Nzambi a Mpungu

Nzambi Mpungu
Nzambi Mpungu
	"Santu Nzambi" by a Holo artist. Kwango province, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Venerated in	Kongo religion
Symbol	Sun
Ethnic group	Bakongo
Consort	Nzambici
Equivalents
Roman	Jupiter • Sol
Igbo	Chukwu
Nubian	Apedemak
Egyptian	Amun • Ra
Bantu	Nyambe

Last updated December 10, 2024

Nzambi a Mpungu (also Nzambi and Nzambi Mpungu) is the Supreme God, eternal Sky Father and God of the Sun (fire) in traditional Kongo spirituality.^[1] His female counterpart is Nzambici, the Sky Mother and Goddess of the Moon. Among other Central African Bantu peoples, such as the Chokwe, and in the Kingdom of Ndongo, Nzambi Mpungu was also called Kalunga, the god of fire and change. This may have a connection to an element of Bakongo cosmology called Kalûnga. It was seen as the spark of fire that begot all life in the universe.^[1] After Portuguese colonization, Nzambi Mpungu became synonymous with the Christian God and existed chiefly as the Creator God.^[2]

History

Nzambi Mpungu was recorded as the name of the God of the Kongo people as early as the early 16th century by Portuguese who visited the Kingdom of Kongo.^[1]^[2]

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.^{[ citation needed ]}

Prior to European colonization, Nzambi Mpungu and his female counterpart, Nzambici , were perceived as the "Marvels of Marvels" who existed everywhere simultaneously and gave life to all things.^[2] Nzambi Mpungu was the "sovereign master," the God of the sun (fire) and change.^[3] It was believed that Nzambi Mpungu/Nzambici created the universe, the spiritual world (KuMpémba) and the physical world (Ku Nseke). Contrary to what the title "the Great Spirit" implies, Nzambi Mpungu/Nzambici and the spiritual nature of the Kongo people did not exist under the same confines of hierarchy as the omnipotent God of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam). All spirits within Kongo spirituality were believed to be equally significant and each had their own purpose across both worlds.^[2]

After the introduction of Catholicism by the Portuguese, there was a massive effort to convert Central Africans by creating connections between Christianity and their traditional African religions. While it was largely a failure for ethnic groups, like the Mbundu in the Kingdom of Ndongo, the Portuguese were able to persuade many Bakongo in the Kingdom of Kongo that Nzambi Mpungu was the Christian God and that the other spirits were similar to angels, who were subservient to God. Not only did this act make way for an easier conversion of the Bakongo people to Christianity, it also created a hierarchy in Bakongo spirituality that reduced other spirits like Nzambici, simbi and nkisi to "lesser spirits" that no longer had relevant voices in spiritual matters.^[2]

One Kikongo saying is "Ku tombi Nzambi ko, kadi ka kena ye nitu ko." It means "Don’t look for God, He does not have a body."^[1]

Nzambi in the African diaspora

Candomblé Bantu

In the religion of Candomblé Bantu, Nzambi is the "sovereign master". He created the earth and then withdrew from the world. Nzambi Mpungu remains responsible for rainfall and health.^{[ citation needed ]}

Kumina

In the religion of Kumina there is a high creator god is known as "King Zombi" which is a derivative of Nzambi Mpungu.^[4]

Palo

In the religion of Palo, "Nzambi" is the god who created the universe and animates it. Nzambi resides in all natural things, and the spirits of the dead. Long deceased ancestors who have become spirits will over a long period of time become enveloped in the natural elements and thus Nzambi himself. The natural powers of Nzambi can be harnessed by a Nganga and in common ceremonies.^{[ citation needed ]}

Related Research Articles

A creator deity or creator god 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.

A Simbi is a Central African water and nature spirit in traditional Kongo religion, as well as in African diaspora spiritual traditions, such as Hoodoo in the southern United States and Palo in Cuba. Simbi have been historically identified as water people, or mermaids, pottery, snakes, gourds, and fire. Due to the forced removal of Bantu peoples from Africa to the Americas, the veneration of simbi exists today in countries, such as the United States, Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti.

Olorun is the ruler of the Heavens creator of the Yoruba. The Supreme Deity or Supreme Being in the Yoruba pantheon, Olorun is also called Olodumare, Eledumare and Eleduwa/Eledua.

Hoodoo is an ethnoreligion that, in a broader context, functions as a set of spiritual observances, traditions, and beliefs—including magical and other ritual practices—developed by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous American botanical knowledge. Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers, conjure doctors, conjure men or conjure women, and root doctors. Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure. As an autonomous spiritual system it has often been syncretized with beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism. Scholars define Hoodoo as a folk religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Candomblé Bantu</span> Branch of Candomblé religion

Candomblé Bantu 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kongo language</span> Bantu language of west-central Africa

Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Angola. It is a tonal language. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo in the above-named countries. An estimated five million more speakers use it as a second language.

The Kongo people are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others.

Ngai is the monolithic Supreme God in the spirituality of the Kikuyu and the closely related Embu, Meru and Kamba groups of Kenya, and the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania. Ngai is the creator of the universe and all in it. Regarded as the omnipotent God, the Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, Kamba and the Maasai of Kenya worshiped Ngai facing the Mt. Kirinyaga while prayers and goat sacrificial rituals were performed under the sacred Mugumo tree. Occasions which may warrant sacrifice or libation include times of drought; epidemics; during planting and harvesting; and human life stages such as birth, marriage and death.

Nkisi or Nkishi 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.

The Catholic Church arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo shortly after the first Portuguese explorers reached its shores in 1483. The Portuguese left several of their own number and kidnapped a group of Kongo including at least one nobleman, Kala ka Mfusu, taking them to Portugal where they stayed a year, learned Portuguese and were converted to Christianity. The group was returned to Kongo in 1485 and Kala ka Mfusu led a royal mission from Kongo's manikongo, Nzinga a Nkuwu to Portugal. Following their arrival in late 1486 the embassy stayed nearly four years in Lisbon with the monks of Saint John the Baptist. There they studied Christianity and Portuguese with Vicente dos Anjos, and began the start of a Kongolese version of Christianity.

The Kalûnga Line in Kongo religion is a watery boundary between the land of the living and the spiritual realm of the ancestors. Kalûnga is the Kikongo word "threshold between worlds." It is the point between the physical world and the spiritual world. It represents liminality, or a place literally "neither here nor there." Originally, Kalûnga was seen as a fiery life-force that begot the universe and a symbol for the spiritual nature the sun and change. The line is regarded as an integral element within the Kôngo cosmogram.

Ruhanga features in Bantu spirituality as the remote creator and sky-God, recognized among the Rutara people. The Bahima further recognise him as the arbiter of life, sickness, and death. However, unlike creator figures in other religious systems, Ruhanga is generally not a focus of worship.

A nganga 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.

Nyambe is the Supreme God, Sky Father, and God of the Sun across numerous traditional Bantu religions.

Bantu religion is a system of various spiritual beliefs and practices that relate to the Bantu people of Central, East, and Southern Africa. Although Bantu peoples account for several hundred different ethnic groups, there is a high degree of homogeneity in Bantu cultures and customs, just as in Bantu languages. Many Bantu cultures traditionally believed in a supreme god whose name is a variation of Nyambe/Nzambe and ancestral veneration. The phrase "Bantu tradition" usually refers to the common, recurring themes that are found in all, or most, Bantu cultures on the continent.

The Kongo cosmogram is a core symbol in Bakongo religion that depicts the physical world, the spiritual world, the Kalûnga line that runs between the two worlds, the sacred river that forms a circle through the two worlds, the four moments of the sun, and the four elements.

Kongo religion encompasses the traditional beliefs of the Bakongo people. Due to the highly centralized position of the Kingdom of Kongo, its leaders were able to influence much of the traditional religious practices across the Congo Basin. As a result, many other ethnic groups and kingdoms in West-Central Africa, like the Chokwe and Mbundu, adopted elements of Bakongo spirituality.

Nzambici is the eternal God of Essence, as well as Moon, Earth and Sky Mother in Bakongo religion. She is also the female counterpart of the Kongo creator god, Nzambi Mpungu.

Mfinda is a spiritual concept of the forest in Kongo religion.

References

1 2 3 4 Asante, Molefi; Mazama, Ama (2009). Encyclopedia of African Religion, Volume 1. ISBN 9781412936361.
1 2 3 4 5 Brown, Ras Michael (2012). African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry (1st ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 26, 27, 90–102, 106–110, 119–121, 123. ISBN 978-1-107-66882-9.
↑ Asante, Molefi Kete; Mazama, Ama (2009). Encyclopedia of African Religion. SAGE Publications. pp. 120–124, 165–166, 361. ISBN 978-1412936361.
↑ Nathaniel Samuel Murrell (2010). Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to Their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions. Temple University Press. ISBN 9781439901755.

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[africa-1] 1 2 3 4 Asante, Molefi; Mazama, Ama (2009). Encyclopedia of African Religion, Volume 1. ISBN 9781412936361.

[:2-2] 1 2 3 4 5 Brown, Ras Michael (2012). African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry (1st ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. pp. 26, 27, 90–102, 106–110, 119–121, 123. ISBN 978-1-107-66882-9.

[:0-3] Asante, Molefi Kete; Mazama, Ama (2009). Encyclopedia of African Religion. SAGE Publications. pp. 120–124, 165–166, 361. ISBN 978-1412936361.

[afcarib-4] Nathaniel Samuel Murrell (2010). Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to Their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions. Temple University Press. ISBN 9781439901755.

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