Kongo religion
Due to the highly centralized position of the Kingdom of Kongo, its leaders were able to influence much of the traditional religious practices across the Congo Basin.
[1] As a result, many other ethnic groups and kingdoms in West-Central Africa, like the Chokwe and Mbundu, adopted elements of Bakongo spirituality.
[2] While Nzambi Mpungu, who gave birth to the universe and the spirits who inhabit it, is vital to the spirituality, ancestor veneration is the core principle.
According to historians John K. Thornton and Linda M. Heywood, "Central Africans have probably never agreed among themselves as to what their cosmology is in detail, a product of what I called the process of continuous revelation and precarious priesthood..."[5] The Kongo people had diverse views, with traditional religious thought best developed in the northern Kikongo-speaking area.
[5] There is plenty of description about Kongo religious ideas in the Christian missionary and colonial era records, but as Thornton states, "these are written with a hostile bias and their reliability is problematic".
[2] When it grew too large, Kalûnga became a great force of energy and unleashed heated elements across space, forming the universe with the Sun, stars, planets, etc.
[2][13] The creation of a Bakongo person, or muntu, is also believed to follow the four moments of the Sun, which play a significant role in their development.
The last period of time is luvemba, when a muntu physically dies and enters the spiritual world, or Ku Mpémba, with of the ancestors, or bakulu.
[2] Represented on the Kongo cosmogram are the four stages of life: musoni, or conception; kala, or birth; tukala, or maturity; and luvemba, or death.
They are believed to correlate to the four moments of the Sun: midnight, or n'dingu-a-nsi; sunrise, or ndiminia; noon, or mbata; and sunset, or ndmina, as well as the four seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter) and the four classical elements (water, fire, air and earth).
[13] Prior to European colonization, Nzambi Mpungu and his female counterpart, Nzambici, were perceived as the one Great Spirit who existed everywhere simultaneously and gave life to all things.
Contrary to what the title "the Great Spirit" implies, Nzambi Mpungu/Nzambici and the spiritual nature of the Kongo people did not exist under the same confines of hierarchy as the omnipotent God of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam).
[1] After the introduction of Catholicism by the Portuguese, there was a massive effort to convert Central Africans by creating connections between Christianity and their traditional religions.
While it was largely a failure for ethnic groups such as the Mbundu, the Portuguese were able to deceive the Bakongo people by convincing them that Nzambi Mpungu was the Christian God and separating the deity from Nzambici and the other spirits.
[1] This may have also played a role in the Kingdom of Kongo becoming a more male-dominated society,[1] marginalizing the belief in the dual male/female identity of all Bakongo people[13] and creating a gender hierarchy based on Portuguese culture, where men were traditionally at the center of spiritual matters.
[1] By the early 17th century, oral tradition stated that Nzambi Mpungu was surrounded by lesser nature spirits, who were so powerful that they were given individual names.
"[15] She is also referred to as Nzambi, the mystery of the earth, "the mother of a beautiful daughter, gives mankind all laws, ordinances, arts, games, and musical instruments.
The sky bears the winds that brings the rains and shuffles the clouds to hide and then reveal the sun's rays... the Nzadi River flows forever... to eventually join the vast sea.
"[1] At the center of Kongo religion are the ancestors, or bakulu, who are believed to maintain a spiritual existence in the physical world (Ku Nseke) after death, through the "dual soul-mind" (mwèla-ngindu).
[2][1] Because of this, the ancestors are seen as spirits, who watch over the Bakongo people and direct power from the spiritual world (Ku Mpémba) to protect them.
nganga) underwent an extensive initiation process to learn the position of the sun as it rotated around the earth to seek guidance from the ancestors and the bisimbi.
[17][18] Supernatural objects that were reduced to the derogatory term, fetishes, by the Portuguese were said to be inhabited by nature spirits or deified people who embodied the extraordinary power of the spiritual world.
[1] In the eastern region in the Kingdom of Kongo, nature spirits were called nkita (also nquita) after a subset of the Bakongo people who referred to themselves as aquaquita, with their spiritual leaders holding the title Nganganchita.
This Kimpasi group was the target of many raids by Roman Catholic priests, who received support from the King of Kongo to storm into their houses of worship, or nzo a quimpazi, and destroy any traces of idolatry along with the buildings.
Belief in nkita persisted, with the spirits even providing power from the spiritual world for the Bakongo people to create sacred medicines called minkisi.
[1] 17th Century oral tradition recounts the story of two kilundu named Navieza and Cassumba who left their homeland in the Upper Ganguela region to flee disease.
[21] The Kongo people also believed that some ancestors inhabited the forest after death and maintained their spiritual presence in their descendants' lives.
[1] In the 17th century, the Bakongo people expanded the concept of nkisi to include consecrated objects or charms that contained the essence of nature spirits and their spiritual powers.
With this particular worldview, practitioners of African martial arts deliberately invert themselves physically to emulate the ancestors, and drawing strength and power from the ancestral realm.
