Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lemba 1650 1930 A Drum of Affliction in
Lemba 1650 1930 A Drum of Affliction in
Sources,
Index
Notes zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Chapter 1 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
1. De Jonghe wrote widely on African religion and ethnology, and his
views on "secret societies" and ethnological theory are found condensed in
the following works:zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB
Les sociétés secrètes au Bas-Congo (Bruxelles, 1907);
"Les sociétés secrètes en Afrique," Semaine d'Ethnologie Religieuse Ser. 3
( 1923); "Formations récents de sociétés secrètes au Congo Belge," Africa 9,
no. 1 (1936): 56-63. Unless otherwise indicated, the review of works is
drawn from De Jonghe's 1923 article.
2. H. Schurtz, Altersklassen und Männerbünde (Berlin, 1902).
3. S. Freud, Totem and Taboo (New York, 1950). See especially the
introduction for explicit mention of this influence.
4. W. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, 10 vols. (Leipzig, 1910-20).
5. A. Kuper, Anthropologists and Anthropology: The British School
1922-72 (New York, 1973), p. 24.
6. J. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 2 vols. (London, 1890); Totemism
and Exogamy, 4 vols. (London, 1910).
7. A. Van Gennep, Les rites de passage (Paris, 1909).
8. L. Frobenius, Die Masken und Geheimbünde (Halle, 1898).
9. K. Laman, The Kongo, III (Uppsala, 1962), p. 67.
10. F. Gräbener, "Kulturkreise und Kulturschichten in Ozeanien,"
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 37 (1905): 84-90.
11. De Jonghe, Les sociétés secrètes au Bas-Congo.
12. De Jonghe, "Les sociétés secrètes en Afrique."
13. De Jonghe, "Formations récents de sociétés secrètes."
14. J. Van Wing, Etudes BaKongo (Bruxelles, 1959), pp. 426-508.
15. L. Bittremieux, La société secrète des Bakhimba au Mayombe
(Bruxelles, 1936).
16. V. Turner, Drums of Affliction (Oxford, 1968), p. 15.
17. Certainly E.E. Evans-Pritchard's classic Witchcraft, Oracles, and
Magic among the Azande (Oxford, 1937) set the tone for recognition of a
system of explanation of misfortune and the means of dealing with it Recent
regional studies in Bantu-speaking Africa that illuminate the general lines of
this system include the following: from Tanzania, M.L. Swantz, Ritual and
Symbol in Transitional Zaramo Society (Uppsala, 1970); from Uganda, J.
Orley, "African Medical Taxonomy," Journal ofthe Anthropological Soci-
ety of Oxford 1, no. 3 (1970): 137-150; from Zimbabwe, GX. Chavunduka,
Interaction of Folk and Scientific Beliefs in Shona Medical Practices
(London, 1972); from South Africa, H. Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu
Medicine (London, 1977); from Western Zambia, G. Prins, "Disease at the
331
332 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB
this. Garbett, in his analysis of the Mutota cult of Zimbabwe, develops a clear
picture of several cults interpenetrating in a single region. Alongside the
centralized, hierarchic ancestor cults he finds other nonhierarchic and ter-
ritorially undefined cults (p. 58).
32. Werbner,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Regional Cults, pp. xvii-xxii.
33. Van Binsbergen, "Regional and Non-Regional Cults," p. 144.
34. B.T. Van Velzen, "Bush Negro Regional Cults: A Materialist
Explanation," in Werbner, Regional Cults, pp. 93-116.
35. Ibid., p. 94.
36. K. Burridge, New Heaven, New Earth (Toronto, 1969), says that
millenarian activities provide a test case in social analysis for the joining of
statements valid for both participants and investigator. "Beyond their intrin-
sic human interest.. . millenarian activities constitute an acute theoretical
challenge. They invite a statement through which particular actions and
rationalizations may be given a more general validity" (p. 2).
37. C. Geertz, in "Religion as a Cultural System," in M. Banton, ed.,
Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (New York, 1966),
cites Santay ana to the effect that" any attempt to speak without speaking any
particular language is not more hopeless than the attempt to have a religion
that shall be no religion in particular.... Thus every living and healthy
religion has a marked idiosyncracy" (p. 1).
38. T.O. Ranger, "Healing and Society in Colonial Southern Africa."
Unpublished MS, 1978.
39. J. Vansina has developed models of state formation specific to the
Tio and Kuba kingdoms in his The Tio Kingdom, and in The Children of
Woot: A History of the Kuba Peoples (Madison, 1978).
40. J. Goody, in his Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa
(London, 1971), develops an analysis of state formation for Africa. He
acknowledges the importance of Southall's concept of the" segmentary state"
in which central and local powers have equal weight, a condition that has
often arisen as larger empires or states disintegrate (pp. 9-10). For reasons of
technological small scale in food production (the use of the hoe rather than
horse- or ox-drawn plow), Goody rejects a "feudal stage" in state formation
for most of West and Central Africa, arguing instead for a variety of historical
types: the hereditary structuring of ritual powers; the ability to attract and
keep a following (privileged descent groups); conquest; diffusion of the insti-
tution and idea of a state; the emergence of a central state from a nucleus in
lineages, age sets, cult associations, and other institutions in acephalous
society; in opposition to slave raids; or the need to move trade goods across
long distances occupied by peoples lacking chiefs (pp. 12-18). Goody would
then concur, perhaps, that it is difficult, even unnecessary, to make a sharp
distinction between " state" and " cult," and that either can fulfill the functions
of centralized or regional institutions.
41. J. Miller, in Ms Kings and Kinsmen: Early Mbundu States in
Angola (Oxford, 1976), has reviewed models of state formation in Central
334 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC
5. E. Dupont,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB
Lettres sur le Congo (Paris, 1889), p. 340.
6. Ibid., p. 345.
7. H.M. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (London, 1877), p.
182.
8. Kwamba, Text 1 (Chapter 4, below), line 68.
9. Dupont, Lettres sur le Congo, pp. 338-339.
10. J. Vansina, The Tio Kingdom of the Middle Congo, 1880-1892
(London, 1973), p. 326.
11. Martin, The External Trade, p. 57.
12. Ibid., p. 59.
13. Vansina, The Tio Kingdom, p. 282.
14. Ibid., p. 326.
15. Ibid., p. 287.
16. Martin, The External Trade, p. 106.
17. Ibid., p. 94.
18. Ibid., p. 86.
19. Ibid., pp. 113, 107.
20. Ibid., p. 107.
2 1 . Vansina, The Tio Kingdom, p. 448.
22. Martin, The External Trade, pp. 113-114, 132. See also W.
Randies, L'ancien royaume du Congo (Paris, 1968), p. 203, for similar
figures.
23. Vansina, The Tio Kingdom, p. 304; P. Bohannan, "The Impact of
Money on an African Subsistence Economy," Journal of Economic History
19, no. 4 (1959): 491-503.
24. Vansina, The Tio Kingdom, pp. 288-292.
25. M. Soret, Les Kongo Nord-Occidentaux (Paris, 1959); G.P.
Murdock, Africa, Its People and theirCulture History (New'York, 1959); J.
Maes and O. Boone, Les peuplades du Congo belge (Bruxelles, 1935).
26. Stanley, Through the Dark Continent, p. 183.
27. Martin, The External Trade, p. 123.
28. Dupont, Lettres sur le Congo, pp. 330-340.
29. The intellectual source of this simplistic notion of homogeneous
ethnicity is the "culture-area" {Kulturkreis) school inspired by Gräbener,
Wissler, Frobenius, and perhaps Murdock. Lacking in understanding of the
dynamics of social organization, the adherents of this approach map out
cultural units on the basis of features such as language, dialect, or material
culture affixing them to a given territory. By definition, a culture area defined
by its most "characteristic" elements or complex of elements is therefore
"pure." An improvement in the Africanist literature is the work of Baumann
and Westermann of the so-called "historical" school. In their maps and
ethnographies, one can note the superimposition of one identity over another,
the accretion within a population of successive historical trends and polities.
See H. Baumann and D. Westermann, Les peuples et civilisations de
VAfrique (Paris, 1967).
336 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Chapter 3
1. E. Dupont, Lettres sur le Congo (Paris, 1889), pp. 330-340.
2. C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, Le Congo au temps des grandes com-
pagnies concessionnaires, 1898-1930 (Paris, 1972), p. 187.
3. O. Stenstrôm, "The Lemba Cuit," Ethnos (1969), pp. 1-4.
4. Reports, Luozi Territorial Archives, 1930.
5. L. Bittremieux, Van Een Ouden Blinden Hoofdman (Antwerpen,
1925).
6. J. Ndibu, Notebook 345, Laman Collection, Svenska Missionsfor-
bundet, Lidingô, n.d.
Notes 339
Introduction to Part II
1. V.W. Turner, "Colour Classification in Ndembu Ritual," in M.
Banton, ed., Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (New
York, 1966), pp. 47-84; A. Jacobson-Widding, Red-White-Black as a
Mode of Thought (Uppsala, 1979).
2. For present purposes, V.W. Turner's Drums of Affliction (Oxford,
1968) is the leading example of this approach in the area of African thera-
peutics. More generally, C. Geertz's work on religion as a symbol system
characterizes it, as for example in his "Religion as a Cultural System" in
Banton, Anthropological Approaches to... Religion, pp. 1-46. This ap-
proach is given historical depth and critical justification in J.L. Dolgin, D.S.
Kemnitzer, andD.M. Schneider, eds., Symbolic Anthropology (New York,
1977).
3. C. Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," Dae-
dalus 101, no. 1 (1972): 1-38.
4. C. Geertz, The Social History of an Indonesian Town (Cambridge,
1965), pp. 153-202.
5. V.W. Turner, Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual (Ith-
aca, 1975).
6. V.W. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in
Human Society (Ithaca, 1974).
7. See Turner, Drums of Affliction, and accounts of the Isoma and
Wubwang'u rituals among the Ndembu in Turner, The Ritual Process
(Chicago, 1969).
8. Turner, "Symbols in African Ritual," in Dolgin, et al., Symbolic
Anthropology, pp. 183-194.
9. Exemplified in R.P. Armstrong, The Affecting Presence (Urbana,
1971); but see also J. Fernandez, "Persuasions and Performances: Of the
Beast in Every Body . . . and the Metaphors of Everyman," Daedalus 101,
no. 1 (1972): 39-60.
10. I am thinking primarily of the work of C. Lévi-Strauss, La pensée
sauvage (Paris, 1962); Mythologiques, Z-JTF (Paris, 1964-71); and that of
P. Maranda and E. Kòngàs-Maranda, eds., Structural Analysis of Oral
Tradition (Philadelphia, 1971).
11. D. Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism (Cambridge, 1974); also
Fernandez, "Persuasions and Performances."
12. Primarily I have in mind the semiotics of R Barthes as formulated
in Système de la mode (Paris, 1967), or his literary essays such as S/Z
340 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB
(Paris, 1970), with its emphasis on levels or codes, and the relationship
between these codes, although I am aware of the theoretical sophistication of
C.S. Peirce's much earlier work.
13. G. Bateson,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB
Steps to an Ecology ofMind (New York, 1972), and E.
Leach, Culture and Communication: The Logic by which Symbols are
Co nnected (Cambridge, 1976), are two examples of the kind of work I have in
mind.
14. An issue raised by most of the above writers and resolved or
formulated in a great diversity of ways too involved for further discussion in
this study. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Chapter 4
1. Text 1 by E. Kwamba is taken from Notebooks 142 and 143, dated
about 1910, of the Catechists' Cahiers section of Karl Laman's collection in
the Svenska Missionsforbundet Archives (SMF), Lidingo, Sweden. Parts
of the full text presented here have appeared in English in Laman, The Kongo
III (Uppsala, 1962), pp. 113-116, and in J.M. Janzen and W. MacGaffey,
An Anthology of Kongo Religion (Lawrence, 1974), pp. 97-102.
2. Text 2 by M. Lunungu is drawn from Notebook 181 of the Laman
Collection, SMF, Lidingo, and may be dated at about 1915.
3. I have elsewhere discussed the origin and fate of this extensive
KiKongo corpus: see my'' Laman's Kongo Ethnography: Observations on
Sources, Methodology, and Theory," Africa 42, no. 4 (1972): 316-328.
When Laman returned to Sweden in 1919 with the notebooks, they provided
him with the basis in idioms and vocabulary to produce his masterful
Dictionnaire KiKongo-Francais (Bruxelles, 1936). He also translated (into
Swedish) passages on Kongo custom using categories of his original ques-
tionnaire, selecting from the notebooks what he regarded as most represen-
tative and best written. Posthumously, Laman's Swedish text was translated
into English, under the direction of S. Lagerkrantz, and published in the
Studia Ethnographica Uppsaliensia series as The Kongo I-IV (Uppsala,
1953, 1957, 1962, 1968). Fortunately scholars of Kongo and Central-
African studies have had access to these English sources although they have
been difficult to work with because of the lack of reference in them to place,
context, and authorship. Also, some of the materials having gone through
double translation have lost their original meaning or have become very
elliptical. The reader may wish to compare Kwamba's original text on
Lemba given here with the version offered in Laman, The Kongo III, pp.
113-116.
Lunungu's description of Lemba (Text 2) has not been published anywhere
to my knowledge.
4. R. Rappaport, Pigs for the Ancestors (New Haven, 1968).
5. For such a rewriting, used as partial model in this work, see A.
Dundes, E. Leach, P. Maranda, andD. Maybury-Lewis, "An Experiment:
Suggestions and Queries from the Desk, with a Reply from the Ethnogra-
Notes 341 zyxwvuts
Chapter 6
1. Fukiau, N'kongo ye Nza/Cosmogonie-Kongo (Kinshasa, 1969).
2. Batsikama ba Mampuya, "A propos de i a cosmogonie Kongo,' "
Cultures au Zaire et en Afrique 4 (1974): 239-264.
342 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Chapter 7
1. J. Konda, Notebook 119, Laman Collection, Svenska Missionsfor-
bundet(SMF), Lidingö, ca. 1915.
2. T. Babutidi, Notebook 16, Laman Collection, SMF, Lidingö, ca.
1915. This account of a Lemba initiation is identified as having occurred at
Mamundi, "westward of Kinkenge." I have been unable to locate this site
exactly, but Kinkenge is at the boundary of the Yombe area, therefore I have
identified it as Eastern Mayombe. Parts of this text have been published in K.
Laman, The Kongo III (Uppsala, 1962), p. 116.
3. L. Bittremieux, Mayombsche Namen (Leuwen, 1934), pp. 41-42.
4. Ibid., p. 41.
5. Paul Güssfeldt, Julius Falkenstein, and Eduard Pechuel-Loesche,
Die Loango Expedition, 1873-6 (Leipzig, 1879), p. 71.
6. A. Bastian, Die Deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste, 2 vols.
(Jena, 1874), pp. 167, 169.
7. L. Bittremieux, Van Een Ouden Blinden Hoofdman (Antwerpen,
1925), pp. 31-34.
8. Based on Belgian Colonial Ministry economic reports on the Bas-
Notes 343 zyxwvutsrq
Congo (1925), II, pp. 651-676; (1928), p. 691; (1929), II, pp.
Congo, inzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
714-726; (1932), II, pp. 293-313.
9. Bastian, Die Deutschen Expedition, vol. I, p. 258.
10. Bittremieux, Mayombsche Namen, pp. 42-44.
11. A. Jacobson-Widding, in hex Red-White-Black as a Mode of
Thought (Uppsala, 1979), pp. 250-251, makes much of the discrepancy
betweenthe"white"nameMpemba Lemba andthe"red" tukula ingredients
in Babutidi's report, from which she is working in Laman's Kongo ethnog-
raphy, possibly without realizing it. She relates this to her theory of the need
to reconcile what she speaks of as the "inner" with the " outer" man, and with
the "matrilineal principle of inheritance of male characteristics." Unfortu-
nately, this elaborate theory is based on the perpetuation of a simple phonetic
error by Babutidi who, not being a.Lemba initiate, confused/?/èmZ>a or
phemba for mpemba. The same mistake was made by Lehuard, and before
him by Maes, and before him by Bastian and Pechuel-Loesche. Bittremieux's
research ( see note 12 below) and circumstantial evidence in Lehuard's mono-
graph and in Pechuel-Loesche's account of n'kisi Phemba permit a correct
interpretation.
12. Bittremieux's original research on the distinction oîpfemba (or
phemba) and mpemba is reported in unpublished letters written in 1939 to
the then director of the Musée d'Afrique Central, at Tervuren, J. Maes, from
Kangu where he had collected two nkobe Lemba, including the one sketched
in figure 21 and pictured in plates 5-7.
13. E. Pechuel-Loesch, Volkskunde von Loango (Stuttgart, 1907), p.
385.
14. R. Lehuard, Les phemba du mayombe (Paris, 1977), is an excellent
presentation of this sculptural genre, except for the confusion of mpemba
with phemba, which I have discussed at greater length in my review of this
monograph m African Arts 11, no. 2 (1978): 88-89.
15. J.M. Vaz, Filosofia Tradicional dos Cabindas (Lisboa, 1969).
Figures 30, 103, 140, 142, 143, 160, 187-A, 199, 216, 230, and 242
show Lemba as a drum in the company of other min 'kisi, includingMbondo-
Fula, Mbonzo, Mikono, N'kobe-Ibingu, Nkwangi, Koko.
16. Lehuard, Les phemba du mayombe, p. 87.
17. Vaz, Filosofia Tradicional, fig. 187. See also L. Bittremieux,
Symbolisme in de Negerkunst (Brussel, 1937), Object 112, for a discussion
on Mbondo-Fula.
18. W. Dionga, narrator of "Tsimona-Mambu, de Wonderziener of de
Oorsprong van het huwelijk bij Dilemba, naar een Mayombsche légende," in
L. Bittremieux, Congo 2 (1926): 398-404; 551-6. English translation
of this tale appears in J.M. Janzen and W. MacGaffey, An Anthology of
Kongo Religion (Lawrence, 1974), pp. 102-106.
19. This summary is based on J. Van Wing and C. Schôller, "Les
aventures merveilleuses de Moni-Mambu le querelleur," in their Légendes
des BaKongo orientaux (Louvain, 1940), pp. 11-44, which is a heavily
344 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC
edited Kongo narrative for school children based on an earlier text published
in KiKongo, circulated in ca. 1935, itself transcribed from an unknown
narrator. I have not been able to find the KiKongo original, but it was retold
by A.-R. Bolamba as "La légende de Moni-Mambu chez les BaKongo,"
inzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Arts et metiers indigènes 9 ( 193 8): 17-19.1 have added Bolamba's episode
8 to the Van Wing and Schöller version since it was apparently in the original
KiKongo. Other accounts, much shorter, were given by Jules Benga and
Pierre Ndakivangi, as "Mumboni-a-Mpasi, celui qui avait beaucoup de
palabres," Arts et metier indigènes 9(1938): 20-21.
20. For a general analysis of the genre and an anthology of examples, see
W. Bascom, ed., African Dilemma Tales (The Hague, 1975). Locally, in
North Kongo, they are called ngana zakindembikisa, a collection of which is
available in J. Bahelele, Kinzonzi ye ntekolo'andi Makundu (Matadi,
1961), pp. 36-38.
21. P. Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology
(New York, 1956).
22. L. Makarius, "Ritual Clowns and Symbolic Behavior," Diogenes 69
(1970): 67; also, R.D. Pelton, The Trickster in West Africa (Berkeley,
1980), offers a similar but more extensive analysis of the trickster in four
West-African traditions. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIH
Chapter 8
1. A. Ramos, O Negro Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1934), p. 106,
partial translation by Roberto Fiorillo. The reference to the priest's smoking
recalls Lemba pipes from Loango and reference to smoking in the Mavungu
legends (Texts 7-8).
2. Ibid., Chapter 4, "Os cultos de procedencia Bantu," pp. 99-135.
3. M. Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past (Boston, 1958), p. 84.
4. R. Bastide, African Religions of Brazil (Baltimore, 1978), p. 196.
5. E. Carneiro, Negros Bantus (Rio de Janeiro, 1937).
6. In addition to Herskovits, Myth of the Negro Past, see his Daho-
mey: An Ancient West African Kingdom (New York, 1938); and Life in a
Haitian Village (New York, 1937).
)(TheH2ig\ie,
7. R. Bastide, LecandomblédeBahia(riteNagôzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWV
1958);
and Bastide, African Religions of Brazil.
8. R F . Thompson, "Transatlantic African Art Traditions," MSS 1975,
1977; and Thompson, "The Flash of the Spirit: Haiti's Africanizing Vodun
Art," in Ute Stebich, ed., Haitian Art (Brooklyn, 1978), pp. 26-37.
9. R.F. Thompson, Black Gods and Kings (Los Angeles, 1971).
10. Bastide, African Religions of Brazil, p. 195; O. Dapper,
Umständliche und Eigenliche Beschreibung von Afrika (Amsterdam,
1670), pp. 534-537.
11. Thompson, "The Flash of Spirit," p. 26.
12. A. Métraux, Black Peasants and Voodoo (New York, 1960).
13. Ibid., p. 14.
Notes 345 zyxwvutsrq
Chapter 9
1. C. Kerenyi,"Prolegomena," inC. Jung andC. Kerenyi, eds.,Essays
on a Science of Mythology (Princeton, 1969), pp. 1-24.
2. W. MacGaffey, "The Religious Commissions of the BaKongo,"
Man n.s. 5, no. 1 (1970): 27-38.
3. A more extended discussion of this process in Kongo culture
structure is found in J.M. Janzen and W. MacGaffey, Anthology of Kongo
Religion (Lawrence, 1974), pp. 87-89.
4. L. Frobenius, Die Masken und Geheimbünden (Halle, 1898), Part
II.
346 NOTES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
5. K. Laman,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
The Kongo III (Uppsala, 1962), p. 67.
6. L. Bittremieux, La société sécrète des Bakhimba (Bruxelles, 1936),
p. 67.
7. J.-F. Thiel, Ahnen, Geister, Höchste Wesen (St Augustin, 1977).
8. E. Lutete, Notebook 229, Laman Collection, Svenska Missions-
forbundet(SMF), Lidingö, ca. 1915.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. C. Tastevin, "Idées religieuses des indigènes de l'enclave de
Cabinda," Etudes missionaires 3 (1935), no. 1, 105-111; no. 2,191-197;
no. 3, 257-273. For a shortened version of the Woyo origin myth see J.
Knappert, "The Water Spirits," in his Myths and Legends of the Congo
(Nairobi and London, 1971), pp. 138-139.
12. Especially the distinction between "opposition" and "contradic-
tion" as indicated by K. Burridge, "Lévi-Strauss and Myth," in E. Leach,
ed., The Structural Study of Myth (London, 1967), pp. 91-118.
13. In the sense understood by R. Girard, La violence et le sacré (Paris,
1972).
14. G. Boas, "The Evolution of the Tragic Hero," in R. W. Corrigan, ed.,
Tragedy: Vision and Form (San Francisco, 1965), pp. 117-131.
15. Corrigan, Tragedy, p. ix.
16. B. Dadié, personal communications, 1971.
17. "L'histoire de Kuba-Ntu" in J. Van Wing and C. Schöller, eds.,
Légendes des BaKongo orientaux (Louvain, 1940), pp. 53-60.
18. G. Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York, 1972).
19. F. Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy," in Corrigan, Tragedy, p. 448.
20. C. Lévi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth," Journal of
American Folklore 68 (1955): 428-444.
21. Burridge, "Lévi-Strauss and Myth."
22. C. Lévi-Strauss, "Finale," in his L'Homme Nu (Paris, 1971), pp.
559-621.
23. J. Lacan, "The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious," in R
and F. DeGeorge, eds., The Structuralists: From Marx to Lévi-Strauss
(Garden City, 1972), pp. 287-323.
24. Lacan' s point of reference here is Freud' s notion of Einstellung from
the "Interpretation of Dreams," a term which has also been translated as
"distortion" or "misrepresentation."
25. Freud's Verdichtung, a bringing together of several signifiers.
26. Freud's Verschiebung. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLK
Chapter 10
2. E. Andersson,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFE
L*Ethnographie desKuta (Uppsala, 1953), pp. 247-
249; A. Bastian, Die Deutsche Expedition an der Loango-Küste (Jena,
1874); H. Châtelain, Folktales of Angola (Boston and New York, 1894), p.
11.
3. O. Stenstrom, "The Lemba Cuit," Ethnos (1969), p. 37.
4. ZablonMakunza,Kinganga village, inDe la Kenge,LuoziTerritory.
5. F. Ngoma, L'initiation BaKongo et sa signification (Lubumbashi,
1963), p. 120.
6. J. Malonga, "La sorcellerie et Tordre du 'Lemba' chez les Lan,"
Liaison 63 (1958): 53-54; Batsikama ba Mampuya, "A propos de 'La
cosmogonie Kongo,' " Cultures au Zaire et en Afrique 4 (1974): 257.
7. J. Munzele, Bakulu beto yeDiela diau (Kumba, 1965), p. 19.
8. L. Bittremieux, Mayombsche Namen (Leuwen, 1934), pp. 42-44.
9. Batsikama ba Mampuya, "A propos . . . Kongo," p. 257.
10. W.H. Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo (London, 1900), p. 290.
11. Malonga, "La sorcellerie et l'ordre," p. 53.
Chapter 11
1. J. Vansina, in his Children ofWoot: A History ofthe Kuba Peoples
(Madison, 1978), p. 209, offers a negative assessment of the possibility of
retrieving an intellectual history for much of precolonial Africa. For a more
optimistic appraisal of the situation and an attempt at an intellectual history of
a precolonial setting through the use of therapeutic central values in Lozi
history, see G. Prins, Hidden Hippopotamus (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 150-
157.
2. C. Meier, Die Entstehung des Politischen bei den Griechen (Frank-
furt, 1980), pp. 154-158.
Sources zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFE
349
350 SOURCES zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC
aspects ofzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Lemba, missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, of the turn of
the century and a bit later offer exceptional material on Lemba and its setting.
Taste vin' s work in C abinda I located in the Jesuit Institute of Bonn, and much
of Bittremieux's unpublished work from the Kangu district in Mayombe is
available in the Musée d'Afrique Central at Tervuren. Swedish missionaries'
work and correspondence were consulted either in the Svenska Missions-
forbundet in Lidingô, in the Stockholm Ethnographic Museum, or in the
Gôteburg Ethnographic Museum. These include Laman, Hammar, Westlind,
Bôrrison, Andersson and Stenstrom, all of whom worked in Nsundi, Kamba,
and Lali regions, and who offer excellent although often anecdotal informa-
tion on Lemba.
A source of comparable importance in the reconstruction of the setting
of Lemba is the local colonial archival network, particularly those docu-
ments resulting from detailed inquiries made in the early decades of this
century by colonial agents seeking to understand the region's history and
basis of legitimacy so as to achieve fuller penetration of the colonial adminis-
tration into African society. Although the Luozi Territorial Archives and
offices were burned to the ground by partisans during the interval from Free
State rule to Belgian colonial rule in 1907-1910, later surveys made by
territorial agents and administrators such as Maillet, Vercraeye, and Dele val
are available and were consulted in Luozi, giving accounts, based on inter-
views, of inaugurations of precolonial chiefs, clan migrations, and village
compositions. Little mention is given Lemba in these archives. What they
convey is a contempt for "northern" anarchy in which there are no big chiefs.
Repeated efforts were made to identify or create such chiefs, in the process of
which the segmentary social system and its horizontal mechanisms of integra-
tion were generally overlooked and misunderstood. One exception to this is
the work of Deleval, whose writings both published and in the archives reflect
remarkable insight. Known locally as mundele si-si-si, "Whiteman Yes-yes-
yes," after the petulant manner in which he answered questions, Deleval's
materials go well beyond the standards of administrative requirements for
information and constitute very helpful scientific accounts.
The most exciting unpublished written sources on Lemba are accounts of
initiation séances and exegetical remarks prepared by Kongo catechists for
Swedish missionary Karl Laman from ca. 1905-1919, before Lemba's
demise. Local accounts culled from the 430 notebooks, used by Laman to
prepare his KiKongo-French dictionary and the four volumes of Kongo
ethnography, provide much of the primary material for the regional variants
of Lemba in Chapters 4-8. These notebooks by largely unheralded Kongo
writers are in the Laman Collection in the Svenska Missionsforbundet
archives in Lidingô, and have been microfilmed for easier access.
The tradition of Kongo writing begun with the catechists continues,
offering further accounts of Lemba by modern writers such as Malonga Jean,
Brazzaville novelist and essayist, Ngoma Ferdinand, Zairian sociologist, and
Mampuya and Fukiau, both active writers. All four have been seriously
Sources 351 zyxwvuts
concerned withzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA
Lemba, the major institution of their recent culture history.
We may add to this list Haiti's well-known ethnologist-physician, Jean Price-
Mars, who has written the only in-depth account, however brief, of Lemba in
the N^w World. These efforts by indigenous writers to describe and interpret
Lemba"s significance provide the base for my own résumé of a conscious
Lemba ideology of therapeutics in the ngoma, drum-of-affliction tradition in
the final part of the book.
A final, and very important, source on Lemba is artifactual. Many of the
aforementioned missionaries, traders, travellers, and colonial officials gath-
ered cultural objects and deposited them in African and European museums.
Rarely have Lemba objects been labelled and displayed for what they are.
However in several research trips to Central-European museums I discov-
ered extensive holdings of Lemba objects, revealing a mute record of
9
Lemba s historic existence, its geographic distribution, and its integral role in
Congo-Basin social and cultural history. Particular museums consulted are
listed in the inventory of museum objects below.
In sum, I have used all possible sources for the reconstruction of Lemba
and its context. Figure 1 records the geographical distribution of those which
are identified with a specific location. The following lists of sources identify
other nonlocalized objects and documents. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR
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Museum Collections
ABBREVIATIONS OF MUSEUMS
LEMBA DRUMS
LEMBA BRACELETS
Oxalä (Yoruba-BrazilianzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHG
orisha), use of, on tombs, 89
276-7 See also Medicine; Nkisi
Oxössi (Yoruba-Brazilian orisha), Pointe Noire (city), 2-3
276 Pombieros (tra3ers)73^^
Oxun-Mare (Yoruba-Brazilian Pongo (Loango, Kongo nkisi), 53,
orisha), 276 275, 277
Poro (ceremonial society), 6
Panda (Congo-Brazilian inkissi), Portugal, Portuguese, 6, 34, 37,
276-7 63-4, 81
Pansa (Loango, Kongo nkisi), 277 Price-Mars, J., 103,188,278,
Paul, St., in Afro-Brazilian 286-92, 345
religion, 276 Prins,G.,331,332,347
Pechuel-Loesche, E., 2, 56, 337, Proyart, A., 337
343 Psychological, explanations of
Peirce, C , 340 secret societies, 9; processes
Pelton, R.,344 in Lemba healing, 311-13
Pernambuco (city), 276 Purification, purity, as
Peter, St., in Afro-Brazilian administered with mpolo-
religion, 276 Lemba, 106, bcrco-Lemba,
Petion (Haitian president), 278-9, 158, mwmo-Lemba, 236-7,
288, 292, 298 and in food-medicine
Petit-Goäve (town), 279 mixture, 173-4; as concept of
Petro (category of Haitian voodoo redemption, 17,20; with
loa linked to Kongo and cupping horn, 15; as indicated
Lemba), 273, 277-92 passim by Lemba paddles, 126-7; of
See also Jean Petro; Rada Lemba couple, 125-6, 240-1;
Pfemba (Loango, Woyo nkisi, of Lemba neophyte,
midwife's group, part of following profanation, 110-15,
Lemba nkobe), 22, 56, 253, 240-1; logic of, in Lemba,
301,343 319; as ritual action, 144;
See also Bingo; KaBuanga following sickness of
Pinkerton, J.,336, 337 "human" cause, 13-14
Plants, depicted in myth, 202,
217-18, 265; in food crops Quincongo (Congo-Brazilian
originating in Africa, 28-9, inkissi), 276-7
America, 29, 31, Malaysia,
28, 31; in Lemba, 57,109,117, Rada (category of Haitian voodoo
119,137,143,173-6,196, 237, loa linked to Fongbe origins),
239-40, 252-3, 265; liminality 277,281,284-5
of, 245; in markets, 30, 72; in See also Arada
metaphoric correspondence Radin,P.,271, 344
with other elements, 255-6; Railroad, Matadi to Leopoldville,
planted in shrines, 243-5; and 81; completion of and
ritual transformations, 300; Lemba's demise, 81-2
380 INDEX zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDC