Mfinda

[2] The Kongo people also believed that some ancestors inhabited the forest after death and maintained their spiritual presence in their descendants' lives.

In return, the ancestor or nature spirit would pass on untold history, advise the nganga, or allow them to harness their powers for healing or protection.

[1] The concept of mfinda as a spiritual space also emerged in the colonial United States through trans-Atlantic slavery and became known locally as finda.

Because early enslaved Bakongo had no ancestors on this side of kalûnga (which became synonymous with the Atlantic Ocean), it meant they had no blood tie to the new lands in which they were transported.

To remedy this, some Bakongo and Mbundu willingly committed acts of sacrificial suicide so that they could become ancestors or simbi and connect the living to Mpémba, the spiritual world.

This depiction of the Kongo Cosmogram is based on a description by Dr. Fu-Kiau. It depicts the physical world known as Nseke, the spiritual (ancestral) world known as Mpémba, the Kalûnga river that runs between the two worlds, the four moments of the sun, and the mfinda (forest) that spiritually connects both worlds.