|
Nzambi A Mpungu
Nzambi a Mpungu is the Kongolese name for a high creator god. The idea of such a god spread from Central Africa into other Kongo related religions. History He is mentioned as the name for God as early as the early sixteenth century by Portuguese visitors to the Kingdom of Kongo. This deity has been known as the high and creator god from before this time until today. European missionaries along with Kongo intellectuals (including King Afonso I of Kongo) set out to render European Christian religious concepts into Kikongo and they chose this name to represent God. Jesuit missionaries in the 1540s noted the acceptance of this relationship as well, and it was probably included in the now lost catechism produced by Carmelites in Kikongo in 1557. Certainly it was used for God in the catechism of 1624, a translation by the "best masters of the church" in Kongo under the supervision of the Jesuit priest Mateus Cardoso. It is not clear if the elevation of Nzambi a Mpungu to the stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kongo Religion
Kongo religion ( KiKongo: BuKongo) is a broad set of traditional beliefs from the KiKongo speaking peoples. The faith bases itself on a complex Animistic system and a Pantheon of various gods and spirits. The idea of a high god named Nzambi Mpungu who gave birth to all the other gods, the world and spirits who inhabit it, is common, but Ancestor worship builds up the main religious beliefs. Shamanly doctors, known as Nganga, try to mediate between the spirit realms and the physical world, as well as heal followers' minds and bodies. Mediatory roles like being a Nganga require legitimization from the other world of spirits and ancestors. The universe is split between two worlds, one of the living (nza yayi) and a world of the dead (nsi a bafwa), where spirits and gods exist, these worlds are split by a metaphorical body of water. History The traditional spirituality has its roots in Bantu speaking peoples in Africa. As the faith traveled to the Americas it retained various tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palo (religion)
Palo, also known as Las Reglas de Congo, is an African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th or early 20th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional Kongo religion of Central Africa, the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity, and Spiritism. Initiates in the religion are termed ''paleros'' (male) or ''paleras'' (female). An initiatory religion, Palo is organised through small autonomous groups called ''munanso congo'', each led by a figure known as a ''tata'' (father) or ''yayi'' (mother). Although teaching the existence of a creator deity, Nsambi or Sambia, Palo regards this entity as being uninvolved in human affairs and thus focuses its attention on the spirts of the dead, collectively known as ''Kalunga''. Central to Palo is the ''nganga'' or ''prenda'', a vessel usually made from an iron cauldron, clay pot, or gourd. Many ''nganga'' are regarded as material manifestations of particular deities known as ''mpungu''. The ''n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Candomblé Bantu
Candomblé Bantu (also called Candomblé Batuque or Angola) is one of the major branches (''nations'') of the Candomblé religious belief system. It developed in the Portuguese Empire among Kongo and Mbundu slaves who spoke Kikongo and Kimbundu languages. The supreme and creative god is Nzambi or Nzambi a Mpungu. Below him are the Jinkisi or Minkisi, deities of Bantu mythology. These deities resemble Olorun and the other orishas of the Yoruba religion. Minkisi is a Kongo language term: it is the plural of Nkisi, meaning "receptacle". Akixi comes from the Kimbundu language term Mukixi. Etymology The word "Bantu" means "people"; it is a combination of ''ba'', a plural noun marker and ''-ntu'', meaning "person". "Banto" was a generic term used by the Portuguese in Brazil to describe people who spoke Bantu languages. Pantheon * Nzambi is the "sovereign master"; he created the earth, then withdrew from the world. Nzambi Mpungu remains responsible for rainfall and health. * Aluv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kumina
Kumina is an Afro-Jamaican religion. Kumina has practices that include secular ceremonies, dance and music that developed from the beliefs and traditions brought to the island by Kongo enslaved people and indentured labourers, from the Congo region of West Central Africa, during the post-emancipation era. It is mostly associated with the parish of St. Thomas in the east of the island. However, the practice spread to the parishes of Portland, St. Mary and St. Catherine, and the city of Kingston. Kumina also gives it name to a drumming style, developed from the music that accompanied the spiritual ceremonies, that evolved in urban Kingston. The Kumina drumming style has a great influence on Rastafari music, especially the Nyabinghi drumming, and Jamaican popular music. Count Ossie was a notable pioneer of the drumming style in popular music and it continues to have a significant influence on contemporary genres such as reggae and dancehall. The '' Kumina riddim'' is a da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creator Deity
A creator deity or creator god (often called the Creator) is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a secondary creator from a primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator.(2004) Sacred Books of the Hindus Volume 22 Part 2: Pt. 2, p. 67, R.B. Vidyarnava, Rai Bahadur Srisa Chandra Vidyarnava Monotheism Atenism Initiated by Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti around 1330 BCE, during the New Kingdom period in ancient Egyptian history. They built an entirely new capital city ( Akhetaten) for themselves and worshippers of their sole creator god on a wilderness. His father used to worship Aten alongside other gods of their polytheistic religion. Aten, for a long time before his father's time, was revered as a god among the many gods and goddesses in Egypt. Atenism faded away after the death of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo ( kg, Kongo dya Ntotila or ''Wene wa Kongo;'' pt, Reino do Congo) was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo. At its greatest extent it reached from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Kwango River in the east, and from the Congo River in the north to the Kwanza River in the south. The kingdom consisted of several core provinces ruled by the ''Manikongo'', the Portuguese version of the Kongo title ''Mwene Kongo'', meaning "lord or ruler of the Kongo kingdom", but its sphere of influence extended to neighbouring kingdoms, such as Ngoyo, Kakongo, Kingdom of Loango, Loango, Kingdom of Ndongo, Ndongo and Kingdom of Matamba, Matamba, the latter two located in what is Angola today. From c. 1390 to 1862 it was an independent state. From 1862 to 1914 it functioned intermittently as a vassal state of the Kingdom of Portugal. In 1914, following th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afonso I Of Kongo
Mvemba a Nzinga, Nzinga Mbemba, Funsu Nzinga Mvemba or Dom Alfonso. (c. 1456–1542 or 1543), also known as King Afonso I, was the sixth ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo from the Lukeni kanda dynasty and ruled in the first half of the 16th century. He reigned over the Kongo Empire from 1509 to late 1542 or 1543. Biography Pre-reign career Born Mvemba a Nzinga, he was the son of Manikongo (Mwene Kongo) (king) Nzinga a Nkuwu, the fifth king of the Kongo dynasty. At the time of the first arrival of the Portuguese to the Kingdom of the Kongo's capital of M'banza-Kongo in 1491, Mvemba a Nzinga was in his thirties and was the ruler of Nsundi province in the northeast, and the likely heir to the throne. He took the name Afonso when he was baptized after his father decided to convert to Christianity. He studied with Portuguese priests and advisers for ten years in the kingdom's capital. Letters written by priests to the king of Portugal paint Afonso as an enthusiastic and scholarly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmelites
, image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Carmel , type = Mendicant order of pontifical right , status = Institute of Consecrated Life , membership = 1,979 (1,294 priests) as of 2017 , leader_title = Motto , leader_name = la, Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituumEnglish: ''With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of hosts'' , leader_title2 = General Headquarters , leader_name2 = Curia Generalizia dei CarmelitaniVia Giovanni Lanza, 138, 00184 Roma, Italia , leader_title3 = Prior General , leader_name3 = Mícéal O'Neill, OCarm , leader_title4 = Patron saints , leader_name4 = Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Elijah , parent_organization = Catholic Church , website ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Loango
The Kingdom of Loango (also ''Lwããgu'') was a pre- colonial African state, during approximately the 16th to 19th centuries in what is now the western part of the Republic of the Congo, Southern Gabon and Cabinda. Situated to the north of the more powerful Kingdom of Kongo, at its height in the 17th century Loango influence extended from Cape St Catherine in the north to almost the mouth of the Congo River. Loango exported copper to the European market, and was a major producer and exporter of cloth. The English traveller Andrew Battel, when he was there in about 1610, recorded that the predecessor of the unnamed king ruling at that time was named "Gembe" or Gymbe (modernized as ''Njimbe''), possibly the founder of the kingdom. With the death of King Buatu in 1787, the succession of leadership is uncertain. Name The inhabitants, who are a branch of the Bakongo, spoke a northern dialect of the Kikongo language also spoken in the Kingdom of Kongo. Missionaries who visited ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nganga
''Nganga'' is a Kikongo language term for herbalist or spiritual healer in many African societies and also in many societies of the African diaspora such as those in Haiti, Brazil, and Cuba. It is derived from ''*-ganga'' in Proto-Bantu which means "medicine". As this term is a multiple reflex of a Proto-Bantu root, there are slight variations on the term throughout the entire Bantu-speaking world. In Africa The owner and operator of an ''nkisi'', who ministered its powers to others, was the ''nganga''. In the Kingdom of Kongo the term "nganga" was the name for a person who possessed the skill to communicate with the Other World, as well as divining the cause of illness, misfortune and social stress and preparing measures to address them, often by supernatural means but sometimes natural medicine as well. They were also responsible for charging nkisi, or physical objects intended to be the receptacle for spiritual forces. When Kongo converted to Christianity in the late fift ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creator Deities
A creator deity or creator god (often called the Creator) is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatristic traditions separate a secondary creator from a primary transcendent being, identified as a primary creator.(2004) Sacred Books of the Hindus Volume 22 Part 2: Pt. 2, p. 67, R.B. Vidyarnava, Rai Bahadur Srisa Chandra Vidyarnava Monotheism Atenism Initiated by Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti around 1330 BCE, during the New Kingdom period in ancient Egyptian history. They built an entirely new capital city ( Akhetaten) for themselves and worshippers of their sole creator god on a wilderness. His father used to worship Aten alongside other gods of their polytheistic religion. Aten, for a long time before his father's time, was revered as a god among the many gods and goddesses in Egypt. Atenism faded away after the death of the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
