Quote from Tata Rompe Pecho on March 21, 2023, 11:07 pm

There are many people worldwide who call Nkisi Malongo "Palo Mayombe", this is a fact of life at this point, but why? There have been many attempts to understand how this name came to be more popular than even the real name of the traditional religion. In some cases, the name is just what was widely accepted by the world and so for the sake of being understood, people just began referring to it as the same. This is true even of myself because search engines do not care for "Nkisi Malongo" as much as they care for "Palo Mayombe". You have to remember that in this traditional religion, the saying is that my name is whatever I answer to. This is because in ancient times, this was not any one centralized belief system, it was regional and in certain regions it carried different names. Bukongo, Yimbula, Molemo, are all names I have heard people use to refer to the older regional traditional religious beliefs. There is also the fact that of the three main branches of Nkisi Malongo, Mayombe is the oldest. It is often the case that the oldest gets the most recognition. We see that even in product launches, the first ones to launch a specific kind of product is usually the most widely accepted even though there many be many more just like it down the line. Lastly, Mayombe is also the name of a forest that is sacred to all the branches and houses within the traditional religion. I would even go as far as saying that in the past, our ancestors used to call themselves Mayumbe people. This is a big piece of information because it shows that even in the past, the name was already widely used and accepted. So next time you hear someone mentioning "Palo Mayombe" just know that the person speaking may be generalizing the whole religion, or may be speaking of just the branch of Mayombe. Either scenario is technically correct.