Power,
conflicts and multiples narratives
of
the Kulumbimbi place in
Mbanza Kongo - Angola
Bruno Pastre Máximo
- UFAM - Federal University of Amazon
“THE BANZA OR RESIDENCE OF THE KING OF KONGO CALLED S. SALVADOR.” - DAPPER, OLFERT. DESCRIPTION DE L’AFRIQUE. AMSTERDAM: W. WAESBERGE, BOOM ET VAN SOMEREN, 1686. PP. 343-344.
View of Mbanza Kongo - photography by author - 08/2014
?What does Kulumbimbi mean
"With effect, between the next achivements, we can enumarate the follows: (...) reparation of the Kings Cementary in the Kolombimbi"
DE SÃO Salvador do Congo: Surto de Progresso. O APOSTOLADO, 02 de janeiro de 1957
“(...) THERE IS A PLACE TO CITE THE 'KULU-MBIMBI' OR CEMENTERY OF THE ANCIENT KINGS [OF KONGO] (...)”
Raphael Batsikama ba Mampuya ma Ndawla, L'ancien royaume du Congo et les Bakongo: (Ndona Béatrice & Voici les Jagas). Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999 [anos 60]. P. 224.
“Kûlumbîmbi mean what remains of the ancestors. These are the ruins of a church from the sixteenth century Mbânz'a Kongo.”
BATSKIAMA, Patrício; CAMPELO, Álvaro. A Catedral De São Salvador De Angola: Sæculum - Revista De História [25]; João Pessoa, jul./ dez. 2011.
Kulu, s. di- or ki, khulu (O), old age, old; seniority (ancient times), antiquity (the) old time, far in the past;
Mbimbi (...) Fig. corpse, dead person
Laman, K E. Dictionnaire Kikongo-Français: Avec Une Étude Phonétique Décrivant Les Dialectes Les Plus Importants De La Langue Dite Kikongo, Par K. E. Laman. Bruxelles: G. Van Campenhout 1936. P. 530 and 328.
"In 1549 Jesuits built the church of São Salvador, which became the seat of the bishop of Kongo when the Catholic Church created the office in 1596. This church, which still stands, is known locally as Nkulumbimbi (...)"
Thornton, John. Mbanza Kongo. In: Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press, 2005; P. 776.
Hypothesis
We hypothesized that the conception of Kulumbimbi between different groups living in Mbanza Kongo goes beyond the colonial perception that relates to those archaeological remains a narrow meaning as the Catholic church, incorporating other interpretations based on experience with the ruins and local traditions.
The Colonial Narrative
XIX - 1975
Carta Geographica Dos Reinos De Angola E Benguela
Berlin conference
"Relics of this past, we are left today with the old S. Salvador do Congo, a capital of that vast empire, with the remains of its venerable ruins, a small part of what was ours, and over which adventurers passed through more modern, sweeping us away [...] the opulent purple of our ancient name and power in those vast regions."
"Of all this religious progress and political domination, what remains? They are to be found in S. Salvador, and elsewhere parts, many ruins of temples. The chapel of the ancient see of Congo still preserves the cult: it is the last stronghold of the Portuguese Christian civilization [...] "
PIMENTEL, Jayme Pereira. Um anno no Congo; 1899.p. 19.
PINTO, F. A. Congo e Angola. Lisboa: Livraria Ferreira, 1888. p. 255.
Heritage Project
"The ancient ruins of the Cathedral of São Salvador do Congo [colonial name of Mbanza Kongo], (...) worth to be preserved and valued, because it is a monument of high historical and religious significance that is attached to the foundation of the first Bishopric of S. Salvador do Congo,(...) and also because at that place would have been raised before by the Portuguese, the first church in the south of Ecuador "
BATALHA, FERNANDO. PESQUISA ARQUEOLÓGICA NA ÁREA DE MONUMENTO NACIONAL ANGOLANO (1957) - ARQUIVO HISTÓRICO ULTRAMARINO PT/IPAD/MU/DGOPC/DSUH/1992/01479
(...) THE SOIL WILL RARELY be excavated WITHOUT FINDING THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE OLD CONSTRUCTIONS, ALREADY LITTLE IDENTIFIABLE. NUMEROUS RESEARCH WE CARRY OUT IN VARIOUS LOCAL, ALLOWED TO DISCOVER THE STONES THAT SERVED THE FOUNDATION AND SUPPORT OF MANY WORKS OF THE OTHER, WHICH REMAIN ENIGMATIC. OR CHAPEL OF THE CONGO KINGS AS WELL AS THE REMNANT WALLS OF THE OLD CONGO SEE THAT THE POPE FOUNDED THE INSTANCES OF THE KING OF PORTUGAL.
Visita às ruínas da primeira Igreja de S. Salvador. Diário da Viagem do PresidenteAmérico Thomaz às Províncias de Angola e S. Tomé e Príncipe. 1963.
Angola Governament NArrative
1992-2017
I feel a particular emotion, as Pastor of the universal Church, as I set foot on these lands of M'Banza Congo. Here Christianity has a history five times a century, a tradition that plunges into the shadows of the past and gestures that amaze with their audacity. (…) In this memory of history, we cannot forget the name of a great king, whose memory the people of Congo remembered for centuries: King Dom Afonso I, Mvémba-Nzínga, who was at that time the greatest missionary of his people.( …) Dear Brothers and Sisters: Angola has five hundred years of encounter of cultures, a situation that most peoples of Africa do not know about. This makes your country a distinct people, who cannot simply be included in a certain current that drags the countries of southern Africa. Nonnes, the colonizers lived among the colonized. Here, the colonizers, despite everything, coexisted with the people they encountered. Hence the specific difference that distinguishes the Angolan people
Apelo do Santo Padre por ocasião da celebração da palavra na esplanada da catedral de m'banzacongo. Mbanza Congo, 8 de junho de 1992. Acessado dia 20/10/16.
IN SEARCH OF WORLD HERITAGE
"João Lourenço, also a member of Committee of Mbanza Congo Project Editor: City to Unearth to preserve, made the remarks during a press conference on work for registration of Mbanza Congo in the World Heritage List of UNESCO. Mbanza Congo, he recalled, was the first political space of Equatorial Africa where a church was elevated to cathedral category in 1596, and was still the place where it left the first ambassador of a state of sub-Saharan Africa to the Vatican, Bishop Manuel Antonio Nsaku Nvunda. These aspects, he stressed, are some of the historic elements that made Mbanza Congo an exceptional region compared to other parts of Africa and the world. "
(...) the fact that the name of this city, former capital of the Kingdom of Congo, is once again echoed around the world given its candidacy for UNESCO World Heritage. (...) it evokes and highlights the History of Angola and the Kingdom of Congo in particular, for the cultural contribution we have been giving to the world, and, likewise, what we have received from it in a relationship of partnership and exchange, initiated in the 15th century after the first 230 expeditions by the Portuguese, so we incorporated and expanded. Since the period of the implantation of Christianity and its expansion, the city has witnessed the construction of 12 churches which earned it the title of Kongo dya Ngunga, the teaching of letters and arithmetic was a regular practice. The kings of Congo proposed to transform the Congo into a Christian state, so the adoption of certain aspects of European values reveal this capacity to receive but also to give.
MENDONÇA, José Luís. Mbanza Congo mais próxima do Património Mundial da UNESCO. 17 de fevereirode 2015. Portal de Angola. Acessado dia 20/10/16.
According to historical research, the capital was founded in the 12th century, and had the cooperation of the Catholic Church, as verified through correspondence exchanged between the Kingdom of Congo and the Vatican. There are very rich archives that speak of this religious component. There was also political cooperation between the kingdoms – local and of Portugal; economic cooperation arising from the slave trade; in addition to cultural cooperation with Europe and the Americas.
DOMINGOS, Ziva. Angola. In: PRATES, Andrea; SANTOS, Helena Mendes dos. Encontro Centro LucioCosta (CLC) (...). 2015. p. 50
What the signboard says
Ruins of the the ancient Cathedral of San Salvador of Congo, build in the reign of king Afonso I, in the late sixteenth century. The elevation in the rank of Cathedral was in 1595, by Bula of (...) Popel Clement VIII, which created the Diocese of Congo. Certified as a National and Cultural Heritage by ordinance no. 9.930, published in official bulletin nº44, in 30 october of 1957
Traditional kongo narrative
The narrative from the
Kimbanguist church
"In short, a mysterious building surrounded of secrets building and that it arose from day to night without human participation. [...] Nkulumbimbi then, is the Cathedral before which was performed the prophetess Kimpa VITA. Sacred place where Mani-Kongo were buried."
Journal Mpata Ntatu n. 17 April 6, 2012.
Narrative from the
Bundu dia Kongo
"KULU MBIMBI is the name of this ancient park, where it was buried the bodies of the Ancient Kings of Mbanza Kongo. The portuguese colonial regime destroyed and despoiled the ancient Cementery of KULU MBIMBI."
NSEMI, Ne Muanda. KULU MBIMBI I NKI? Kongo Dieto, 788, june 2012.
The "elements" above, José dos Santos Kasakanga and André Pecado, leaders of the "Ngwizako" association, allowed themselves, on the 19th, to mobilize, in the morning, a large number of indigenous people, which I estimate at around 60, some of which were their relatives, voluntarily putting them to weed the cemetery of the “kings”, which is located in the vicinity of the ancient ruins of the Cathedral, in this city. (...) This place, where some of his relatives “kings” are buried, was completely covered with an enormous and dense grass. If the Administration or the Municipal Commission had already done this, as it is incumbent upon them, it would not have given rise to this fact. Furthermore, for some time the same “elements” had promoted the same weeding, without the Administration having made any repairs to them.
“Relatório Extraordinário: Actividades Políticas-Subversivas Desenvolvidas pelos dirigentes da“NGWIZAKO” – José dos Santos Kasakanga e André Pecado.” 30 de dezembro de 1961. Chefe da PIDE.PIDE-D. Ang-PInf 11.14.A - NT1832.
conclusions
There is a wealth of interpretations of the place Kulumbimbi, and it is these that give life to the ruin and significance in local / regional society. Colonial / scientific view (eg school book) is not the predominant, including being combated.
A heritage project will include only those that have a link with the place from the moment that these groups can participate and help build it, incorporating the multiple conceptions of the history of the place.
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