Kongo people - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Bakongo or the Kongo people (Kongo

Kongo language

The Kongo language, or Kikongo, is the Bantu language spoken by the Bakongo and Bandundu people living in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is a tonal language and formed the base for Kituba, a Bantu creole and lingua franca...

: "hunters"), also sometimes referred to as Kongolese or Congolese, is a Bantu ethnic group which lives along the Atlantic coast of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

from Pointe-Noire

Pointe-Noire

Pointe-Noire is the second largest city in the Republic of the Congo, following the capital of Brazzaville, and an autonomous department since 2004. Before this date it was the capital of the Kouilou region . It is situated on a headland between Pointe-Noire Bay and the Atlantic Ocean...

(Congo Brazzaville) to Luanda, Angola. They are primarily defined by the speaking of Kikongo, a common language.

In the late 20th century they numbered about 10,220,000.

Name

Before the early twentieth century there was no single name in Africa for the group, in the earliest documented ethnonyms of the seventeenth century, those residing in the Kingdom of Kongo

Kingdom of Kongo

The Kingdom of Kongo was an African kingdom located in west central Africa in what are now northern Angola, Cabinda, the Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

called themselves "Esikongo" (singular "Mwisikongo"); those in the Kingdom of Loango

Kingdom of Loango

The Kingdom of Loango, also known as the Kingdom of Lwããgu, was a pre-colonial African state from approximately the 15th to the 19th century in what is now the Republic of Congo. At its height in the seventeenth century the country stretched from Cape St Catherine in the north to almost the mouth...

called themselves "Bavili" (singular "Muvili"), and in other part of the Kikongo speaking world they had different names as well. Late nineteenth century missionaries sometimes applied the term "Bafiote" (singular m'fiote) to the group, though it is unclear whether the term was ever used by local people to describe their own identity. Since the early twentieth century, "Bakongo" (singular "M'Kongo" or "Mukongo") as an ethnonym for all members of the Kikongo-speaking community has gained popularity. The group is identified largely by speaking a cluster of mutually intelligible dialects rather than by large continuities in their history or even in culture. The term "Congo" was more widely deployed to identify Kikongo speaking people enslaved in the Americas.

History

It is most likely the Kongo people arrived in the region of the mouth of the Congo River

Congo River

The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

before 500 BCE, as part of the larger Bantu migration. They were already working iron in the region and practicing agriculture by that time. Social complexity had probably been achieved in some regions where Kikongo is spoken by second century CE. By the late fifteenth century when European voyagers described them, they were living in a number of kingdoms, including the Kingdom of Kongo

Kingdom of Kongo

, Ngoyo

Ngoyo

Ngoyo was an Iron Age kingdom state of the Woyo tribe, located in the south of Cabinda . Located on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, just north of the Congo River, it was founded by Bantu-speaking people around the 15th century...

, Vungu

Vungu

The kingdom or polity of Vungu was a historic mini-state located on the north bank of the Congo River near the modern day town of Matadi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the sixteenth century it's name was written as "Bungu" reflecting the ambiguity of b/v/bh in Kikongo.-History:It is not...

, Kakongo

Kakongo

Kakongo was a former small kingdom located on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, in the modern day Republic of Congo. Although independent, the people speak a dialect of the Kikongo language and could be considered a part of the Bakongo ethnicity....

and others stretching on both sides of the Congo River. During the sixteenth century yet another powerful Bakongo kingdom, Loango

Kingdom of Loango

, developed and controlled much of the coast north of the Congo River.

The histories of the various branches of the Kikongo speaking world are quite diverse, with large monarchies in Kongo and Loango, smaller monarchies in Ngoyo, Kakongo, and Vungu, and even less centralized entities in the Niari Valley and other places north of the Congo River. Because the best anthropological work on the Bakongo has been done in the parts of the region colonized by the French and Belgians (Loango, Vungu, and the Niari Valley), it is well described and often the cultural institutions of those regions are better represented than those of other parts of the larger Kikongo speaking world. On the other hand, the abundant historical written records for the Kingdom of Kongo means that the history of that region is much better documented. One of the central problems of understanding the region is thus to marry historical records that relate to one region within the zone to anthropological research applicable to another part of the zone.

The Kingdom of Kongo

Royal genealogies preserved in traditions of the seventeenth century suggest that the kingdom originated around 1390. In 1483 the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

arrived on the coast, the Bakongo of the Kingdom of Kongo began diplomatic relations which included sending Bakongo nobles to visit the royal court in Portugal in 1485. The king himself and much of the nobility were quickly converted by Christian missionaries and assumed Portuguese court manners, and after an initial confrontation between those who supported the new religion and those who rejected it, the party following King Afonso I triumphed and Kongo became a Christian kingdom. In 1568 Bakongo peoples were invaded by the Jagas (Yaka), and the Bakongo were forced to look to the Portuguese for help, which ultimately allowed the Portuguese to establish a colony in Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

on Kongo's territory, in 1575. While Kongo and Portugal entered in an alliance when the Kingdom of Ndongo attached them, the alliance had soured by the late sixteenth century. A failed Portuguese invasion of Kongo in 1622 led Kongo to ally with the Dutch and assist them in attacking Portuguese Angola in 1641. When the Portuguese expelled the Dutch, the mutual hostility continued, culminating in the Battle of Mbwila

Battle of Mbwila

At the Battle of Mbwila on October 29, 1665, Portuguese forces defeated the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king António I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.-Origins of the War:...

, 1665, in which a Portuguese-led army from Angola defeated that of Kongo. Although Kongo was able to defeat a Portuguese invasion in 1670, a civil war broke out in Kongo that prevented it from being a regional power again.

Throughout the period following its contact with Europe Kongo maintained a regular trade in enslaved peoples, ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

, textiles

Textile

A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

and copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

with various European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

partners on the coast. The important harbors were and Mpinda in Soyo

Soyo

Soyo is a city located in the province of Zaire in Angola. Soyo recently became the largest oil-producing region in the country, with an estimate of .-Early history:...

, and in the eighteenth century Ambriz and Ambrizette on the southern coast of the province of Mbamba.

When the Kongo Kingdom was at its political apex in the 16th and 17th centuries, the King, who was elected from among a noble class of descendants of former kings, ana Kongo (plural of mwana Kongo), reigned supreme. These electors were usually the holders of important offices or governors of provinces. The activities of the court were supported by an extensive system of civil servants, and the court itself usually consisted of numerous relatives or clients of the king. The provinces, which were numerous, were often governed by lesser relatives of the king who were responsible to him. Subprovinces and villages were variously governed by royal appointees or locally dominant families. Frequently, members of government were invested with their power under the auspices of a ritual specialist, and frequently a Catholic priest.

The Kongo civil war, which was waged intermittently during the eighteenth century, typically revolved around claims on the throne made by one or another of the royal family, who had fortified themselves in different corners of the former kingdom. The primary focus of attention was to occupy the capital city, Sao Salvador (today's Mbanza Kongo) and claim the kingship. If possible a king in Sao Salvador would also be religiously crowned by a Catholic priest. One of the primary results of these wars was the enslavement and export of thousands of Bakongo to the Americas. In the middle of the nineteenth century, commercial changes led to the emergence of new forces. As the trade in ivory, honey,wax and rubber transformed the trade relations between Central Africa and Europe, new commercial organizations, organized as clans, emerged and gradually dissolved both the royal power in the center and even regional powers.

Portuguese ambitions to rule the country had some effect in the 1860s when forces from Angola helped to install Pedro V as king. Working through Pedro V and his successors, the Portuguese gradually establshed themsleves as a military power and arbitrator between factions. As they used this power to extract forced labor, they ultimately forced the other power holders into revolt. In 1914, this revolt, led by Alvaro Buta, was defeated by the Portuguese forces and the kingdom was effectively abolished and integrated into Angola.

The Kingdom of Loango

The earliest visitors to the coast do not mention a kingdom of Loango, nor do the records and documents of Kongo rulers. It first appears as a breakaway province of Kongo in the late sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, Loango was divided into four large provinces and succession to royal office was rotational, so that the ruler of each province in turn became the ruler of the kingdom. This system broke down in the eighteenth century, and long interregna ensured, where no one ruled the country and the provinces drifted away. When kings did rule they often exercised less and less power.

Like Kongo, the revolution in trade of the mid nineteenth century led to the emergence of locally powerful traders and their associations. The Vili, as the Kikongo speaking inhabitants of Loango were called, had been engaged in extensive long distance trade as far afield and Matamba in Angola since at least the mid-seventeenth century, and their trade in copper also reached far into the interior. Thus trading groups were able to usurp power in the center, making the Loango coast a vibrant export center, but also leading to the decentralization of power, not only in Loango but also in the regions of the deeper interior.

Loango gradually fell under French influence in the late nineteenth century, and was colonized in the 1870s and 80 through the expansion of France into the interior.

Smaller kingdoms

The Bakongo also include several coastal and riverine kingdoms that have a documented history since the sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. These kingdoms are Ngoyo, north of the mouth of the Congo River, Kakongo located between Ngoyo and Loango, Nzari on the north bank of the Congo inland from Ngoyo and Vungu located north of present day Matadi. Although their names are known, first from citation in the royal titles of King Afonso I of Kongo in 1535, there is little in the way of description of them.

Vungu was held by tradition in Kongo in the seventeenth century as the root or original home of Lukeni lua Nimi, tradtiional founder of the Kingdom of Kongo. According to a letter of Kongo's king Pedro II in 1624, it was destroyed by Jaga invaders that year, and in any case, there is no further mention of the region until the late nineteenth century. The name and its district are still known today.

Nzari is only attested in seventeenth century sources, primarily of Dutch origin. It was held by the tradition of the seventeenth century in Loango to be the original home of its founder.

Ngoyo (ethnonym Woyo) was well known in the eighteenth century as a center of the slave trade, especially that driven by the French and English.

Kakongo, like Ngoyo is best known for its participation in the slave trade.

North East Kongo

The northern interior regions of the Kikongo speaking world are barely mentioned in early sources. European travelers to Loango in the seventeenth century knew of a place called "Bukkemeale" in the interior and the site of copper mines. The region was also alleged to be the home of several groups of Jagas (a generic term in the area for rootless, militant groups often reputed to be cannibals) who conducted a series of raids on Kongo beginning at least in 1624 and continuing through the seventeenth century. They played an important role as supporters of King João III of Lemba

Lemba

The Lemba or 'wa-Remba' are a southern African ethnic group to be found in Zimbabwe and South Africa with some little known branches in Mozambique and Malawi. According to Parfitt they are thought to number 70,000...

in the 1670s and were part of the invading force that destroyed São Salvador in 1678. They were active in wars around Soyo and Lemba at the end of the eighteenth century.

The region, including primarily the Niari Valley, is home to people speaking the Bembe and Lari dialects of Kikongo. In the nineteenth century, the area was without any central authority, but instead was a large collection of small districts and notable insecruity. Clans united them to some degree as many of the regions clans had branches in several districts. In addition the Lemba association played an important role in settling disputes and keeping a tenuous peace.

Thanks to the penetration of Swedish missionaries into the area in the 1880s and 1890, the northeast section of Kongo was converted to Protestantism in the early twentieth century. The Swedish missionaries, notably Karl Laman, encouraged the local people to write their history and customs in notebooks, which then became the source for Laman's famous and widely cited ethnography and their dialect became well established thanks to Laman's dictionary of Kikongo. In addition, a number of intellectuals raised in this missionary tradition began the writing of local ethnographies. Among this group are included Ndimansa Bahele, Fu-kiau Buseki, Raphaël Batsîkama Ba Mampuya Ma Ndâwala, and Simon Bockie, among others. In addition a number of Western anthropologists, including Jan Janzen. Robert Farris Thompson and Wyatt MacGaffey have made use of Laman's cahiers or have been influenced by ideas from the Kongo intellectuals. As a result, the northeast Kongo are often held as the normative culture for the whole diverse, Kikongo speaking world.

Bakongo Nationalism

The idea of a Bakongo unity, actually developed in the early twentieth century, primarily through the publication of newspapers in various dialects of the language. In 1910 Kavuna Kafwandani (Kavuna Simon) published an article in the Swedish mission society's Kikongo language newspaper Misanü Miayenge (Words of Peace) calling for all speakers of the Kikongo language to recognize their identity. Bakongo activists quickly turned to recognition of the linguistic and cultural unity of the region and created their own versions of the past and its institutions. Political activism, particularly in the Belgian Congo, led eventually to the formation so ethnic parties. The Bakongo political party in the Belgian Congo Abako

ABAKO

ABAKO or Alliance des Bakongo was a cultural and political organization, headed by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, which emerged in the late 1950s as vocal opponent of Belgian colonial rule in what today is the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

played an important part in national independence in 1960.

In Angola, the Portuguese government recognized a king of Kongo informally, and in fact worked more and more through the royal family in the 1940s and 50s. Factions that opposed the collaboration of the king and particularly Queen Isabel after 1958 formed the UPA (União das Povos de Angola) party, which eventually led a revolutionary movement in 1961. This movement coalesced with others, from Luanda and other parts of the country to form the anti-Portuguese liberation war which terminated in 1975 with the departure of Portugal. UPA reorganzied itself as the Frente para la Liberação de Angola (FNLA) and continued the interests of the Bakongo in the civil war which followed independence. Many Bakongo fought with FNLA against MPLA the governing party, at times in alliance with UNITA, another party with roots in the south.

One of the principal goals and tenets of Bakongo nationalism has been the restoration of the Kingdom of Kongo, which is often held to have extended through the entire Kikongo speaking world,and indeed to include non-Kikongo speaking people to the south, east and north of the old kingdom, and to include those people whose ancestors were never a part of the Kingdom of Kongo. As the Bakongo live in three or more countries these ideas are often held to be dangerous by authorities in all the countries. This fear has played a significant role in the suppression of Kongo nationalist leaders or groups, such as Bundu dia Kongo

Bundu dia Kongo

Bundu dia Kongo is a politico-cultural movement founded in June 1969 by Ne Mwanda Nsemi. The movement is mainly based in the Bas-Congo province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The movement focuses on defending, protecting, and promoting values, rights, and interests of Kongo people in the...

, which have taken the intellectual ideas and attempted to put them in action, or have been perceived as attempting to create a separate region conforming to the borders of Kongo.

Language

The language of the Kongo people is called Kikongo, which is divided into many dialects which are sufficiently diverse that people from distant dialects, such as speakers of Kivili dialect (on the northern coast) and speakers of Kisansolo (the central dialect) would have trouble understanding each other. Many Bakongo also speak other African languages and European languages. In Angola, there are some who did not learn to speak Kikongo because Portuguese rules of assimilation during he colonial period made it advantageous to abandon the language, though relative to other areas in Angola, many held on to the language in spite of the law. Most Angolan Kongo also speak Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

and those near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo also speak French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

most also speak French and others speak either Lingala a common Lingua Franca

Lingua Franca

Lingua Franca was an American magazine about intellectual and literary life in academia.-Founding:The magazine was founded in 1990 by Jeffrey Kittay, an editor and Professor of French Literature at Yale University...

in Western Congo Kikongo ya Leta (generally known as Kituba

Kituba

Kituba is a widely used lingua franca in Central Africa. It is a creole language based on Kikongo, a family of closely related Bantu languages. It is an official language in Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa....

particularly in DR Congo), a creole form of Kikongo spoken widely in the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola.

Agriculture

The Bakongo cultivate cassava

Cassava

Cassava , also called yuca or manioc, a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America, is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...

, banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

s, maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, sweet potato

Sweet potato

The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are an important root vegetable. The young leaves and shoots are sometimes eaten as greens. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of...

es, peanut

Peanut

The peanut, or groundnut , is a species in the legume or "bean" family , so it is not a nut. The peanut was probably first cultivated in the valleys of Peru. It is an annual herbaceous plant growing tall...

s (groundnuts), bean

Bean

Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae used for human food or animal feed....

s, and taro

Taro

Taro is a common name for the corms and tubers of several plants in the family Araceae . Of these, Colocasia esculenta is the most widely cultivated, and is the subject of this article. More specifically, this article describes the 'dasheen' form of taro; another variety is called eddoe.Taro is...

. Cash crops are coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, cacao, urena

Urena

Urena is a genus of plants which grow in various tropical and subtropical areas throughout the world. Some view the plant as a weed, but others make use of its fiber for various purposes. Extracts from its leaves or roots have broad spectrum antibacterial qualities...

, bananas, and palm oil

Palm oil

Palm oil, coconut oil and palm kernel oil are edible plant oils derived from the fruits of palm trees. Palm oil is extracted from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis; palm kernel oil is derived from the kernel of the oil palm and coconut oil is derived from the kernel of the...

. Fishing

Fishing

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

and hunting

Hunting

Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

are still practiced by some groups, but many Bakongo live, work and trade in towns.

Religion

The religious history of the Kongo is complex, thanks to the long engagement of the Kingdom of Kongo with Christianity and the flexible nature of religious concepts in general in an area without a scriptural tradition. According to historian John K. Thornton "Central Africans have probably never agreed among themselves as to what their cosmology is" because of the presence of "continuous revelation" by which theological ideas were 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."

Sine the late nineteenth century, European and American missionaries, European, American and Kongo anthropologists and other Kongo thinkers and writers have increasingly solidified an idea of what are the foundations of what can be called traditional Kongo religion. In this conception, believers stress the importance of ancestors, as most of the inhabitants of the other world are held to have once lived in this world. Only Nzambi Mpungu, the name for the high god, is usually held to have existed outside the world and to have created it. Other categories of the dead include bakulu or ancestors (the souls of the recently departed). In addition, there are more powerful beings who are considered as guardians of particular places, such as mountains, river courses, springs and districts, called simbi (pl. bisimbi). These beings are sometimes regarded as the souls of the long departed, the first inhabitant or eternal beings. Finally there are those who inhabit and are captured in minkisi (singular nkisi
Nkisi
Nkisi . The term Nkisi is the general name for a variety of objects used throughout the Congo Basin in Central Africa thought to contain spiritual powers or spirits...

), or charms, whose operation is the closest to magic

Magic and religion

Magical thinking in various forms is a cultural universal and an important aspect of religion.In many cases it becomes difficult or impossible to draw any meaningful line between beliefs and practices that are magical versus those that are religious, but in general the term religion is reserved for...

. The value of these supernatural operations is generally held to be in the intentions of the worker, rather than the other world having spirits or souls that are intrinsically good or bad.

However, some anthropologists studying modern Kikongo speaking people point out that there are sharp regional differences not only in terminology but even such important concepts as the role of ancestors. According to Dunja Hersak, for example, the Vili and Yombe do not believe in the power of ancestors in the same degree as to those living farther south. Furthermore, she points out, following the lead of another anthropologist, John Janzen, that religious ideas and emphasis in the same sector have changed over time.

Following the conversion of Nzinga Nkuwu in 1491 most of the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Kongo converted to Christianity, though they continued their older beliefs within its fold, through syncretic practices within the Roman Catholic Church in Kongo. This syncretic form of Christianity was often contested by missionaries, and spawned one messianic movement, led by D Beatriz Kimpa Vita

Kimpa Vita

Beatriz Kimpa Vita , was a Congolese prophet and leader of her own Christian movement, known as Antonianism. Her teaching grew out of the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church in Kongo.-Early life:...

from 1704 to 1706. Many thousands of Kongo were transported across the Atlantic to the Americas, and especially to Brazil. The Afro-Brazilian Quimbanda

Quimbanda

Quimbanda is an Afro-Brazilian religion practiced primarily in the urban city centers of Brazil. Quimbanda practices are typically associated with magic, rituals involving animal sacrifice and marginal locations, orishas, exus, and pomba gira spirits. Quimbanda was originally contained under the...

religion is a new world manifestation of Bantu religion and spirituality, and Kongo Christianity played a role in the formation of Voudou in Haiti.

Other Kongo living outside the Kingdom of Kongo were not converted and continued their traditional form of religion however, and it was not until the late nineteenth century that missionaries entered the areas north of the Kingdom of Kongo. Since the 1880s Protestant missionaries, and then renewed Catholic missionaries have claimed a large number of Kongo as converts. Following 1921, a new form of Christianity preached by Simon Kimbangu

Simon Kimbangu

Simon Kimbangu was a Congolese religious leader noted as the founder of Kimbanguism...

became extremely popular in spite of the attempts of both Belgian and Portuguese governments to suppress it. Kimbanguism

Kimbanguism

Kimbanguism is a branch of Christianity founded by Simon Kimbangu in what was then the Belgian Congo . The church's name is the Kimbanguist Church , and is a large, independent African Initiated...

is a very powerful religious spiritual force today, as is one of its modern spin-offs, the Dibundu dia Kongo led by Mwanda Nsemi.

Traditions

The Kongo week

Week

A week is a time unit equal to seven days.The English word week continues an Old English wice, ultimately from a Common Germanic , from a root "turn, move, change"...

used to consist of four days: Konzo, Nkenge, Nsona and Nkandu. The third day, Nsona, was held sacred. The tradition has continued to the modern days so that among some Bakongo the third day of the week, Wednesday, is revered in the same way as Nsona.

Isabel Maria de Gama was the queen dowager

Queen Dowager

A queen dowager or dowager queen is a title or status generally held by the widow of a deceased king. In the case of the widow of a deceased emperor, the title of empress dowager is used...

of the Bakongo people, the last ruler of Kongo under the Portuguese colonial rule, and its last royal supporter. She succeeded her husband, Dom Antonio III upon his death in 1958 as regent

Regent

A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...

for her son, Mansala. Following the establishment of an independent state of Angola, the role of the king was abolished by the new government.