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Nkisi
or (plural varies: , , , or ) are spirits or an object that a spirit inhabits. It is frequently applied to a variety of objects used throughout the Congo Basin in Central Africa, especially in the Territory of Cabinda that are believed to contain spiritual powers or spirits. The term and its concept have passed with the Atlantic slave trade to the Americas. Meaning The current meaning of the term derives from the root , referring to a spiritual entity or material objects in which it is manifested or inhabits in Proto-Njila, an ancient subdivision of the Bantu language family. In its earliest attestations in Kikongo dialects in the early seventeenth century, it was transliterated as in Dutch, as the ''mu-'' prefix in this noun class was still pronounced. It was reported by Dutch visitors to Loango, the current territory of Cabinda, in the 1668 book '' Description of Africa'' as referring both to a material item and the spiritual entity that inhabits it. In the sixteenth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bakongo
The Kongo people (also , singular: or ''M'kongo; , , singular: '') are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others. They have lived along the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, in a region that by the 15th century was a centralized and well-organized Kingdom of Kongo, but is now a part of three countries. Their highest concentrations are found south of in the Republic of the Congo, southwest of Pool Malebo and west of the Kwango River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, north of Luanda, Angola and southwest Gabon. They are the largest ethnic group in the Republic of the Congo, and one of the major ethnic groups in the other two countries they are found in. In 1975, the Kongo population was reported as 4,040,000. The Kongo people were among the earliest indigenous Africans to welcome Portuguese traders in 1483 CE, and began converting to Catholicism in the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Loango
The Kingdom of Loango (also ''Luangu'', ''Luaangu'', ''Lwaangu'', ''Lwangu'', ''Luango'', ''Lwango'', ''Luaango'' or ''Lwaango'' Iko Kabwita Kabolo, ''Le royaume Kongo et la mission catholique 1750-1838'', KARTHALA Editions, 2004, p. 303-313) was a pre- colonial African Kongo 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 s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nganga
A ''nganga'' (pl. banganga or kimbanda) is a spiritual healer, diviner, and ritual specialist in traditional Kongo religion. These experts also exist across the African diaspora in countries where Kongo and Mbundu people were transported during the Atlantic slave trade, such as Brazil, the southern United States, Haiti and Cuba. Etymology ''Nganga'' means "expert" in the Kikongo language. The Portuguese corruption of the meaning was "fetisher." It could also be derived from ''-ganga'', which means "medicine" in Proto-Bantu. 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. Central Africa In the Kingdom of Kongo and the Kingdom of Ndongo, expert healers, known as ''banganga'', underwent extensive training to commune with the ancestors in the spiritual realms and seek guidance from them. They possessed the skill to communicate with the ancestors in the spiritual realm, or ''Ku Mpémba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thunderstorms
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are sometimes called thundershowers. Thunderstorms occur in cumulonimbus clouds. They are usually accompanied by strong winds and often produce heavy rain and sometimes snow, sleet, or hail, but some thunderstorms can produce little or no precipitation at all. Thunderstorms may line up in a series or become a rainband, known as a squall line. Strong or severe thunderstorms include some of the most dangerous weather phenomena, including large hail, strong winds, and tornadoes. Some of the most persistent severe thunderstorms, known as supercells, rotate as do cyclones. While most thunderstorms move with the mean wind flow through the layer of the troposphere that they occupy, vertical wind shear sometimes causes a deviation in their course ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rain
Rain is a form of precipitation where water drop (liquid), droplets that have condensation, condensed from Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water for hydroelectricity, hydroelectric power plants, crop irrigation, and suitable conditions for many types of ecosystems. The major cause of rain production is moisture moving along three-dimensional zones of temperature and moisture contrasts known as weather fronts. If enough moisture and upward motion is present, precipitation falls from convection, convective clouds (those with strong upward vertical motion) such as cumulonimbus (thunder clouds) which can organize into narrow rainbands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation which forces moist air to condense and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoomorphic
The word ''zoomorphism'' derives from and . In the context of art, zoomorphism could describe art that imagines humans as non-human animals. It can also be defined as art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal or art that uses animals as a visual motif, sometimes referred to as "animal style". Depicting deities in animal form (theriomorphism) is an example of zoomorphism in a religious context. It is also similar to the term Shapeshifting, therianthropy; which is the ability to shape shift into animal form, except that with zoomorphism the animal form is applied to a physical object. It means to attribute animal forms or animal characteristics to other animals, or things other than an animal; similar to but broader than anthropomorphism. Contrary to anthropomorphism, which views animal or non-animal behavior in human terms, zoomorphism is the tendency of viewing human behavior in terms of the behavior of animals. It is also used in literature to portray ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions, and natural forces, such as seasons and weather. Both have ancient roots as storytelling and artistic devices, and most cultures have traditional fables with anthropomorphized animals as characters. People have also routinely attributed human emotions and behavioral traits to wild as well as domesticated animals. Etymology Anthropomorphism and anthropomorphization derive from the verb form ''anthropomorphize'', itself derived from the Greek ''ánthrōpos'' (, "human") and ''morphē'' (, "form"). It is first attested in 1753, originally in reference to the heresy of applying a human form to the Christian God.''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "anthropomorphism, ''n.''" Oxford University Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divination
Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies such as ghost, spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe". Divination can be seen as an attempt to organize what appears to be random so that it provides insight into a problem or issue at hand. Some instruments or practices of divination include Tarot card reading, Tarot-card reading, Runic magic, rune casting, Tasseography, tea-leaf reading, automatic writing, water scrying, and psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms and DMT. If a distinction is made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a more formal or ritualistic element and often contains a more social character, usually in a religion, religious context, as se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minerals
In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Minerals'; p. 1. In the series ''Geology: Landforms, Minerals, and Rocks''. Rosen Publishing Group. The geological definition of mineral normally excludes compounds that occur only in living organisms. However, some minerals are often biogenic (such as calcite) or organic compounds in the sense of chemistry (such as mellite). Moreover, living organisms often synthesize inorganic minerals (such as hydroxylapatite) that also occur in rocks. The concept of mineral is distinct from rock, which is any bulk solid geologic material that is relatively homogeneous at a large enough scale. A rock may consist of one type of mineral or may be an aggregate of two or more different types of minerals, spacially segregated into distinct phases. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mushrooms
A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, '' Agaricus bisporus''; hence, the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem ( stipe), a cap ( pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) on the underside of the cap. "Mushroom" also describes a variety of other gilled fungi, with or without stems; therefore the term is used to describe the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota. The gills produce microscopic Spore#Fungi, spores which help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface. Forms deviating from the standard Morphology (biology), morphology usually have more specific names, such as "bolete", "truffle", "puffball", "stinkhorn", and "morel", and gilled mushrooms t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
