BaKongo peoples — Kongo, Vili, Yombe, Woyo, Solongo — of the Congo River Basin, spanning the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Angola (Cabinda), and Gabon. The Kingdom of Kongo was one of Central Africa's great states from the 14th century. · Central Africa — the Congo River Basin and Atlantic coast
Through proverb above all — the BaKongo proverb tradition is among the densest in Africa, compressing whole philosophies into single sayings. Through song, through the visual text of the cosmogram, and through tales told by elders. The story-shape follows the…
The dikenga — a cross within a circle — maps all of existence. The horizontal line is the Kalunga: the boundary between the world of the living (ku nseke, above) and the world of the dead (ku mpemba, below), often…
Nzambi a Mpungu — the supreme God, creator and source, transcendent and distant from daily human affairs, working through the lesser powers and the ancestors.
Minkisi — sacred medicine bundles and figures (including the well-known nail-figures, minkondi) that concentrate spiritual power. White clay (mpemba), marking connection to the ancestral world. The cosmogram itself, drawn or inscribed. Shells and water, marking the Kalunga.
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