to represent the animal’s physical fitness and ability to jump and
travel through the air over the forest canopy.
A mpungu Kinuimba a Mbumba can take several forms, each of which
furthers its principal purpose of protecting the user. The four primary ways
that the mpungu Kiniumba a Mbumba is used are:
Nkento that represents womanhood. This dual role, together with the man-
ner in which the figure is melded with the rest of the object, is an exam-
ple of the hybridization of two separate aesthetics—the anthropomorphic
figure and the container—and the unification of their power and agency.
Finally, the mpungu is constructed with the branches of certain medicinal
trees and thus imbued with their respective specialized powers and vital at-
tributes. Moving clockwise from twelve o’clock, behind the central figure,
the spiritual properties of the four tree branches are:
Lemba Nzau: unlimited, endless power
Lama: to glue or stick something
Lemba Lemba: static power that will ultimately need to be recharged
Lumpilu Mpungu: to energize and transmit spiritual forces
Each of the medicinal tree branches works in tandem with another,
Lumpilu Mpungu with Lemba Nzau and Lama with Lemba Lemba, with
each pairing forming a cross, such as that visible on top of the mpungu
(dikenga), used to regenerate the power of the mpungu. This symbol-based
design originates from the belief in ancient traditional medicine that power
could be generated through the pairing of complementary organic ele-
ments. All the materials used in the construction of an mpungu and for its
empowerment are selected to be compatible with and complementary to
one another. It is also notable that an invisible cross that is formed by the
two pairings is crowned with the figure that represents Sîmbi, the force cen-
tral to any interaction with this mpungu.
The three raffia or grass rings (lukuba) adorning the branches on the
top of the mpungu form a triangle pointing back to the wall of the kinlongo
and representing the active power of the mpungu, the invisible presence
of the Mpeve ya Nlongo, which reinforces the mpungu’s role of guardian
and secures the functions of the figure that personalized Sîmbi. There is
a fourth lukuba at the bottom of the Mpungu a Nkama, which functions
as its seat, and the pure properties of the grass from which it is made serve
to keep the mpungu away from, or floating above, the ground. The metal
locks attached to this foundation lukuba are used to seal problems and to
open up the channel that allows the Mpungu a Nkama to interact with both
worlds and direct the life forces enclosed inside it. Mirroring the formation
of the three smaller lukuba above, the locks create a second hidden triangle
and, together with the triangle at the top, form a complete diamond that
represents the world of the ancestors at the bottom of the mpungu and sym-
bolizes protection and all the positive things on earth. That it is two trian-
gles converging to form the diamond also represents the plural aspect of the
ancestral manifestations in the mpungu and is a hidden but quintessential
expression of the dikenga sign. The locks are also used to open and close the
mpungu’s dialogue with the spirits. The locks are physically opened from
top to bottom to initiate the communication and closed from bottom to top
to close the performance, a process that culminates with three fi nal claps as
a sign of respect and completion.
176 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
cane, to the human form described in the next paragraph. The visual vi-
tality of the mvuala is expressed through a very distinct iconography. The
emblem of the sîmbi spirit is depicted by a snake that curves five times
around the base of the vertical staff, suggesting the multiplicity of sîmbi
and signifying that the human is surrounded by yisimbi and the ances-
tors. The second notable element in the mvuala’s design is the double de-
piction of a human face, which represents all humans in the realm of the
living, followed by a diamond (tadi), which represents the idea of the an-
cestors’ vital power manifest on the cane. The double diamond echoes the
idea of multiplicity, further suggestive of the plural presence of the ances-
tors on the cane and the concepts of protection and completion. The clear
depiction of three rings further emphasizes the strength borne from ele-
ments elsewhere on the cane and represents the three realms from which
the mvuala derives its power: the ancestors, the social, and the physical.
Finally, the image of a fist (moko), known as tuka kuma vata, is the sign
of ultimate protection, with the fi ngers closed around a space formed be-
tween the fi ngers and the palm of the hand that symbolizes a center from
the beginning to the end.
Figures 124 and 125 show an example of the human manifestation of
an mpungu, in this case, Nganga a Nkisi Masampu Antonio. The nganga
a nkisi has turned the human body into an object of worship (an Mpungu
a Ntu, or Human Mpungu) in place of the more typical figures or objects
f i g U r e S 12 4 –12 5
nganga a nkisi masampu
antonio. pedra do
12 4 12 5
Feitiço, angola, 2010.
178 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
and has used garments in selected colors and attached adornments such
as bells (dibingila) and garlands made of natural and manmade materi-
als. Whereas this human body becomes an mpungu through the attach-
ment and adornment of specifically selected objects and materials, its use
is not dissimilar to the manner in which the human body becomes a Kini-
umba kia Mbumba through the cutting of the skin and insertion of bilongo
described previously.
In interpreting the various elements of the Mpungu a Ntu, note fi rst
the two dots painted on the feet, which symbolize Sîmbi Kumbu Nganga
through the brightness of the luvemba (kaolin) and allude to the two realms,
one of the living, the other of the ancestors. The second important element
in the way this figure has been adorned is the bell held in his left hand and
used to summon the Sîmbi spirit, which, in this case, is the Sîmbi of the
Zaire River. The broom (sansa luvemba) held in his right hand indicates
spiritual cleansing, while the rings or garlands of cloth looped around the
neck and crossing on his front and back, called nkangazi, signify an affi rma-
tion of the ancestors and, by forming the cosmogram for a crossroads, fur-
ther reference sîmbi. The garland made from the leaves of a plant known as
dibunzu rests on the left shoulder. It crosses the body to the right to reach
the hips. It is called mobola and tells of the presence of ndoki, or sorcery,
against which the white paint on the figure’s face is intended to protect.
Like the minkisi from Central Africa, prendas from Cuba are rich in de-
tail and graphic significance. Figure 126 shows a common prenda, known
as Chola Nguengue, used in
Palo Monte. It is also known as
Mama Chola (Mother Love) or
Mama Mpungu (Power Spirit).
The term chola in Cuba comes
from the word zola in Kikongo,
which means “love,”56 or
nzola, which means “wish”
or “desire.”57 The use of this
term ties into the Kongo un-
derstanding of generosity. The
term nguengue also has its
roots in Kikongo and can be
traced to the word nwenga or
nwengwa, which means “to be
obligated”58 or “to be tight,
very tight,”59 from wenga, “to
squeal.” 60 These meanings fold
into one another so that Chola
Nguengue as a whole signifies f i g U r e 126 prenda called Chola
goodwill and generosity. nguengue. Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller,
Within Palo Monte, Chola havana, Cuba. (photograph by lisa maya
Nguengue embodies several Knauer, 2000.)
Beyond the Scripture 179
spirits, or as they are termed within the religion, caminos, or roads. These
are as follows:
Lango Gongoro: Turtle water, fresh springwater, water generally
Lango Mpungo: Water of the fi rst day of May, sky water, pure water that
represents celestial power (God)
Lango Ndoki: Bad water that comes with rain, diseases, floods, and bad
weather
Lango Tango Lemba: Noon rain that represents good news and premo-
nitions
Lango Kalunga Ndoki: Storm61
Chola Nguengue’s basic functions are healing physical problems, in-
cluding headaches, migraines, the flu, hepatitis, and intestinal failures. The
prenda is also used to solve psychological problems and domestic disputes,
infertility, and infidelity and to increase the success of a family. As a result,
Chola is believed to represent the power of family or domestic law.62
As seen in Figure 126, Chola Nguengue is made in a ceramic vessel,
colored in orange, yellow, or ocher colors that are meant to represent the
water spirit. This coloration represents the chola syncretized in Cuba. The
vessel is typically decorated with a graphic sign that depicts the spiritual
properties of Chola, love and generosity. The stamp drawn on the outside
of the container represents Chola, a triangle with an arrow dividing it into
two parts. The triangle is open at its base, indicating that the spirits are ris-
ing up from under the water and becoming real in the world of the living,
a transformation represented by the dots in the
upper part of the triangle. The vertical arrow
marks the motion in both directions, presum-
ably beginning under the water. The horizon-
tal arrow in the center of the triangle is used
to mark the frontier (kalûnga), in this case the
river. The two arrows intercept the horizontal
line, forming another cross of five corners, the
sign that indicates that this prenda is working
and can drive the energy to another level.
A second example from Cuba is seen in Fig-
ure 127. This prenda is named Baluande, but it
is also known as Mama Kalûnga, Madre Agua
(Mother Water), Kalûnga, Luna Nueva (New
Moon), Siete Sayas (Seven Scarves), Mboma (a
type of snake), and Mbumba Mamba (Secret
Water). The healing properties of Baluande are
to fortify the feet and bones, to treat skin irri-
tation and burns, to cure digestive problems
and infections of the bladder, to control female f i g U r e 127 prenda called Baluande.
menstruation and hemorrhaging, and to abort Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, havana, Cuba.
a fetus. (photograph by lisa maya Knauer, 2000.)
180 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
Given the complexity of graphic writing systems and the variety of their
multifaceted components, I have examined the various components in turn.
In doing so, I have aimed to clearly present the ways in which these two-
and three-dimensional forms are created, to examine the belief systems that
underlie their production and use, and to describe the meanings embed-
ded in and conveyed by their individual elements. However, in practice, the
components of graphic writing systems cannot be understood as completely
distinct, as at the core of much of Bakongo and Bakongo-descended reli-
gious practice and communication is the way in which these components
are used together and are interdependent. It is not possible to fully describe
or understand the roles fulfi lled by minkisi and prendas in Kongo culture,
in Africa and Cuba, respectively, without examining how they interact with
their two-dimensional counterparts: bidimbu and fi rmas.
In Central Africa, as an nganga is creating an nkisi, every cut and mark
he makes is a symbol that adds to the message carried by the nkisi. In addi-
tion to this actual “writing” done by the priest as he creates, activates, and
uses an nkisi, the symbols and their meanings provide a means by which to
in effect “read” an nkisi. As demonstrated previously, each shape and mark
on an nkisi is related to a written sign, and continuity between these mean-
ings and the religious and cultural uses of the nkisi is apparent. The link
between the two-dimensional expression of religious concepts and the man-
ifestation of such concepts in three-dimensional form is particularly strong
in Cuba, where the use of fi rmas is intimately intertwined with the produc-
Beyond the Scripture 181
tion and use of prendas. While the prendas house the spirits, the fi rma is
what identifies those spirits, what calls their energy forth, and, once acti-
vated, what enables any and all communication between the priest, the
practitioner, and the spirit.
Two- and three-dimensional forms interact most closely within the
space of religious practice. The most straightforward example of the man-
ner in which two-dimensional writing is used in a physical space is its func-
tion in defi ning and publicly identifying a particular space as one used for
religious activity. Figure 128 shows an example of contemporary graphic
writing being used to identify the name of a Palo Monte house in Cuba.
For the Palo Monte house in Cuba known as munanso, in Kikongo
in Central Africa as nso nganga or nso a nkisi,65 the fi rma on the door not
only identifies the building as one where religious activity takes place but
also indicates which prenda is used inside the house and documents events
in the lives of the priest and other members of the house. The stamps on
the ground in front of the door provide information on how to enter and
exit the house; the left stamp indicates where the entrance is, and the right
stamp notes that practitioners may enter and exit from the same door.
The plan in Figure 129 shows the interior of an Nso a Nkisi. The letters
(A, B, C, and D) represent the position of the Nkarime guards or stamps
that guard the corners and mark the limits of the room. The fi rmas also
182 K o n g o G r a p h i c Wr i t i n g a n d O t h e r N a r r a t i v e s o f t h e S i g n
point to the location of each prenda with each signature oriented away from
the room’s center in the direction of the prenda. The traditional orienta-
tion of the prendas in a house is as follows: Nsasi to the northeast, Sara-
banda to the northwest, Kikoroto to the southeast, and Mama Chola to the
southwest. Although not illustrated in this example, each corner can hold
as many as seven prendas. Graphic depictions on the walls behind and near
a prenda also serve to identify which prenda or group of prendas is located
in each corner.
Another important way in which fi rma usage is integrated with that of
prendas is the manner in which a signature serves as a guide for the par-
ticular ceremony being performed. A fi rma is capable of literally providing
instructions to the priest and the priest’s assistants throughout the cere-
mony. It informs them of the order in which to do things, the materials
and medicinal elements that must be used, and how to combine them, and
it contains information on the spoken or sung words that must accompany
the actions.
In addition to providing independent instructions, the aesthetic and
substantive content of a fi rma relates directly to the prenda or prendas being
used in a ceremony. Specific stamps within a signature often correspond to
and communicate with physical elements inside the prenda. Such commu-
nication allows the paired stamps and elements to reflect the power of the
other and creates what can be described as a “magnetic field.”66 Once this
connection is established, problems can be solved, healing can occur, and
questions can be answered. This way, energy is essentially extended beyond
the prenda to encompass those in the room. Because an individual cannot
be inside the physical space of the prenda, the activation process enables
the joining of the individual and the power of the prenda outside the ob-
Beyond the Scripture 183
associated with particular spirits, and these associations must be taken into
consideration when mambos are selected.
To highlight the depth and richness of the mambo tradition, I will
explore some of these roles and look at different examples collected from
the Democratic Republic of the Congo and from Cuba. Included here are
examples that demonstrate the range of functions fi lled by mambos and
illustrate the continuity between the contemporary oral traditions of the
Bakongo on two continents.
While I argue that mambos are a vital component of broader graphic
writing systems, they have been more traditionally considered under the
smaller umbrella of oral traditions. Martin Lienhard, in his book O mare o
mato: Histórias da escravidão,70 describes oral tradition in Africa and across
various colonial societies with Afro-religious traditions in the diaspora as
a system of knowledge. Lienhard argues that oral traditions transform the
process of identity formation and preserve the memory and heritage of Afri-
can peoples through colonialization, dislocation, and a continuous process
of creolization. Jan Vansina, in Oral Tradition as History, similarly recog-
nizes the role of oral tradition in cultural self-validation and achievement.
Vansina describes oral knowledge as a kind of historical record of tradi-
tion, stating, “The mind through memory carries culture from generation
to generation.”71 Vansina explains the way in which the lessons conveyed
through oral messages allow us to remember, fertilizing our minds with
memories and instructions for living that will root our sense of continuity
and belonging over time. Though unwritten, these oral messages become
a record of traditional societies, “their preservation entrusted to the mem-
ory of successive generations of peoples.”72 Mambos clearly serve these pur-
poses, and their role in forming, preserving, and transferring memories and
community values has only been strengthened by their place within the
broader structure of Kongo graphic writing systems.
Following the importation of enslaved Bakongo to the Spanish Ca-
ribbean during the colonial period, a Creole language, known in Cuba as
Bozal, developed from the fusion of Spanish and Kikongo words and was
based on the Bantu language structures.73 In addition to representing a
synthesis or bridging of different linguistic traditions, Bozal as a language
is also evidence of articulation of cultural differences and preservation of a
people’s identity in a new space, time, and historical memory. The mambo
tradition similarly serves as an example of negotiated cultural characteristics
manifest through a multivocal mode of linking Western and African prac-
tices. In the introduction to Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Eth-
nography, James Clifford and George E. Marcus refer to linguistic trends
in Caribbean literature and use the writer Aimé Césaire as an example of a
complex hybridist, a new literary type who takes the notion of classic French
writing and constructs a version far from the original that is both relevant
to the present and articulated within and against a colonial tongue. A pro-
cess similar to what Clifford and Marcus describe arguably occurred in the
development of mambo lyrics in Cuba, and a study of these lyrics will show
Beyond the Scripture 185
E nkosi
Kimenga kiaku unuene kio!
A nsidi sa,
Zibula makutu,
Nge nkodi mbungu zi menga,
Nge muntu ye zina,
Mpati aku mono
Nganga’ku mono.
Utuka ku mani?
Utuka ku na SambaNa Samba ukubakila ku ba mabata zandi,
Ba mbuta zandi bakutombula ku masa.79
Eh Nkosi,
Thy blood thou hast seen and drunk;
I am going to speak to thee,
Listen to me
Thou, Nkosi who sheds blood,
Thou, a person with thy name,
Thy master, it is I.
Thy nganga [priest], it is I;
For, from who dost thou come?
Thou comest from the lord of Samba.
The lord of Samba thou hast had from his ancestors,
His ancestors have made thee rise up from the water.
Normally used in a Bascule ceremony to bless the water in the bottles that
the hunters will carry with them, this chant is now sung by three members
of the religious group at the beginning of every meeting.81
It should be noted that while both fi rmas and mambos can function
independently, their power is compromised or lessened when they are used
alone. When they are performed together, these religious tools echo one
another’s message and are thus able to call forth the full power of a spirit. A
mambo has the capacity to activate the signature; so without its sacred lyr-
ics, spoken or sung in rhythmic accompaniment, the structure, and thus the
meaning, of the signature is incomplete.
Within and beyond a religious context, mambos are used to convey
specific philosophical and moral concepts, many of which explore the rela-
tionship between humans and nature and echo the lessons of the drawn
fi rmas. The following mambu is a proverb from Cabinda, Angola, that cor-
relates with a divination drawing that allows the priest to receive social,
educational, and literary lessons and metaphysical messages regarding the
weather, harvests, illness, birth, death, and dreams. The fi rst rendition is
the original Kikongo proverb, while the second is a summary of the lesson
told therein.
E yaya nzonzi e,
unsila ntangu iko didingi e,
e yaya nzonzi
ubonga ubonga meso,
utula ku manima;
nki nzila uyokila, ya tadi;
e, nzonzi e,
nga bima usadindingi bukuka,
a ya nzonzi.85
Conclusion
I believe that this book, with its dual attention to minutiae and many
cultural and spiritual concepts, has demonstrated that there exists great
continuity in the form and substance of religious beliefs, moral philosophy,
and visual communication modes of the Bakongo across time and space.
I also hope that it has illustrated the degree to which the varied graphic
tools are used in a coherent and integrated fashion to communicate, wor-
ship, teach, learn, and forge identities. Finally, I believe that the concept
of graphic writing systems, in light of the simultaneous strength and flex-
ibility that enabled these systems to flourish over the past several thousand
years, is a useful framework within which to think about the roles of art and
expression in fostering cultural resilience, ingenuity, creativity, and faith in
the face of dislocation, slavery, and attempted deculturation.
In addition to the obvious potential extensions of this work—includ-
ing a more detailed exploration of rupestrian sites and symbols in Central
Africa—far more work can be done on Kongo graphic writing systems in
the diaspora. In particular, Haiti, with its active practice of Voudou and use
of Vévé graphic writing, Umbanda and Candomble religions in Brazil and
the use of Ponto Riscado signs there, revival signs in Jamaica, and founda-
tion drawings in Trinidad all present rich potential for further study. Far-
ther afield, there is the opportunity to document graphic communication
among the little-studied African population in Belize or the Djuka peo-
ple and their writing in Suriname and Guyana. Similarly vast opportunities
exist for future study of graphic writing system usage among other African
cultures and their diasporas, including an expansion of the existing litera-
ture on Nsibidi writing among the Ejagham people of Cameroon and the
examination of graphic forms with roots in West Africa among the Mende
and Vai.
Notes
Chapter 1: Introduction
1. Wyatt MacGaffey, “Ethnography and the Closing of the Frontier in Lower
Congo, 1885–1921,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 86,
no. 3 (1986): 274.
2. Simon Battestini, African Writing and Text (New York: Legas, 2000), pp. 23–24.
3. Ibid., p. 25. See L. Lévy-Bruhl, L’âme primitive (Paris: Presses Universitaire de
France, 1963); C. G. Jung, Man and His Symbols (New York: Anchor Books,
Doubleday, 1964).
4. See Hans Jensen, Sign, Symbol, and Script: An Account of Man’s Efforts to Write
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1935); Joseph H. Greenberg, The Languages of
Africa, Publication 25 of the Indiana University Research Center in Anthropol-
ogy, Folklore, and Linguistics (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1966; first pub-
lished in 1963 in the International Journal of American Linguistics, 29, no. 1, pt.
2 [January]); J. DeFrancis, Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989); David Dalby, L’Afrique et la lettre
(Lagos: Center Culturel Français, 1986).
5. Marcel Griaule, Dieu d’eau: Entretiens avec Ogotemmêli (Paris: Fayar, 1966);
Marcel Griaule and G. Dieterlen, Signes graphiques soudanais (Paris: Hermann,
1951). See Marcel Griaule and G. Dieterlen, Le renard pâle (Paris: Institut
D’Ethnologie, 1965).
6. Wyatt MacGaffey, Astonishment and Power (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Insti-
tution Press, 1993), pp. 180–203.
7. Ibid., p. 189.
8. Ibid., pp. 180, 189.
9. Evan M. Maurer and Allen F. Roberts. Tabwa: The Rising of a New Moon: A Cen-
tury of Tabwa Art (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of Art, 1985).
10. Ibid.; Allen F. Roberts and Mary N. Roberts, Memory: Luba Art in the Making of
History (New York: Prestel, 1997).
11. Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cor-
nell University Press, 1967). See Turner, The Drums of Affliction (Oxford, UK:
Clarendon, 1968).
12. Including Alejo Carpentier and Nicolás Guillén; see Nicolás Guillén, “Nación y
mestizaje,” in Làzara Menéndez, ed., Estudios afro-cubanos, vol. 1 (Havana: Uni-
versidad de la Habana, 1991).
13. Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, trans. Harriet de Onís
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), p. 97.
14. Bronislaw Malinowski, “Introduction,” in Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint, p. 54.
15. Ibid.
16. Fernando Ortiz, Glosario de afronegrismos (Havana: El Siglo XX, 1924).
17. See Hubert H. S. Aimes, A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868 (New York:
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907).
193
194 N o t e s t o Pa g e s 1 1 – 1 8
18. Argeliers León, “De paleros y fi rmas se trata,” Revista Unión, 1 (Havana: UNEAC,
1986).
19. Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1982).
18. John Thornton, “The Origin and Early History of the Kingdom of Kongo, c. 1350–
1550,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 34, no. 1 (2001): 119.
19. John Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transformation 1641–
1718 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), p. 26.
20. Ibid.
21. Newman, The People of Africa, pp. 150–151.
22. Andersson, Messianic Popular Movements, p. 29.
23. Ibid., p. 31.
24. Ibid., p. 33.
25. Filippo Pigafetta, A Report of the Kingdom of Congo and of the Surrounding Coun-
tries: Drawn out of the Writings and Discourses of the Portuguese Duarte Lopez, ed.
and trans. Margarite Hutchinson (London: John Murray, 1881), pp. 76–78; orig-
inally published as Relatione del Reame di Congoe et della circonvicine contrade
(Rome, 1591). See Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo, p. 5.
26. Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo, p. ix. See Giovanni Francesco da Roma, Brève
relation de la fondation de la mission des freres mineurs capucins du seraphique
pere saint Francois au Royaume du Congo, et des particularites, coutumes et facons
de vivre des habitants de ce royaume, trans. François Bontinck (Louvain: Edi-
tions Nauwelaerts, 1964); originally published as Breve relatione del sucesso della
missione de Frati min. Capuccini del serafico P.S. Francesco al Regno del Congo
(Rome, 1648, 1649; Naples, 1648, Parma, 1649; Milan, 1649, 1651). António
Brásio, Monumenta missionária Africana: Africa ocidental (Lisbon: Agência
Geral do Ultramar), series 1, vols. 1–10 (1952–1965); series 2, vols. 1–3 (1958–
1964). Louis Jadin, “Aperçu de la situation du Congo et rite d’élection des rois
en 1775, d’après le P. Cherubino da Savona, missionaire au Congo de 1759 à
1774,” Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge de Rome, 35 (Brussels, 1963): 343–
419. Jean Cuvelier, “Note sur la documentation de l’histoire du Congo,” Bul-
letin des Séances de l’Institut Royal Colonial Belge, 34, no. 2 (Brussels, 1953):
443–470.
27. Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo, p. x. “Included institutions with significant pri-
mary sources, unpublished reports of Antonio de Teruel in the Biblioteca d’Este,
Modera, and Juan de Santiago in Biblioteca del Palacio National, Madrid.”
28. Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1985); Kajsa Ekholm Friedman, Catastrophe and Creation: The Transformation
of an African Culture (Philadelphia: Harwood Academic, 1991).
29. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World; Miller, Ways
of Death.
30. Newman, The People of Africa, p. 151.
31. Miller, Ways of Death, p. 77.
32. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, p. 51.
33. Balandier, Daily Life the Kingdom of the Kongo, p. 20.
34. Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo, pp. 58–59.
35. Ibid., p. 60. Alfonso I was not the fi rst of the Kongo kings to convert to Cathol-
icism; instead, King Nzinga a Nkuwu became the fi rst Christian king under the
name of John the First after being baptized in May 1491.
36. Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz, “Ma kisi nsi: l’Art des habitants de la région de Mbanza
Kongo,” in Christine Falgayrettes-Leveau, ed., Angola, fi gures de pouvoir (Paris:
Dapper Museum, 2010).
37. Herbert S. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1999), p. 10.
38. The economic and political effects of this practice have been well-documented
and explored in Michael Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transfor-
mation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1998), pp. 18, 134. Approximately 40 per-
196 N o t e s t o Pa g e s 2 2 – 2 5
cent of the 10.8–11.9 million slaves taken from Africa as a whole were taken from
Central Africa.
39. Antonio Nuñez Jiménez, Los esclavos negros (Havana: Ediciones Mec Graphic,
1998), p. 13. See also Jorge Castellanos and Isabel Castellanos, Cultura afro-
cubana (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1988), vol. 1, pp. 20–21, noting the issu-
ing by the crown of licenses (celulas reales) in the second decade of the sixteenth
century.
40. Jan Rogozinski, A Brief History of the Caribbean (New York: Plume, 2000), p. 203.
41. Herbert S. Klein, personal manuscript, 2010, Wilson Library, Emory College.
Data accessed May 28, 2010. This number reflects Africans disembarked in all
regions of America by decade.
42. Ibid. Based on estimated African slaves recorded as having departed from Africa
with Cuba as the destination.
43. Ibid., pp. 21–22. See Jiménez, Los esclavos negros, pp. 14–15. José Luciano Franco,
“Esquema histórico sobre la trata negrera y la esclavitud,” La esclavitud en Cuba
(Havana: Editorial Academia, 1986), pp. 69–114.
44. Fernando Ortiz, Los negros esclavos (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Insti-
tuto Cubano del Libro, 1975), p. 38.
45. Castellanos and Castellanos, Cultura afrocubana, vol. 1, pp. 42–45. See David
Eltis, “The Export of Slaves from Africa, 1821–1843,” Journal of Economic His-
tory, 37 (1977): 419; Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio: El complejo económico
social cubano del azúcar (Havana: Letras Cubanas, 1978), vol. 2, p. 9; Philip Cur-
tin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1969), p. 247.
46. See Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 247; Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio, vol.
2, p. 9; Ortiz, Los negros esclavos, pp. 37–66. Also, Castellanos and Castellanos in
their book Cultura afrocubana, vol. 1, pp. 36–42, provide a different estimate
from Ortiz of eighty-seven African denominations organized by areas and cul-
tural variation within each area.
47. Castellanos and Castellanos, Cultura afrocubana, vol. 2, p. 43.
48. Castellanos and Castellanos, Cultura afrocubana, vol. 1, p. 43.
49. Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade, p. 11.
50. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, p. 152.
51. See Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1999), p. 9. In Spain around 1455 in the cities of Sevilla, Cadiz, Jerez, Va-
lencia, El Puerto de Santa Maria, and Barcelona, the cabildos were the early Afri-
can religious institution. The term cofradias in Spain and Portugal and the more
frequently used cabildos in the Americas continue to have the same function—
“brotherhood-provided fraternal and critical social service”—for African com-
munities and African groupings belonging to similar nations or kingdoms and
related languages, religions, and culture.
52. Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar, trans. Harriet de Onís
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 216–222.
53. Castellanos and Castellanos, Cultura afrocubana, vol. 1, pp. 84–85.
54. Ibid.
55. Franklin Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), p. 40.
56. Ortiz, Los esclavos negros, p. 38.
57. Castellanos and Castellanos, Cultura afrocubana, vol. 1, p. 86.
58. Ibid., pp. 86–87.
59. Gabino La Rosa Corzo, “Los palenques en Cuba: Elementos para su reconstruc-
ción histórica,” La esclavitud en Cuba (Havana: Editorial Academia, 1986), p. 99.
60. Lydia Cabrera, Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe (Miami: Peninsular, 1979),
p. 15.
N o t e s t o Pa g e s 2 5 – 3 1 197
14. “Si no hay Muertos, no hay nada.” Interview with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, fall
1989.
15. Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy, p. 111.
16. Ibid., p. 22.
17. Ibid., p. 119.
18. See Marie-Louise Bastin, Art decoratif Tshokwe (Lisbon: Companhia de Diaman-
tes de Angola, 1961), p. 36. Karl Laman, The Kongo, vol. 3 (Stockholm: Victor
Pettersons, 1953), pp. 53–62.
19. Giovanni Antonio da Montecuccolo Cavazzi, Descrição histórica dos três reinos do
Congo, Matamba e Angola, trans. and ed. Graciano Maria de Leguzzano (Lisbon:
Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1965), p. 196.
20. See Olfert Dapper, Description de l’Afrique, contenant les noms, situations et con-
firns de toutes les parties (Amsterdam: n.p., 1685).
21. Interview with Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, Mbanza Kongo, Angola, 2002.
22. Ibid. See Efraim Andersson, Messianic Popular Movements in the Lower Congo
(Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri AB, 1958), p. 13. “Nzambi is also the
source of law and the guardian of justice among human beings.”
23. Laman, The Kongo, vol. 3, p. 60.
24. Fu-Kiau, Makuku Matatu (personal manuscript, 1986), p. 102.
25. Personal conversation with Sabula Francisco Davis, summer 2003.
26. Fu-Kiau, Makuku Matatu, p. 105.
27. Personal conversation with K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, winter 2002.
28. Fu-Kiau, Makuku Matatu, p. 102.
29. Yisîmbi researched by K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau and published in his manuscript
“Makuku Matatu,” p. 104.
30. Yisîmbi researched by the author from 2002 to 2005 in the Mbanza Kongo–Kin-
shasa area, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Illustrating both
the range of bisîmbi and the protective role they play is the following mambo, as
told by Bunseki Fu-Kiau:
31. Laman, The Kongo, vol. 3, pp. 33–42. See Chapter 4 for detailed discussion of
meanings and uses of nkisi.
32. Fu-Kiau, “Symbols and Ancient Kongo Pictography.”
33. “Lovo” is spelled “Luvo” in some sources.
34. Robert Farris Thompson, The Four Moments of the Sun (Washington DC: Na-
tional Gallery of Art, 1981), p. 30. See Robert L. Wannyn, L’art ancient du métal
au Bas-Congo (Champles par Wavre, Belgium: Editions Du Vieux Planquesaule,
1961), p. 64.
35. Thompson, The Four Moments of the Sun, p. 64. “The signs which decorate the
heart and chest of the figures communicate the faith of community that, through
good works, this great leader, like Sîmbi, has earned the power and shall rise again.”
36. Laman, The Kongo, vol. 3, p. 33.
37. Ibid., p. 36.
38. Vunda, or resting place, is a metaphor in Kongo religious tradition for death.
More accurately, it is a state of existence beyond living, a period of completion
where the mind and soul can rest before they return to the world of the living.
This state is expressed by Bunseki Fu-Kiau when he says, “You don’t die, you go
on vacation.”
39. Laman writes extensively of Nzambi a Mpungu and stories of the creation of
the fi rst human. However, he found little consensus among those with whom he
spoke and conceded that “the fi rst man is the object of much speculation” (The
Kongo, vol. 3, p. 60). Laman does not note the version of the myth telling of
Muhungu; rather, he cites numerous other variations on the name and events giv-
ing rise to the human race.
40. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Cosmogonie Congo (Kinshasa: ONR A, 1969), p. 113.
41. Ibid., p. 111. Muhungu comes from the verb wunga (hunga), which means “to
blow” or “to whistle like the storm.”
42. Interview with Alvaro Barbosa, Mbanza Kongo, Angola, 2006.
43. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Kongo Religious Philosophy (New York: Franklin H. Wil-
liams Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora Institute, 1991), p. 113.
These societies are known as Kimpasi in the Madimba region, Ndembo in the
Ngungu region, Kikimba in Mayombe, and Lemba in the Manianga region.
44. Ibid., pp. 113–114. The following proverb, as narrated by Bunseki Fu-Kiau, tells
a story of the creation and splitting of this fi rst human. The proverb also explains
why Muhungu was made and divided: to complement existing fruits of the earth,
and to multiply and provide food for God.
Dieu prépara luku God prepared Luku to eat
Cela ne suffit point But it was not enough
Il laissa sa boule de futu He left his ball of futu
Il s’en alla chercher And went to search for
La viande qui convint Meat that would complement it
Et appétissante And be appetizing
Il créa l’homme mais, un seul He created a human, but only one
Il serait une graine de riz semée This would be a grain of rice to sow
Il a voulu dans sa divinité que He wanted, in his divinity, for
L’homme, sa viande se multiplie The humans, his meat would multiply
A la grandeur du futu . . . To match the greatness of the futu . . .
Although the proverb’s explanation of why Muhungu was divided differs some-
what from the reasoning presented previously, both versions emphasize that
though a perfect being in itself, the fi rst human was in fact missing something
when alone in the world. This concept, of going from the perfect to the imperfect
in order to embark on a journey, a process, to become whole is central to Bakongo
cosmogony and moral philosophy.
200 N o t e s t o Pa g e s 3 7 – 4 3
45. Joseph van Wing, Études Bakongo: Religione et magie (Brussels: G. van Campen-
hout, 1938), pp. 8–11. See Laman, The Kongo, vol. 3, p. 15.
46. Personal conversation with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, fall 1988. “Todo nace del
agua.”
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Lydia Cabrera, Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe (Miami: Peninsular, 1979),
pp. 128, 164.
50. Interview with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, winter 1989.
51. Interview with Felipe Garcia Villamil, summer 2002.
52. Ibid. Fu-Kiau, Makutu Matatu, p. 103. Kimbisa or Sîmbisa (v): Déposer en gage,
garantir. Faire toucher.
53. This type of ancestor is one that had the ability to speak and whose spirit could be
used for power and energy inside prendas or minkisi (personal communication,
Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller).
54. It is common in Kikongo to repeat a word for emphatic purposes.
55. Prendas are religious objects believed to be inhabited by multiple spiritual forces.
They are attributed anthropomorphic characteristics such as birth and death.
56. These names correspond with actual cultural groups in Central Africa that were
related to the Kongo kingdom.
57. See António da Silva Maia, Dicionário complementar Português-Kimbundu-
Kikongo (Luanda: Cooperação Portuguesa, 1961), p. 22. “Nlangu or Langu is
the word used in the Palo Monte religion for the noun water; nlangu is also a syn-
onym for Maza, which means water in the Kikongo language.” (Personal commu-
nication, Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller.)
58. Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller and Felipe Garcia Villamil, 2002.
59. Felipe Garcia Villamil, personal documents, 2000. Complicated system of com-
munication with a house of Palo Monte between the ritual participants, the Tata
Nganga (priest), the nkisi (the recipient of the power), and the mayordomo (who
fulfi lls organizational functions in the ceremony).
60. Interview with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, personal documents, 1995.
61. Eladio Garcia, a priest of the Palo Monte religion, interview, summer 1997.
62. Chamalongos: Seven objects with circular or semicircular form in the ancient ver-
sion. In contemporary practice, four parts of a fruit or coconut shell are used.
63. Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, a priest and authority in the Palo Monte religion,
interview, summer 1995.
64. Ibid.
65. Conversation with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, summer 1987. Sarabanda should
be in Kikongo Salabanda, which means “royal cloth”—or, more grammatically,
Sala a banda, which means “to mark” or “to leave a job.” Conversation with
Matondo Blaise Ngo and Francisco Ntanda, Mbanza Kongo, summer 1999.
66. Karl Laman, The Kongo, vol. 1, p. 24.
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid., p. 27.
69. W. Holman Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language (London:
Trubner, 1887), p. 342.
70. Personal communication with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, fall 1997.
71. See Lydia Cabrera, Vocabulario Congo: El Bantu que se habla en Cuba (Miami:
Chicherekú, 1984), pp. 40, 41. Song (or prayer): “No hay palo como tu, Palo, ah
palo! Tu llega ribá loma Gruabba. Cuál Nganga má pué que yo? Tu cogé tu gua-
rina, tu van sube palo la loma.” Palo also calls to the spirit, and it is understood
that one resides in each tree.
72. Robert Farris Thompson, personal conversation, winter 1999.
73. Mayordomo refers to the position within the house or town that has the function
of directing religious events and the obligation to carefully maintain the perfor-
N o t e s t o Pa g e s 4 3 – 4 8 201
mance of all rituals. In addition, he is the one who helps the pledge and guides
the spirit when it appears. From Felipe Garcia Villamil and Osvaldo Garcia Villa-
mil, personal documents, summer 1999.
74. Consecrated or initiated into the secrets of the religion.
75. See Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: Afro-American Art and Philoso-
phy (New York: Vintage, 1984), pp. 121, 122.
76. Personal documents, summer 1999 in New York, from Felipe Garcia Villamil and
Osvaldo Garcia Villamil. Batalla Kongo is an nkisi to use against witchcraft.
77. Diamlunqueto as Baconfula (the doctor in the Palo Monte religion) has the func-
tion of making medicine using the nkisi. Also, he introduces the godsons to disci-
pline and religious secrets. He writes and teaches chants and myths by use of the
writing system (fi rmas).
78. Malangume as Manzanero (the singer of the temple) has the function of singing
the ritual chants and giving food and drink during the performance of the ritual.
Additionally, only he can perform animal sacrifice.
79. Tangume as Guardiero (guardian of the temple).
80. Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, summer 1988. Human spirit (ancestor) at the service
of Tata Nganga through a secret pact.
81. This town was represented during the period of the Vili’s transition from the
trading of ivory to that of slaves. At this time, the Bakongo were experiencing a
period of anarchy that ended with their migrations toward the Niari Valley. This
period was marked by both the height of the power of the royal family of Lwangu
(Loango) and the entrance of the French in the regional slave trade. Finally,
Lwangu is represented as a commercial center one year before the complete con-
solidation of Portuguese power in Angola and the creation of a new urban center
in Luanda. Also, see Annie Merlet, Autour du Loango, XIVe–XIXe siècle: Histoire
des peuples du sud-ouest du Gabon au temps du Royaume de Loango et du “Congo
français” (Libreville: Centre Culturel Français Saint-Exupéry-Sépia, 1991), pp.
140, 142.
82. Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, 1995.
83. Felipe Garcia Villamil, June 27, 2000.
tradition among the group in the region of Kasai, Sankuru, Bandundu, and Cab-
inda in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola.
7. See Robert Farris Thompson, The Four Moments of the Sun (Washington, DC:
National Gallery of Art, 1981), pp. 42–52.
8. Ibid., pp. 45–46.
9. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, “Ntangu-Tangu-Kolo: The Bantu-Kongo Concept of
Time,” in Joseph K. Adjaye, ed., Time in the Black Experience (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1994), p. 244.
10. Marcel Griaule and G. Dieterlen, Le renard pâle (Paris: Institut D’Ethnologie,
1965).
11. Interview with Robert Farris Thompson, fall 2000.
12. See examples on Kinshasa, Matadi, Soyo, and Mbanza Kongo areas.
13. Ana Maria de Oliveira, Elementos simbólicos do kimbanguismo (Amadora, Portu-
gal: Missao de Cooperação Francesa, 1994), p. 28. See Efraim Andersson, Mes-
sianic Popular Movements in the Lower Congo (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells
Boktryckeri AB, 1958), p. 31.
14. Paul Raymaekers and Hendrik van Moorsel, “Lovo: Dessins rupestres du Bas-
Congo,” Ngonge, Carnets de sciences humaines, nos. 12, 13, and 14 (Léopoldville,
1962), pp. 12–14.
15. Carlos Ervedosa, Arqueologia de Angolana (Lisbon: Edições 70, 1980), p. 265.
16. Ibid.
17. Timing, accessibility, and technical constraints in the initial site visits resulted in
the visual analysis being conducted only at the motif level, but this approach was
complemented by cataloging of local verbal histories and documentation of con-
temporary related practices. Multiple techniques were used to explore the varia-
tion in motif types and meanings through the region. Similarities and differences
within and between were observed and compared against current models of cul-
tural use, transformation, and interpretation. This work is the fi rst broad-scale
analysis and cultural study of rock art using multivariate information and refer-
ences from both primary sources provided by interaction with local cultures and
informed academic methods, including material cultural analysis and a range of
linguistic, philosophical, artistic, and religious approaches.
18. Personal conversations with Alvaro Barbosa, summer 2005.
19. Personal conversation with Eduardo Olmes, summer 2005.
20. See John M. Janzen, Lemba, 1650–1930: A Drum of Affliction in Africa and the
New World (New York: Garland, 1982), pp. 3, 36, 253, 278, 315.
21. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy: Old Teachings from
Africa (New York: Vantage, 1991), p. 8.
22. Thompson, The Four Moments of the Sun, p. 28.
23. John Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the
Antonian Movements, 1684–1706 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1998), p. 102.
24. Personal conversation with K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, winter 2002. Mûntu is the
plural form of “human” in Kikongo. Mûntu also signifies part of the process of
communication and indicates a journey for each person through family and life.
25. Faïk-Nzuji, Arts africains, p. 32. See K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Kongo Religious
Philosophy (New York: Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center/African
Diaspora Institute, 1991), p. 85.
26. Fu-Kiau, Kongo Religious Philosophy, p. 85.
27. Interview with Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, spring 2003.
28. Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy, pp. 9–10.
29. Fu-Kiau, Kongo Religious Philosophy, p. 185. “Nzila ntângu yikôndolo nsuka
kizungidila yenza; zîngu kia mûntu i ntângu yankala kinzungidila ye yâu.”
30. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, The African Book without Title (Cambridge, MA: n.p.,
1980), p. 9.
N o t e s t o Pa g e s 7 0 – 8 8 203
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Robert Farris Thompson, Faces of the Gods (Munich: Prestel, 1993), p. 49.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Fu-Kiau, The African Book without Title, p. 1. “Luzingu lwa mûntu I zingu kia
mu mbingi kiazungwa kwa ngolo ye minika mia mpila mu mpila miyalanga kio.”
37. Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy, p. 17. See W. Holman Bentley, “Appen-
dix” to the Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language (London: Trubner,
1887), pp. 946, 990. Mu: in or into. Kula: to drive away. Kûla: to redeem.
38. Interview with Felipe Garcia Villamil, summer 2000.
39. Interview with Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, spring 2003.
40. Interview with Mayifwila Rafael Rivals, spring 2003.
41. Interview with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, summer 1997.
42. See Karl Laman, The Kongo, vol. 3 (Stockholm: Victor Pettersons, 1953), pp. 67,
74. “Usually a Nkuyu must be captured and incorporated into the nkisi, as the
nkuyu’s power, in combination with the medicine and the magic practiced by the
nganga, . . . makes the nkisi effective. The bankulu are found in the burial ground,
especially by the grave of a powerful chief or a great nganga. All sorts of tricks are
resorted to in order to soften the heart of the Nkuyu and entice it, such as putting
out appetizing food and palm-wine so that a piece of raffia cloth may be thrown
over the Nkuyu. Thus caught, it can be incorporated into the image or the nkisi.”
43. Lydia Cabrera, Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe (Miami: Peninsular, 1979),
p. 149. “Un muñeco de palo, de unos sesenta centímetros, en el que el brujo hace
entrar el espíritu.”
44. The understanding of nkuyu in Cuban popular culture as a sign of protection, a
guardian, comes from the conceptual association with the deity Eleguá or Elegba
in Yoruba religious practice in Cuba. See Argeliers León, “De paleros y fi rmas
se trata,” Revista Unión, 1 (Havana: UNEAC, 1986), p. 86. Cabrera, Reglas de
Congo, p. 223. “Nkuyo, le llaman algunos Mayomberos a un espiritu equivalente,
con funciones de Eleguá.”
45. See Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 146. “El circulo significa seguridad. En el centro
del circulo, la cruz que es la fuerza; la fuerza de todas las fuerzas espirituales que
trabaja la Nganga.”
46. Wyatt MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa: The Bakongo of Lower
Zaire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p. 46.
47. Personal conversation with Felipe Garcia Villamil, winter 2002.
48. Thompson, Faces of the Gods, pp. 285–286.
49. MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa, p. 46. MacGaffey also de-
scribes three points instead of the traditional four, as nsulu (ku zulu), sky, up-
ward; kumagongo or ensiafua, in the deep of the earth, or land of the dead; ntoto,
the earth (the position corresponding to 6:00 P.M.)
50. Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 147. See Jorge Castellanos and Isabel Castellanos,
Cultura afrocubana, vol. 3 (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1988), p. 426.
51. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, “Symbols and Ancient Kongo Pictography” (lecture,
Rhode Island School of Design, January 23, 2003).
52. Clémentine M. Faïk-Nzuji, Tracing Memory (Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civi-
lization, 1996), p. 112.
53. Ibid.
54. Robert Farris Thompson, Le geste Kôngo (Paris: Musée Dapper, 2002), pp. 32–33.
55. Faïk-Nzuji, Arts africains, p. 61. Faïk-Nzuji translates dimbu and sinsú in a manner
opposite to Matuku’s as well as contrary to broader research fi ndings in the region.
56. Interview with Matuku N. Ngame, fall 2003. Matuku Ngame, Yale University,
focuses on applied linguistics, language teaching methodology, cross-cultural
evaluation of speech perception and its impact on language learning, and Af-
204 N o t e s t o Pa g e s 8 8 – 1 0 7
rican women writers. Matuku recalled from his childhood how his mother ex-
plained the distinction between the words dimbu and sinsú. “I still think that
both words mean ‘sign.’ Sinsú, to me, is a physical representation of something,
such as carved signs etc. Dimbu is a sign but more like a manifestation, spiritual,
natural. Although dimbu can also mean a line of demarcation, symbol, some way
of recognizing something. Although these two words are different, they share a
certain range of semantic representations.”
57. Faïk-Nzuji, Arts africains, p. 176.
58. José Martins Vaz, Filosofia tradicional dos Cabindas, vol. 1 (Lisbon: Agência-Geral
do Ultramar, 1966), pp. 112–113.
59. Joaquim Martins, Sabeduria Cabinda: Símbolos e provérvios (Lisbon: Junta de
Investigações do Ultramar, 1968), p. 396.
60. Ibid., pp. 479, 482.
61. Faïk-Nzuji, Arts africains, p. 61. The root of the word sinsú means “to test,” “to
experiment,” and “to commemorate.”
62. Interview with Matuku Ngame, fall 2003. Interview with Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda,
summer 2002.
63. Interview with Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, spring 2003.
64. See Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony, pp. 10–12.
65. Fu-Kiau, “Symbols and Ancient Kongo Pictography.”
66. Interview with Mayifwila Rafael Rivals, summer 2002.
67. Bentley, Appendix to Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, p. 885.
68. K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau, Mbôngi: An African Traditional Political Institution (Rox-
bury, MA: Omenana, 1985), p. 29.
69. In addition, frequent depictions of a bow and arrow are part of the symbolic art-
work of the Yoruba religious tradition known as Regla de Ocha in Cuba. Robert
Farris Thompson in his book Flash of the Spirit: Afro-American Art and Philoso-
phy (New York: Vintage, 1984) acknowledges the use of the bow and arrow sym-
bol in Ocha belief to represent Yoruba hunters and symbolize the Orisha (deity)
Ochoosi. Thompson writes: “The brother of Ogún, Ochoosi, himself quick and
strong, ultimately emerged as the deity of the hunters, the fabled archer of the
gods. . . . [T]he power of this deity is manifest of mind in the speed and accuracy
of his arrow, in prideful assertion of mind and muscle that have been wonderfully
honed by the disciplines of forest hunting.” In Cuba, Ochoosi is commonly rep-
resented by three-dimensional objects topped by metal bows and arrows.
70. Lewis Williams and J. D. Dawson, Images of Power (Johannesburg: Southern
Book Publisher, 1989), p. 102.
71. Interview with Joan Paulino Polar, summer 2002.
72. As told by Alvaro Barbosa, a priest and the traditional chief of Zaire Province.
The province comprises various municipalities, each of which has a traditional
chief. Barbosa is the chief of these chiefs, the chief of an institution known as the
“traditional nucleus.” His position of power is second only to the traditional reli-
gious and cultural advisor to the king.
73. The term Mpeve ya Nlongo, in addition to referring to a religion, is among the
terms used in Mbanza Kongo for God.
74. Interview with Mayifwila Rafael Rivals, summer 2002.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Also known as the Botanical House of the Holy Spirit, this is a form of traditional
religion. However, government restrictions have prohibited traditional churches
labeled African, Kongo, or non-Christian and treat priests in this group as pro-
viders of traditional medicines rather than religious figures.
78. Interview with Francisco Lusolo, summer 2002.
79. Ibid.
N o t e s t o Pa g e s 1 0 7 – 1 2 1 205
80. Interview with Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) members, summer 2002.
81. Interview with Alfonso Seke, Mbanza Kongo, summer 2002.
82. Personal conversation with Bundu dia Kongo members, summer 2002.
83. Interviews with Ne Lusimana Thola, summer 2002.
84. Ibid.
85. Personal conversation with Bundu dia Kongo members, summer 2002. Anita
Jacobson-Widding has also written on the powerful color associations among the
Bakongo. See Anita Jacobson-Widding, Red-White-Black as a Mode of Thought
(Stock holm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1979), pp. 74, 143–144, 154–
156, 157–219. Jacobson-Widding draws heavily upon K. K. Bunseki Fu-Kiau’s
Cosmogonie Congo (Kinshasa: ONRD, 1969), p. 130.
86. Fu-Kiau, “Symbols and Ancient Kongo Pictography.”
87. Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy, pp. 18–19.
88. Ibid., p. 19.
89. Ibid., pp. 30–32.
90. Fu-Kiau, Mbôngi, pp. 1–2. “In the central-west Africa culture, the term Mbôngi
and concept it expressed are derived from the verb root ‘Bônga.’ The latter signifies
‘to take, to seize, to accept, to make one’s possession, to own.’ . . . Mbôngi-pub-
lic-council-house: institution of debates and conceptualization, the community
parliament; the popular court of justice among African people, origin, fi replace.”
91. Ibid., p. 30.
92. Ibid.
93. The Angolan Ministry of Culture organizes annual events designed to celebrate
Angola’s cultural heritage and provide entertainment. In Mbanza Kongo, mem-
bers of the traditional government view these as opportunities to celebrate impor-
tant moments in their own cultural tradition. One example is a ceremony used to
cleanse and elevate the body of the dead king and educate his successor to take
the throne.
94. Mayombe is a term used in Angola to refer to the place inhabited by the Yombe
people, a cultural group that speaks the Fiote language, a variation of Kikongo.
In Cuba, the term Mayombe refers to a historical place that is recognized across
all Kongo practice as a forest, “the Mayombe forest,” believed to be the place
of origin of one of the four Kongo branches. Ma is a prefi x used to indicate a
third person plural, making Ma-Yombe also the plural form of Yombe, albeit a
form infrequently used. See Hazel Carter and João Makoondekwa, Kongo Course:
Malongi Makikoongo Dialect of Zoombo, Angola (London: SOAS, 1970), p. 164;
and Pierre Swartenbroeckx, Dictionnaire Kikongo- et Kituba-Français (Ban-
dunda, DNC: Centre d’Études Ethnologiques, 1973), p. 287.
95. My understandings of the meanings and functions of fi rmas have been shaped by
my work with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller since the late 1980s, and with Felipe
Garcia Villamil since the late 1990s.
96. See Karl Laman, Dictionnaire Kikongo-Français (Brussels: Gregg Press, 1936), p.
149. Fimba means “to examine, to process, to learn and know, to experience, and
to stick together.”
97. Felipe Garcia Villamil, personal conversation, June 2002. Robert Farris Thomp-
son, personal conversation, January 2002. “The signal and the essence of God are
walking down on the earth.” See Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz, “Mambo Comes from
the Soul,” in Sarah Adams, Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz, and Lyneise Williams, eds.,
Call and Response: Journeys in African Art (New Haven, CT: Yale University Art
Gallery, 2000), p. 95.
98. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, p. 875. Mpúngu: the
all, the Almighty. In the language of the Palo Monte religion in Cuba, mpúngu
means energy and force. See Laman, Dictionnaire Kikongo-Français, p. 589.
Force or energy of an ancestral spirit that is employed for defense in wartime.
206 N o t e s t o Pa g e s 1 2 1 – 1 5 0
30. Lydia Cabrera, Cuentos negros de Cuba (Havana: La Veronica, 1940), pp. 248–249.
31. Thompson, Flash of the Spirit, p. 124.
32. Personal interview with Felipe Garcia Villamil, December 2003. “Felipe has been
involved throughout his life with the tradition of Rompe Monte. This tradition
begins with his grandfather Francisco Villamil in the late nineteenth century and,
beginning in 1919, continued through his mother Francisca Villamil to the pres-
ent day, where it is cared for in Matanzas by Osvaldo Garcia [Villamil] and in Los
Angeles, California, by Felipe Garcia Villamil.”
33. Thompson, Dancing between Two Worlds, p. 1.
34. Laman, Kongo, vol. 3, p. 145.
35. The title of the book can be translated as The Jungle, the Forest, or the Trees.
36. Botanica is the name given to the religious stores found in Puerto Rico and in
Latin American neighborhoods in the United States. In Cuba, where private com-
merce is prohibited, similar merchandise is sold unofficially from private homes
and herbal markets.
37. Thompson, Dancing between Two Worlds, p. 1.
38. MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa, pp. 37–38.
39. Laman, Kongo, vol. 3, pp. 75–81. See Andersson, Messianic Popular Movements in
the Lower Congo, p. 21.
40. Georges Balandier, Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo (New York: Pantheon,
1968).
41. Joseph van Wing and C. Penders, Le plus ancien dictionnaire Bantu (Louvain:
J. Kuyl-Otto, 1928), p. 192. See W. Holman Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar
of the Kongo Language (London: Trubner, 1887), p. 348. “Mfumbi means high-
way robber or murderer, highwayman.”
42. Robert Farris Thompson, The Four Moments of the Sun (Washington, DC: Na-
tional Gallery of Art, 1981), p. 126.
43. Kalûnga is the horizontal, spiritual line that divides the sky from the sea, that
divides the world of the living from the world of the dead. For more information,
see Chapters 2 and 3.
44. Laman, Kongo, vol. 3, p. 86.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid., p. 77.
48. Robert Farris Thompson, “Communication from Afro-Atlantic” (lecture, Yale
University, September 23, 1999).
49. The term bandoki is most frequently used to refer to sorcerers who are wield-
ing power to cause problems, but it is more generically understood as something
malevolent yet not explicable. Bandoki can also be written as Zandoki or Yandoki.
Simon Bockie, in his book Death and the Invisible Powers: The World of Kongo
Belief (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), argues against the Western
translation of the term kindoki as “witchcraft” and notes the insufficient knowl-
edge on the cultural and linguistic specificity of the term as used in religious
practice. He points out that “BaManianga make no such distinction between
those who use psychic power and those who use medicines and spells. They have
only one term, kindoki. To translate this as ‘witchcraft,’ ‘sorcery,’ or both would
obscure the true meaning of kindoki, given the acceptance by many people of the
differentiation of the terms. Kindoki is simply the art of expressing unusual pow-
ers.” See Bockie, Death and the Invisible Powers, p. 41.
50. Robert Farris Thompson, “The Grand Detroit N’Kondi,” Bulletin of the Detroit
Institute of Arts, 56, no. 4 (1978), pp. 206–217.
51. Personal interview with Ntinu Nzaku Nevunda, Mbanza Kongo, Angola, 2002.
52. Thompson, The Four Moments of the Sun, p. 129.
53. Interview with the nganga mawuku Pedro Lopes, Luanda, Angola, summer 2007.
N o t e s t o Pa g e s 1 7 3 – 1 8 8 209
54. Ibid.
55. Langalanga is a term used by Mbanza Kongo locals to designate the local people
and families that fled the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo dur-
ing the civil war. Most of the distinctions between local and expatriate are related
to moral conduct and social behavior clearly recorded in vernacular anecdotes
that described the tendency among refugees to fi nd modes of survival in activi-
ties such as trading goods from the Democatic Republic of the Congo and money
changing, activities that contributed to their lack of reintegration into Angolan
society.
56. Fu-Kiau, Self-Healing Power and Therapy, p. 29.
57. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, p. 902.
58. Ibid., p. 900.
59. Van Wing and Pendars, Le plus ancien dictionnaire Bantu, p. 403.
60. Ibid., p. 461.
61. Interview with Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller, 2000.
62. See Lydia Cabrera, Reglas de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe (Miami: Peninsular,
1979), pp. 127–129.
63. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, p. 234. See António
da Silva Maia, Dicionário complementar Português-Kimbundu-Kikongo (Luanda:
Cooperação Portuguesa, 1961), p. 22.
64. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, p. 336.
65. The sacred house or room in the Palo Monte religion.
66. Expression in common use by Osvaldo Fresneda Bachiller and Felipe Garcia Vil-
lamil during the years 1988 to 2004. Havana, Cuba, and New York City and Los
Angeles, United States.
67. John Miller Chernoff, African Rhythm and African Sensibility (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 79–81.
68. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, pp. 336–337.
69. Ibid., p. 260.
70. Martin Lienhard, O mare o mato: Histórias da escravidão (Congo-Angola, Brasil,
Caribe) (Salvador da Bahia: EDUFBA/CEAO, 1998).
71. Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1985), p. xi.
72. Ibid., p. xii.
73. A Creole language used by the slave population during colonial times that com-
pressed aspects of Spanish, Kikongo, Yoruba, and other African languages.
See Lydia Cabrera, Vocabulario Congo: El Bantu que se habla en Cuba (Miami:
Chicherekú, 1984), p.12.
74. Armin Schwegler, “The Vocabulary (Ritual) Bantú de Cuba,” America Negra, 15
(1998), p. 2.
75. Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language, p. 390.
76. Ibid., p. 394.
77. Ibid., p. 362.
78. Robert Farris Thompson, “New York Mambo: Microcosm of Black Creativity”
(lecture, Yale University, fall 1999).
79. Joseph van Wing, “Bakongo Magic,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Insti-
tute of Great Britain and Ireland, 71, no. 1/2 (1941), p. 88.
80. Religious movement attributed to Simon Kimbangu that fused Christian religion
with Kongo traditional religion around 1921 to 1924.
81. Andersson, Messianic Popular Movements, pp. 169–170.
82. Ibid., p. 170.
83. Joaquim Martins, Sabedoria Cabinda: Símbolos e provérvios (Lisbon: Junta de
Investigações do Ultramar, 1968), p. 63.
84. Felipe Garcia Villamil, personal documents, New York City, summer 1998.
210 N o t e s t o Pa g e 1 8 8
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Index
Cabildos, 23, 25–26, 122, 196n51, 196n64 cosmogram); in lucero cosmogram, 73, 74; in
Cabrera, Lydia, 8, 10, 11, 26; on doll minkisi, 161; on muntu ya kuluzu, 107, 108; in ndinga i sinsú,
fi rmas, 121, 129; on nkuyu, 72; on prendas, 162– 107; in ovo bata didi, 107; in Saca Empeño fi rma,
163; stamps from, 133–138 145, 146
Calligraphy, 123, 206n119 Cuba: African cultures in, 22–23; African slave
Caltarnisetta, Fra Luc da, 20 importation to, 21–24; cabildos of, 24, 25–26,
Camões, Luis Vas de, 18 122, 196n51, 197n64; Catholicism in, 24, 26;
Campbell, K. F., 5–6 communism in, 26; fi rmas in (see Firma[s]); free
Candomble/Umbanda, 24 nonwhite militia of, 25; free nonwhites in, 24–25;
Cane, chief’s, 176–177 graphic writing in, 26–27, 49, 120–123 (see also
Caninguiri site, 51, 54, 100 Firma[s]); independence of, 26; Kongo king-
Cão, Diego, 19 dom cultures in, 22, 23; Longo cosmogony of (see
Cardinal points: of dikenga cosmogram, 69–70, 79, Palo Monte); mambo in, 129, 183–188, 198n30;
80, 81; of nkuyu (lucero) cosmogram, 73, 74, minkisi tradition in, 154–159; nkuyu (dikenga)
75–76 cosmogram in, 72–77; palenques of, 25; planta-
Carlson, Amanda, 10 tions in, 24; population growth in, 24–25; pren-
Catholicism, 21, 24, 26 das in (see Prenda[s]); Spanish Africans in, 25–26
Cauldron prenda, 153, 158–160 Cuban Revolution, 26
Cavazzi, Giovanni Antonio da Montecuccolo, 5, 19, Curtin, Philip, 22
20, 32, 157, 160, 176 Custom and Government in the Lower Congo
Cemetery, in Saca Empeño fi rma, 146 (MacGaffey), 7
Césaire, Aimé, 184 Cuvelier, J., 20
Ceyssens, Rik, 8
Chalk, for fi rmas, 127, 128, 129; red, 105; white, Dalby, David, 5, 7, 48
127, 128, 129 Dancing between Two Worlds (Thompson), 149–150
Chamba, 154 Dapper, Olfert, 19, 20, 32, 176
Chief’s cane, 176–177 De Boeck, Filip, 8
Chokwe Sona, bidimbu in, 82–85, 114–118 De Bry, Theodorus, 19
Chola Nguengue prenda, 178–179 Deculturation, 23
Chola Nguengue sîmbi, 40 DeFrancis, J., 5
Church of Black People in Africa, 90, 104, 108; exte- Democratic Republic of Congo, 12; Bakongo migra-
rior sign of, 108 tion to, 15–16, 42; Kiantapo site of, 51, 54, 55,
Circle-of-life signs, 73, 74, 81 56–59; Lovo complex of (see Lovo complex); map
Clark, John Desmond, 15, 18, 90, 194n17 of, 51; Mbuti of, 16
Clay, 91, 105, 178 “De paleros y fi rmas se trata” (León), 11, 122
Clifford, James, 184–185 Deschamps Chapeaux, Pedro, 22
Codes. See Sinsú (bisinsu) Devisch, Renaat, 8
Cofradias, 25–26, 196n51 Diebuyck, Daniel, 8
Color: in Chola Nguengue, 178, 179; in fi rmas, 127; Dieterlen, G., 7
in lucero (nkuyu) cosmogram, 75–76; in sinsú dia Difua, Ne Keva, 90
nguzami, 109; of sun, 70 Dikenga cosmogram, 34–35, 68–71, 77–81; cardinal
Communication: concept of, 1, 64, 90–91, 121; points of, 69–70, 78, 79, 80, 81; center point of,
visual, 47–50, 64 78, 79; circular motion through, 69, 70, 79, 81; in
Community, among slave populations, 23–24 Cuba, 72–77; diamond shape of, 68, 78, 79, 80;
Complexity, Astonishment, and Power (MacGaffey), 7 eastern cardinal point of, 69; function of, 70–71;
Confl ict resolution, fi rmas in, 124 at gravesites, 72–73; interpretation of, 70–71;
Contract (nkandu), 74–75, 166–167 kalûnga (horizontal line) in, 71, 78, 79; in Lovo
Contract of the Secret Cavern, 141–143 complex, 35, 77–81; mukula (vertical line) in, 71,
Cosmogony, 29, 47; Dogon, 6–7, 50, 52. See also 78, 79, 80; Muntu Ya Kilisu of, 71; at Nemongo
Kongo cosmogony (Nza Kôngo); Palo Monte cave, 63; northern cardinal point of, 69–70; pro-
Cosmogram: defi nition of, 47; dikenga, 34–35, peller wheel in, 78, 80; southern cardinal point of,
68–71, 77–81 (see also Dikenga cosmogram); 69, 70; spiral in, 80; structure of, 68–69, 78–81;
nkuyu (lucero) (see Nkuyu [lucero] cosmogram); sun and, 69, 70; at Tadi dia Mfuakumbi site, 61,
at Tadi dia Sîmbi site, 35–36, 81, 86–88; yowa, 62; triangles of, 78, 79–80; Tukula position of,
69, 167 78, 79; western cardinal point of, 70, 78, 81; yowa
Cosmology, 2, 29, 47; Kongo, 30–32, 36–37; Kongo- cross form of, 69
Cuban, 38–39, 40, 41–42 Dilu, Felipe Antonio, 176, 177
Creation myth, 30–31, 36–37, 41–44, 71 Dimbu (bidimbu), 8, 48, 88–119, 203n56; access to,
Cross: in Botanical House of Spirit and Tradition, 110, 118–119; contemporary usage of, 89–110;
107–108; dikenga form of, 69 (see also Dikenga etymology of, 88–89; in Mbanza Kongo, 81–85,
Index 223
89–100, 114–118; meanings of, 88–89, 111–113; Flash of the Spirit (Thompson), 4
priestly responsibility for, 110, 118–119; in south- Flower symbol, of Lemba society, 63
ern Democratic Republic of the Congo, 110, 111– Fontinha, Mário, 90; bidimbu from, 114–118
113, 114–118 Forest, 32, 36, 40
Dingo-dingo dia Luzîngu, 70 Four Moments of the Sun, The (Thompson), 8–9,
Diop, Cheikh Anta, 6, 7 48, 49
Dissociative states, 64–65, 67–68 França, Camarate, 90
Divination ceremony, 77, 128, 183 Franco, José Luciano, 22
Dogon, 6–7, 50, 52 Friedman, Kajsa Ekholm, 20
Doll nkisi, 161 Fu-Kiau, K. K. Bunseki: on Bakongo communi-
Dowson, Thomas, 64, 67 cation, 90; bidimbu from, 111–113, 114–118;
Drinks, religious, 154 on bisîmbi, role of, 198n30; on dikenga cosmo-
Dulandula, Paulino, 12 gram, 69–70; on graphic writing, 48, 49, 119;
on initiation societies, 118; on Kongo cosmog-
Earth: in Kongo cosmogony, 30–32; nkisi representa- ony, 30, 31, 32; on minkisi, 151; on Muhungu,
tion of, 151; in Siete Rayos fi rma, 140–141 37, 199n44
“Effects of Self-Explaining When Learning with Text Funeral art: bisîmbi in, 36; dikenga in, 72–73; in
or Diagrams” (Ainsworth and Loizou), 132 southern United States, 73; tuziku design in, 89
El Monte (Cabrera), 151, 162–163 Funza, 150
Eltis, David, 22
Emptiness, concept of, 71 Geertz, Clifford, 5
Engángo, 121. See also Firma(s) Geometric shapes, 52, 53, 56–59, 60; dissociative
Ervedosa, Carlos, 50, 90; Tchitundo-Hulo site sym- states and, 64–65, 67–68
bols from, 56–59 God, in Kongo cosmogony, 30, 32–33, 68, 70
Europe: Africans in, 25–26; Bakongo contact with, Gomez, Michael A., 22
19–21, 201n81. See also Portugal; Spain “Grand Detroit N’Kondi” (Thompson), 167–168
Existence, division of, 31 Grapheme, 47
Eyes: in nkisi nkondi, 165–166; of prenda, 158, 159; Graphic writing systems, 1–3, 47–50, 64, 91; access
in Siete Rayos fi rma, 139 to, 110, 118–119, 129–131; constituent units of,
47–48; contemporary terms for, 90; literature
Faces of the Gods (Thompson), 70–71 on, 4–12, 48–49, 50, 89–90, 121–123; mean-
Faïk-Nzuji, Clémentine, 8; bidimbu from, 114–118; ing in, 47–48, 64, 65–67; physical forms of (see
on graphic writing, 48; on spiral, 80 Nkisi [minkisi]; Prenda[s]); religious use of, 91,
Feathers, in nkisi nkondi, 165 98, 104–110; rupestrian (see Rupestrian art); secu-
Fédry, Jacques, 7, 48 lar use of, 91, 98–104. See also Dimbu (bidimbu);
Fertility symbol, 100 Firma(s); Sinsú (bisinsu)
Fimba, 121 Greenberg, Joseph H., 5, 7, 48
Firma(s), 82–85, 119–147, 205n101; access to, 129– Griaule, Marcel, 6–7, 50
132; activation of, 128–129; baconfula responsi- Gunpowder, 129
bility for, 130–132; central stamp of, 125–126;
centrifugal, 126; centripetal, 126; chalk for, 127,
129; colors of, 127; in confl ict resolution, 124; in Haiti, 24, 49
divination ceremony, 128, 183; in energy transac- Harney, Elizabeth, 9, 10
tions, 123; Felipe Garcia Villamil’s use of, 82–85; Healing ceremony, fi rmas in, 128
functions of, 123–124, 128–129; gunpowder for, Heart, 107–108; fi rma for, 125; symbol of, 107–108
129; in healing ceremony, 128; history of, 120– Henry (son of Alfonso I), of Kongo kingdom, 19
123; in initiation ceremony, 128; Insancio (Siete Hersak, Dunja, 8
Rayos), 138–141; linear, 126; locations of, 127; Heusch, Luc de, 8
mambo interaction with, 187; manual of, 81–85; Hilton, Anne, 17
meanings of, 126–127; mediums of, 127; Muana, Human mpungu, 177–178
128; of Nso a Nkisi, 181–182; Osvaldo Fresneda Humboldt, Alexander von, 22
Bachiller’s use of, 82–85; peripheral stamps of, Hunting, bisinsu in, 91, 92–100, 101–104
126; prenda interaction with, 180–183; priestly
responsibility for, 129–132; reading of, 126, 138– Identity, in Afro-Cuban culture, 10–11; in ndinga i
147; in religious physical spaces, 181–183; in reli- sinsú, 107
gious teaching, 123–124; Saca Empeño (Pledge Ideogram, 47
Elicitor), 143–147; Secret Cavern, 141–143; self- Igresia de Negros en Africa (Church of Black People
explaining for, 131–132; sharp style of, 127; social in Africa), 90, 104, 108
motivations for, 124; soft style of, 127; stamps of, Imbondeiro tree, 109–110
124–127, 132–147, 182–183 INAF. See Igresia de Negros en Africa
224 Index
Villamil, Felipe Garcia, 12, 39, 43, 207n32, 209n84; Wasiwadimbu, Ne Nzinga, 90
on baconfula, 130–131; on dikenga, 72, 81; Water: in Kongo cosmogony, 31, 32, 35, 36; in Palo
on doll minkisi, 161; fi rmas of, 82–85, 127; on Monte cosmogony, 38–39, 125, 178–180
lucero, 73, 74, 75–76; makuto of, 156; mambo Wing, Joseph van, 5, 15–16, 32, 150, 186
from, 187–188; on mpaka, 157; and Rompe Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnogra-
Monte, 208n32; stamps from, 131, 133–138 phy (Clifford), 184–185
Vititi messo, 139, 141, 158, 159
Vunda, 36, 199n38 Yaya Bilongo, 161
Yowa cosmogram, 69, 167
Wanda, 66
Wannyn, R. L., 36 Zola, Ne Katembo, 90
Warburton, William, 7 Zola, Ne Lisimana, 90
Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz is an Assistant Professor in African Art and Its
Diaspora/Latin American and Caribbean Arts at Stanford University.