Munanzo Kota Lima Temple of Nkisi Malongo

First of all, I would like to stress the importance of knowing your history, both your personal one and the general history of the world. There is also something to be said about learning from the correct sources, if you have an elder please reach out to them and don’t learn from random people on the internet, even though it may seem harmless it is not. Disclaimer being stated and all, we can begin to piece together this article and I apologize beforehand if it is long-winded and offensive to some. The intention is not to offend anyone but to display and explain how a whole tradition has been and continues to be persecuted from several angles and some of them might even surprise you. This isnt to say we are without fault because we definitely do have faults but persecution is such an egregious concept and the whole point of this article. You have to understand that even among our ancestors there was already a great persecution and discriminatory practice that persists even today in some ways. From that point we progress the timeline towards slavery and how our traditional religion was persecuted. Then we move into more recent times including even today how our traditional religion is being persecuted. This is to say, I will break it all down and structure it to three core eras of persecution even though its not really that simple, for the sake of the article being legible.

First, to understand how long we have been persecuted you have to reach far back into our history, beyond the modern Transatlantic Slave Trade. Scholars have long held the belief that Bantu people migrated to the region that would become known as Kongo dia Ntotila some 4,000-5,000 years ago. They have also found evidence of the Bushmen existing in that same region upwards of 100,000-150,000 years ago. The two groups have not always peacefully coexisted in the same region. There are many references to Bantu people enslaving and inhumanely treating the Bushmen. The general understanding is that the traditional religion we practice has roots that connect us to the Bushmen and the Bantu, which would indicate that at some point more than just their geographical location intersected. Due to this, we can conclude that their beliefs intersected as well and while I will not speculate how that came to be, I will make a statement that there is precedence to civilizations that closely border each other intermingling and teaching each other their beliefs. The Bushmen were known to practice Animism extensively, it was deeply rooted in their culture and identity. In some of the historical instances in which the Bushmen were brutalized, the reasoning given was that they were witches, mystics and other such things and accusations of evil were commonly produced against their moral character. This concept of evil witches became inflamed by the arrival of the Christian Missionaries which taught that ALL sorcery was in fact, evil. This is due to their Christian beliefs, which have long held to the ideology that all forms of magic are of Satan and not God.

On the subject of the Catholic Missionaries, the Transatlantic Slave Trade was mostly justified and ordered in accordance with the Catholic faith in the papal bull of January 8th, 1455. The papal bull was a written communication in which the Pope, Nicholas V, decreed that Spain and Portugal not only had a divine right but duty to the Christian God to seek out the Saracens and Pagans. Granting them expressed permissions to invade, capture, vanquish, subdue, reduce their persons to perpetual slavery and to claim any of their titles for themselves, by any means necessary. The chaotic and world shattering slave trade that would ensue was a byproduct of a religious genocide and cleansing of the land. In other words, the Spain and Portugal would turn to trading of slaves simply to make a profit while justifying their actions behind bringing Christianity to the non-Christians. In essence, slavery was not the intended goal. The intended goal was to erase all beliefs long held in Africa in favor of Christianity and the governments of Spain and Portugal just found a way to make a profit from this religious purge of culture, beliefs and identity as they were given the absolute right to do so by the highest living Christian power in the world, the Pope. So they were given the right and told it was their duty to erase the enemies of Christianity and their reward was to be that they can keep any proceeds and do whatever they wanted with those said enemies of Christianity. To this day, Christianity maintains a position of demonizing and declaring anything that is non-Christian as an enemy to Christianity, whether the other party sees Christians as an enemy or not. Palo Mayombe being a series of traditional religions from the Kongo dia Ntotila region at the time of this declaration very much so made them a direct target of anyone acting under orders of the papal bull. We can even see passages in the Bible ordering Christians to own slaves of all the foreign lands but not of their brothers, the Israelites in Leviticus 25:44-46.

The persecution would not end in Africa and would follow the enslaved people across the world and cause lasting traumatic experiences that would later be wielded as weapons, even against each other. For example, in Lucumi (Santeria) & Afro-Cuban Ifa. These two are considered to be two different traditions and both of them are Yoruba-based traditions of which believe in Oricha (Orisa). They have divination systems that consist of Obi (both), Merindiloggun (Lucumi), Okpele (Ifa), Ikin (Ifa), these are numbers-based systems and are basis for the broad management and the cultural and religious law that practitioners live by. Each individual number having with it a name associated and those names being generally understood as Oddun (except in the case of the Obi system). There is a general understanding of the existence of 256 Oddun in the Ifa system which is more extensive than the Lucumi system because in Lucumi, most practitioners will only read up to a certain number (usually 11) and anything higher is an immediate referral to Ifa. Speaking of these referrals, due to the nature of both systems being of Yoruba origin, they are generally understood as siblings and most Lucumi elders regard Babalawo (Ifa Elder) as an elder even above them. In this sense, Ifa has been assumed and appointed as the superior tradition above Lucumi, one of higher learning and excellence. When we look into the Oddun we mentioned earlier, we see a disturbing issue. The Ifa Oddun of a Yoruba descended tradition are riddled with direct references and sometimes even outright disrespectfuland discriminating references towards Mayombe. We even see several instances where they attempt to make determinations for the tradition of Palo Mayombe as well, as if they have self-appointed themselves the superior tradition with the authority to make such determinations because they are the supreme children of Orula (Orunmila). The issue is that Palo Mayombe is not a Yoruba descended tradition, has no connections to the Oricha and no formal ties even to the languages they speak. It is from a completely different part of the continent of Africa and doesnt recognize any Yoruba tradition, let alone grant any of them any authority to make any determinations. This behavior is not observed in the continent, to be clear it is only found in practitioners of Lucumi and Afro-Cuban Ifa. So then this was a learned behavior that they are exhibiting. Where was this behavior learned? When the African people were enslaved, Christianity was thrust upon them by force. The ideology that Jesus is king above all others, even their own Orichas was violently beaten into them. I cannot presume to know for a fact that this is the source but I can say for a fact that they approach Palo Mayombe with the same exact mentality. Our “Jesus” (Orunmila) is king and god above everything, even your little nkisi and he will be the one to determine what happens in that tradition because he is king there. Of course there is another matter that I have not addressed, of the 256 Oddun there are also indirect references to Palo Mayombe by way of stating “the witches” or “witchcraft” in which the implied “witches” and “witchcraft” is actually this tradition. According to my findings, simply searching the internet for 1 source, which means that other Oddun may also be understood to have direct references in other places, I have found that simply searching for “mayombe” within the listed Oddun they follow produced 23 Oddun that directly referenced Palo Mayombe inappropriately. This is not an old book we are discussing, this is the living, current, modern understanding of the Oddun according to a lineage of practitioners that they live by.

Palo Mayombe is still heavily persecuted, even today. By Christianity, by Islam, by Lucumi, by Ifa, by racists and possibly by other traditions in which their relationship has not been studied.

Persecution of Palo Mayombe

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