Many of our subjects eagerly
covet Portuguese merchandise, which your people bring into our
kingdoms. To satisfy this disordered appetite, they seize numbers
of our free or freed black subjects, and even nobles, sons of
nobles, even the members of our own family. They sell them to
white people
This corruption and depravity
is so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated by it . . .
It is in fact our wish that this kingdom should be a place neither
of trade nor of transit for slaves.
King of Portugal
replies
Kongo has nothing else to
sell
Afonso did not stop the
trade
but he limited and regulated
it.
Slaving escaping royal
control
manages to confine to foreigners
and convicts
kingdom only survives until
mid-17th century
Afonso, 1506-43
secured his close kinsmen most of
the provincial governorships
adoption of Christianity as state
cult
literature
subordinates
new ritual resources
meanwhile, Luanda
major entrepot from
1576
base for direct European conquest
and slave-raiding
17th century Kongo
standing army of 5000
500 mercenary
musketeers
king trying to limit
muskets
aristocrats vs.
commoners
European culture
clustered in renamed
capital
peasants and slaves gradually
fused into single subject population
weakened by
factionalism
within the huge royal
patrilineage
crisis in 1568
Sao Salvador destroyed by
"Jaga"
likely coalition of foreign
invaders and rebellious peasants
king needs Portuguese help to
regain throne
meanwhile, Luanda
plus
trade patterns shifting to his
disadvantage
Portuguese from
Luanda
Dutch trade at Soyo
independent sources of firearms
and other imported goods
Garcia II
struggles to preserve Kongo in
mid-17th c.
Battle of Mbwila,
1665
Garcia’s successor
dies
Soyo sacked Sao
Salvador
Kongo disintegrates
reunification?
Spectacular attempt by Beatrix
Kimpa Vita
declared herself
possessed
installed as national
leader
burnt at stake in
1706
why Christianity?
Chief mission field in
period
Foreign rulers lacked
legitimacy
state cult focused on spirits of
dead kings
central church built in the royal
cemetery
Afonso I
new religion was an ally in his
attack on "the great house of idols"
sent dozens of noblemen to
Portugal for education
son, Henrique, became a bishop,
heading church 1521 to ca. 1530
17th c.
several Kongo priests
ordained
literate catechists and
interpreters (aristocrats)
ordinary people adopted Christian
practices
baptism, protection against
witchcraft
Virgin Mary, assoc. with
fertility
big question
How did Africans cope with the
contradictions, misfortune, and envy that arose in the era of the
Atlantic trade?
Partly through nkisi
"things that do
things"
one very important nkisi was
lemba
pervasive
assumption
human relations and human society
can cause sickness and misfortune
diagnosis may entail research
into social conflict
Loanga minkisi
TIRIKO, health of king,
well-being of land, growth of crops, luck of merchants and
fisherman
BOESSI-BATTI, bring trade goods
home without contaminating one’s household domain
KIKOKOO, protects the dead
against witches who are said to drag off the souls of the dead to
slavery and forced labor
What was Lemba?
Cult of affliction
form of ngoma (drum of
affliction)
"a medicine of
government"
"Lemba was the
government"
"Lemba was the sacred medicine of
governing"
"Lemba is the government of
multiplication and reproduction"
Lemba "calms the villages,"
"calms the markets," "perpetuates the family."
where?
North of the Congo
river
astride major trade
routes
what?
Regional healing/political
network
important state
functions
worked through healing rituals
and initiations
exchange of ceremonial
wealth
who?
Local chiefs, judges,
healers
rich merchants and
traders
prosperous slaves
lemba illness
"affected head, heart, abdomen,
and sides"
"near moral illnesses from which
one recovered miraculously"
"possession by Lemba’s
ancestors"
how functioned?
"That which was a stitch of pain
has become the path to priesthood"
sufferer participated in a
healing ritual
paid high entrance
fees
fictive paternity
in time, became a
nganga
why?
kings lose control of the export
trade
increasing number of mafouk do
not represent kings by 18th c.
power assumed by mercantile elite
= Lemba priesthood