The Kimpasi religious society of Kongo: traditional beliefs in west-central Africa from the 17th to 20th century.

The kingdom of Kongo, as it appears in 16th century accounts, was, along with Ethiopia, one of only two Christian states in Africa after the fall of medieval Nubia. However, Kongo's global recognition as Christian kingdom by the papacy in Rome and by the kings of Iberia, may obscure the continued presence of 'traditional' religious societies in the kingdom that co-existed with Kongo's Christian society.

In the 17th century, a powerful political-religious society known as the kimpasi emerged among Kongo's elites to deal with the myriad of social crises that beset the kingdom during this period. The influence of the kimpasi attracted the attention of visiting priests in Kongo, who tried but failed to curtail the spread of the religious society, that would ultimately outlive them and continue to flourish well into the 20th century.

This article outlines the history of the Kimpasi religious society of Kongo, focusing on the relationship between the 'traditional' and 'Christian' religions of the kingdom.

shrine with life-size figure of a deity, Lutele, D.R.Congo, 1883, Charles Callewaert, Royal Museum for central Africa.

Brass Pendant: Saint Anthony of Padua, 16th-17th century, Kongo kingdom, Met Museum.

On 'traditional' religions and Christianity in Kongo.

The kingdom of Kongo was a major regional power in west-central Africa, that was founded in the 14th century and reached its height during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its rulers adopted Christianity in 1491, and encouraged its spread throughout the rest of the population, such that by the late 16th century, its capital of Mbanza Kongo was erected as an episcopal See, and renamed  São Salvador. Kongo was recognized as a  Christian state by the papacy and other European states, and most of its church activities and diplomacy were operated by Kongo's laymen, with the exception of visiting priests like the Jesuits and Capuchins who were invited to perform the sacraments like baptism and marriage.

painting of Mbanza Kongo by Olfert Dapper in 1668

However, since Christianity was adopted on Kongo's own terms, it was interpreted and embraced through pre-existing concepts in Kongo's   cosmology and religious practices. This left room for the continued existance and later emergence of other religions, especially in its eastern provinces where central power was the weakest.

The traditional cosmology and religious practices of  Kongo, as in the rest of west-central Africa, was invariably diverse between different societies and across different time periods. Their theology was formed by a constant stream of revelations that was not under the control of a priesthood who enforced orthodoxy, but instead was interpreted individually within a community of belief. Priests were those who could demonstrate efficacy in contacting the Other World, a skill that was not conveyed by a hierarchy or seminary.

(Central Africans and Cultural transformations pg 73-74)

Kongo mythology includes the belief in a variety of spiritual beings residing in the Other World that could influence the actions of the living. These sprits primarily consist of primordial deities (such as the high god Nzambi Mpungu) and deified ancestors (such as deceased Kongo kings and lineage heads), as well as lesser spirits with no specific attachment to a territory or person.

Worship was directed to territorial deities often at Shrines called kiteki and served by priests called nganga Kiteke or kitomi. Territorial deities called nkita were worshipped in these shrines, they were organized along the local divisions of the country, and responsible for natural events, public morality, and political order. In some areas, no officer of state could be installed without the consent of these beings, through the kitomi.

 (Central Africans and Cultural transformations pg 75-79)

The nganga were responsible for making Nkisi (charms) in the form of sculptural figures whose other-worldly power was activated by ancestral spirits. However, despite the ubiquity of these nkisi figures that made them the focus of missionary accounts, they were not very theologically important. An nkisi owed its “animation” exclusively  to the fact that it was the focus of a network of social relations; when social obligations towards it were neglected, it reverted to the status of mere object.

(The Ritual Person pg 116-117, Central Africans and Cultural transformations pg 80)

Ancestral Shrine (Nzo a Bakulu) for a Yombe Chief at Burial Site (Case-fétiche au Congo). Lubuzi River region, Democratic Republic of the Congo. ca. 1908, 

The adoption of Christianity by Kongo's royals and later by much of the population in the 16th century was a complex process that involved syncretism and varying degrees of accommodation with pre-existing belief systems, rather than constructing binaries between "good" and "evil".

At a more abstract level, central African religious practices embody “philosophical” reflections rather than simple assemblages of traits. They made distinctions between legitimate, public uses of Other-worldly power and its illegitimate use for personal benefit. In principle, everybody should respect his or her assigned position in a hierarchically ordered society, and those who pursue their own advantage were deemed Kindoki (ie: evil-doers or “witches.”)

(Constructing a Kongo identity pg 174, Central Africans and Cultural transformations pg 81-82)

Kongo therefore had a different idea about witchcraft than the one that visiting European priests were expounding. The question of witchcraft was not about making contact with evil spirits such as demons or the Devil himself, but rather the use to which the contact was put.  Spiritual beings in the Kongolese understanding of the Other World were not necessarily good or bad: it was the intentions of those who consulted or petitioned them that mattered, and so witchcraft was considered by starting with motivations rather than process.

(A history of west central Africa pg 168)

Bad motivations, jealousy, and hatred were understood to be the driving factors behind self-serving persons who practiced witchcraft. In Kongo, political-religious societies like the Kimpasi were thus formed to regulate and control problems related to an overabundance of hatred and its cognate witchcraft in a region.

The Kimpasi religious society: Initiation, shrines, and Insignia.

The word kimpasi means "suffering" in Kikongo, and an important motive for forming one was a feeling that a community was suffering. There were chapters of the Kimpasi society throughout Kongo, but despite its non-centralized organizational structure, there was a strong sense of solidarity between all its initiates. Kimpasi societies grew during times of social distress, such as the series of droughts and civil war.

(The Kongolese saint Anthony pg 56, African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 127) 

The Kimpasi society was directed by the Ngundi nganga, who presided over the initiation rite called the Nganga zi Kimpasi. The initiation rite was organized on the recommendation of a nganga (expert/diviner) by the elders of a group of villages, only when the community was deemed to be suffering from infertility, excessive infant mortality or an epidemic, all attributable to the anti-social activities of witches. 

(African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 228 Religion et Magie pg 173-185)

The initiation ceremony staged the symbolic death and resurrection of the candidate. The novice, chosen among the Kongo elite, was, upon his or her admission into the group, induced to lose consciousness by tying them using a thin string multiple times until they feel into a deep trance. They were later brought back to their senses on the grounds of the secret ritual enclosure as a new member and initiate of the society and was called a Nkita.

(African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 220-221, The Kongolese saint Anthony pg 57)

The newly revived Nkitas were aware that they were no longer the same people, as their bodies had been possessed by a nkita, a nature spirit, which worked through them. This possession was not exactly identical to that of the ngangas, which was total but transitory because initiates retained much of their own personality. Nkita possession was for the rest of their lives.

People were typically drawn into these societies by spirits, who visited various circumstances upon people that required them to seek spiritual and physical healing from the specialists of particular initiation societies such as Kimpasi. The Nkitas calmed the sources of kindoki --the troubling power that disturbed the community-- and enabled the initiates to repel that type of force.

(The Kongolese saint Anthony pg 57, African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 219-220)

According to the historian Wyatt MacGaffey, African rituals embody a “philosophical” component that transcends the assemblage of physical gestures and objects they utilize. The manipulation in ritual of personified objects and objectified persons enables the participants to think about who they are . Kongo rituals are described by the participants as technical procedures; training in them is a matter of knowledge, not belief or enlightenment.

(Constructing a Kongo identity pg 174)

In sociological perspective, the ritual, lasting as long as four years, restored social discipline among not only the candidates but in the community: quarrels were forbidden, food had to be provided, and graduates of Kimpasi were needed to assist the staff of the institution.

Since West-Central Africans attributed the misfortunes of life to offenses perpetrated by people rather than to random coincidences or impersonal forces, the Kimpasi associations provided a means by which people came together as communities to redress collective problems through their relationships with nature spirits.

(The Ritual Person pg 119, African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 128)

The initiates remained in the Kimpasi enclosure for some time in houses  built in the rear of the compound, and they received secret instructions in occult knowledge. They were taught a new language, like Kikongo, but with subtle changes in grammar and vocabulary. They were also required to swear a solemn oath of secrecy, given a beaded belt to wear around either their wrist or their waist, then sent home.

(The Kongolese saint Anthony pg 57)

Burning the temple of a traditional priest, illustration by Bernardino Ignazio da Vezza d'Asti ca. 1702-1757.

The enclosures that the initiates established contained cross resembling a Christian cross, which announced the entrance to the Kimpasi enclosure but also served as the ubiquitous sign for the association.

Girolamo da Montesarchio, a missionary to the Kongo between 1648 and 1668, observed that “the members of the [Kimpasi] society had at the entrance of their meeting place a great portico with the sacred sign of the cross painted in diverse colors.”

While its hard to determine if the kimpasi cross predated the Christian cross, both religious group's interpretation of the motif coexisted in 17th century Kongo. The Kimpasi associated the cross motif with death and regeneration, and it retained its significance well into the 20th century as a cosmogram representing the cycle of life and death.

(The Art of Conversion pg 95)

The construction style and layout of the kimpasi enclosures and their inner structures were similar to churches and Christian altars of the same period. A large mound was constructed in the middle of a palisade of trees or logs, called the ''Walls of the King of Kongo," around the enclosure, circled by a ditch. Special medicinal plants were planted along the inner walls of the enclosure along with thorns and other quick-growing hedges, both to provide some security and to supply special needs of the group.

An Altar was built on top of the mound, with steps leading up to it. The altars displayed figures, images, and liturgical objects that practitioners regularly bathed with fragrant smoke and sprinkled with empowering liquids. Two kitekes - statues in human form that had been invested with the power to "see" wrongdoers flanked the cross. The kitekes were surrounded by other empowering items, such as claws of predators to catch wrongdoers symbolically, black and red horns of black (for This World and the boundary between worlds), and animal tails, like the msesa, or buffalo tail, that symbolized power.

(The Kongolese saint anthony pg 56-57)

 The friar Marcellino d’Atri, who visited a kimpasi meeting ground around 1700, described it as made up of a  semicircular enclosure, where an as altar erected on a platform raised a few steps from the ground and outfitted with “two great idols,” a cross, tiger’s claws, lion’s teeth, animal tails, a red-dyed horn, charcoal, an incensory, and an asperser similar to that used to sprinkle holy water.

(The Art of Conversion pg 227-228)

While its unclear whether the kimpasi predated Christianity in Kongo, what is clear from their coexistence is that Christianity did not supersede the kimpasi and that the central African institution did not take over the once-foreign faith. Rather, both existed, competed, and drew from each other.

The history of the Kimpasi society in Kongo's politics.

The earliest written sources on the Kimpasi appear in descriptions of eastern Kongo around 1655 by Capuchin priests who were opposed to the society. They state that people known as aquaquita (nkita people) gathered in the nzo a quimpazi (house of kimpasi), where they had a wooden cross painted in many colors to “invoke a spirit that they call nquita [nkita],” and become “filled with spirit of nquita.” This association was identified as Chinpassi Chianchita (Kimpasi kia Nkita), and the leaders carried the title of Nganganchita (Nganga Nkita)

(African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 110)

Beginning in the mid-17th century, Kongo's kings managed to secure the services of the Capuchin priests who were considered politically neutral; unlike the Jesuits from Portugal --kongo's rival. These priests provided sacraments to Kongo's population like baptism and Christian marriage (which couldn't be done by Kongo's lay priests), and aided the kingdom in its international relations in the Christian world that presented Kongo to Rome as equal to its Catholic peers in Europe.

However, this process involved transforming Kongo's religious institions to conform to the Counter-Reformation standards of the time, which condemned any attempts to access the Other World outside the clergy as demonic. The Capuchins thus went on veritable campaigns to wipe the kimpasi out as a competing religious order, on the basis that the Kimpasi were inadvertently working with the "Devil" when clergy were not involved, something that the Kimpasi initiates vehemently denied.

(A history of west-central Africa pg 167-168)

The efforts of Roman Catholic priests to destroy the buildings and objects associated with Kimpasi often led to physical conflict as members of the societies vigorously defended their sacred institutions. In 1652, the capuchin priest Joris van Geel, was beaten and eventually died as a consequence of breaking up a kimpasi meeting. King Garcia, acting at the request of the Capuchins, deported the village where the priest was killed, but was neverthless reluctant to press too hard on demands of the Capuchins for punishment for normal offenses.

(A history of west central Africa pg 169)

Missionary Father who burns the temple of the Idols; these temples or houses of the Idols are made of Straw but of remarkable craftsmanship,

Parma Watercolors ca. 1663-1690.

Kimpasi influence continued to grow in the late 17th century despite the ruinous civil war that broke up the kingdom during this period, with claimants to the throne fleeing the capital to establish their own royal residences. One of these claimants, King Pedro, established his capital at Kibangu, and his followers who included Kimpasi initiates also founded lodges near the capital.

(African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry pg 110)

On March of 1699, the Capuchin priest Father Marcellino burned two Kimpasi lodges and their surrounding enclosure, and seized their sacred objects. He narrowly escaped thanks to the intervention of the Kongo noble Dom Miguel, and deposited the objects at a nearby church intending to burn them later. He excommunicated the leaders of the kimpasi and declared their practices as kindoki; ie: intended to do harm.

(The Kongolese saint Anthony pg 72-73)

Among the traits of the association the capuchins denounced most vehemently was the “pernicious” mixing of men and women in its membership and rituals. Mateo de Anguiano, Capuchin chronicler writing in Spain from the accounts of his colleagues, described kimpasi meeting grounds as “isolated places or houses where men and women … commit thousands of turpitudes without taking into account gender or parentage.”

(The Art of Conversion pg 229-230)

Kimpasi membership redefined relationships of kinship so that the social responsibilities of the members within the association differed from the ones they inherited from birth. This became a particulary thorny problem for the Capuchins once the Kimpasi society produced one of Kongo's most prominent historical figures; princess Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita.

The latter had been a Kimpasi initiate and acquired the status of nganga marinda, but was later compelled by the Capuchin's presence in Kibangu to stop her practice, which she believed had been corrupted. Beatriz neverthless retained Kimpasi concepts throughout her revivalist movement centered on the veneration of saint Anthony, whom she was said to embody as an nkisi after her 'death and rebirth' during the Kimpasi initiation.

(The Kongolese saint Anthony pg 74, 110)

Syncretism between saints and the minkisi had already been effected in Kongo, where for example in the 18th century an avatar of St. Anthony of Padua was Toni Malau, a nkisi for good hunting (malau, “hunting luck”), and Our Lady of Mpinda was a rain shrine.

(Constructing a Kongo identity pg 171)

Case de fétiche Lutele, 1883, Charles Callewaert, Royal Museum for central Africa.

Brass Pendant: Saint Anthony of Padua, 16th-17th century, Met Museum.

During this period, many nganga across west-central Africa begun creating large anthropomorphic power figures with iron nails struck into their clothed bodies. These figures, often refered to as miNkisi minkondi, were a subset of the miNkisi, and were sculpted in dramatic poses. These Minkondi and other anthropomorphic figures of the region shared with Kongo Christian objects similarities in form and iconography and commonalities of use, and they are also noted in the ethnographic descriptions of Kimpasi rites of the early 20th century.

(The Art of Conversion pg 265-270, Religion et Magie pg 224)

In the 18th century, Capuchins José de Pernambuco and Francisco de Veas destroyed "idols" (presumably the miNkisi or miNkondi) and "set fire to what [central Africans] call kimpasi [quinpaces] which are some places or houses away from the main roads where men and women used to join in the form of a confraternity.”

The growth of cofraternities in Christian Kongo that begun as early as the late 16th century, was mirrored by the emergence of Kimpasi cofraternities, which broadly served the same functions to the population, especially the elite. Just as Kongo's Catholic cofraternities staged organised spectacular devotional practices that impressed visiting priests, Kimpasi staged elaborate funeral rites that overawed their practicioners.

(The Art of Conversion pg 229-230)

Power Figure (Nkisi N'Kondi: Mangaaka), 19th century. Kongo peoples, Cabinda, Angola. Manchester Museum, University of Manchester (0.9321/1)

 Manner of conducting the funeral rites of the blacks, Parma Watercolors ca. 1663-1690.

Manner of conducting the obsequies of the blacks when their Lord is dead they expose him as is seen; everyone runs over to Cry or at least pretend to cry they scream they howl they dance; day and night until he is buried; the heirs are obligated to give them as much [. . .] or flour or other comestibles as they want; so that at Times the death of someone is the ruin of the house; what is more they are all inebriated, and they have very obscene behaviors in [manner?] of mourning, they sing praises of the dead if however the heirs—

[verso] [are] Liberal and give in abundance and empty the house if however they are measured they sing all the knavery that the dead has done in his life; when buried they use another ridiculous and beastly mourning, they close all the windows and openings of the house and once they enter inside, they also close the doors and for eight days they all remain in the dark lying on the floor and squeezed like cattle in the utmost silence; only at sunset and sunrise; they are all heard breaking into a pouring Wail shreak scream and hymns and it lasts for about an hour, then they quiet up as before, the scene as I said before lasts 8 days it is remarkable that for the said 8 days, in that house a fire is not lit and no one thinks about eating; and if they weren’t rescued by people from the outside they would starve to death I have found myself many times in similar mournings and had to get impatient, overall one can Preach all that one wants they are so tenacious about their diabolical rites that it is imposible to have them do away with them.

The discovery of eleven elite graves from an excavation at the site of Kindoki in the former Nsundi province of Kongo, provides some crucial albeit limited information on the activities of some Kimpasi members  during the 19th century. The tombs include burials of elite women with rich grave goods, including one in Tomb 8 dated to between 1825– 45, that was wrapped in rich textiles and wore ornaments of gold and copper.

Her funerary material included several items known in other contexts for their links with initiatory associations such as kimpasi or n'kimba societies, suggesting the possibility of her participation in these or similar groups. She wore among her plentiful ornaments a single spiral- shaped shell that was larger and distinct from all the other beads in her necklaces, and a set of bells that are mentioned as part of the Kimpasi insignia in ethnographic accounts on the society from the early 20th century. 

(The Kongo kingdom pg 150-151, 158)

After a period of silence in the documentary record of the late 18th to mid-19th century, the Kimpasi reappear in several accounts in the last decades of the 19th century, alongside a similar society known as the n'kimba, and both were extensively studied in the early 20th century. By then, the religious societies had retained some of their central functions in aiding the people of Kongo to deal with periods of crisis, but the institution itself had lost its political influence, especially after the establishment of colonial rule.

(Religion et Magie pg 224-227)

Traditional religions societies of the baKongo such as the Kimpasi and N'kimba were neverthless still held in the highest esteem by the people. When one visitor to the region in 1887 asked one of his assistants who had undergone initiation what it was good for and received the following answer:

"A white man who cannot read a book is a bad man, and in the same way, a black man who has not been n’kimba is a bad man."

The above quote encapsulates the cultural similarity between the belief systems associated with the 'traditionalists' and the 'Christians,' just as the above outline highlights the way in which the social groups associated with Kongo's traditional  religions and Christianity could simultaneously, but with different results, reckon with social developments that determined the trajectory of Kongo's history.

New concepts, objects, and practices did not function exclusively within the Kongo Christian realm but also entered into dialogue with other circles of central African society such as the Kimpasi, which inturn influenced the unique nature of Kongo's Christian society, and contributed to the region's religious pluralism.

References:

 Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora

By Linda M. Heywood

A History of West Central Africa to 1850 By John K. Thornton

The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706 by John Thornton

African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry by Ras Michael Brown

Études Bakongo: Religion et magie. By Joseph van Wing

The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo

By Cécile Fromont

The Kongo Kingdom: The Origins, Dynamics and Cosmopolitan Culture of an African Polity

By Koen Bostoen, Inge Brinkman

The Ritual Person by Wyatt McGaffery

Constructing a Kongo identity by Wyatt McGaffery

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