Kongo+Religion

Welcome to the Religion page!
By Lilian

Navigation: - Kongo Homepage - Location - Human and Physical - **Religion** - Environment - Movement - Regions

This page will teach you all about the religion of the Kongo people!

General Information - Just the main facts about the beliefs of the people, and what some of their traditions were. Christianity - How this religion came to Kongo, and how it affected the king. The Coming of Christianity - A small piece of information about christianity. Why Christianity came to Kongo This information is from... - Citations for our information Links - Useful links for religion (not only covering Kongo) Pictures - See the Kingdom of Kongo! (religion)
 * Table of Contents**

Nzambi Kalunga or Nzambi Mpungu Tulendo was the main God of the Kongo Kingdom. The people believed that he/she is the creater of power. They also believed in other gods. Tax collection was to protect against illness, disasters from angry gods. The king, involving religion, was named the nzambi mpungu, it means “superior spirit”. Although they adored him, they did not believe that he could deal with disease, death, and [|famine] with no help from their gods. From: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/sfc/ho_1999.295.4.htm This was from the early 17th century
 * General Information**

This continued to take place until the Portuguese Christian missionaries came to Kongo, in the late 15th century. They converted the king and his son to Christianity and soon in the 1490s, the people of Kongo converted to Christianity on free will. The people of Kongo were considered a cult because there was a change to Christianity. The Kongo believe in a cosmos divided in two, this world is the nza yayi and the land of the dead is the nsi a bafwa. The two worlds are divided by a body of water, traditionally called Kalunga, and also known as nlangu (water), m'bu the ocean, or nzadi the great river.
 * Christianity**

A few Catholic priests arrived in 1491 to baptize Nzinga a Nkuwu as well as his principal [|nobles], starting with the ruler of Soyo (the coastal province). At the same time a Kongo citizen coming back from Portugal opened the first school. Nzinga a Nkuwu took the name of [|João I] in honor of Portugal's king at the time, [|João I]
 * The Coming of Christianity**

The Kongo people adopted Christianity for several reasons. The first is that this religion fitted well into their culture and language because the concepts were compatible with the already existing religion in Kongo. Kongo religion worshipped only one god for centuries, so the Christian belief in one God made sense. The conversion practice made connections with their own religion. Image From: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/08/sfc/hob_1999.295.8.htm This is from the 16th century.
 * Why Christianity came to Kongo**

- Our Kongo Packet Handout - http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acko/hd_acko.htm
 * This information is from...**


 * Links**
 * To read more about the topic: Christianity, see http://the4angels.wikispaces.com
 * This is an individual website, with quite useful information. We used this website for some of our info: [|http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Kongo.html]

This is the pictures section of our page. Here you can see all the pictures and check where they're from, so that you know what it looked like. We hope this part of our page helps you understand the rest better. Image from: http://www.24-7prayer.com/ow/images/charts/4-67.gif This chart shows the present-day religion. You can see that christianity plays a big part in the modern-day Kongo. This image is from: http://dickinsg.intrasun.tcnj.edu/diaspora/bakota.jpg This is a traditional mask of Kongo/Zaire. This map is from: http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/66720/2/istockphoto_66720_old_1874_map_of_africa_detail.jpg This is an antique map of Ancient Africa. From: http://www.smafathers.org/smaimages/ngbaka.jpg These images are from: http://www.smafathers.org/smahtml/links.htm
 * Pictures**