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This article offers a reading of Ortiz’s first book, Los negros brujos (1906). By following the theme of “duplicity” that structures the loose notes that compose the volume, an argument emerges in ...

Inspired by the thoughts of Zoe Strother, in this short piece I rethink my previous work on iconoclasm in West Africa, saluting her invitation to consider iconoclasm as part and parcel of African c...

This article focuses on the Kyangyang (‘the shadows’ or ‘the shades’), a prophetic movement that emerged in Guinea‐Bissau in 1984, in which ‘animistic’ Balanta farmers‐and‐herders learned to pray as Muslims and Christians do. We want to propose that (a) more attention needs to be paid to religious movements that bridge the polarisation between Islam and Christianity in West Africa and (b) a broader focus on the overall pluralistic setting is necessary in order to understand the conditions of possibility for the emergence of a particular religion. We want to propose, too, that some religions glossed as mimetic (such as Kyangyang) are not as ‘secondary’, in relation to a putative primary source (Islam or Christianity being the model to be copied), as we may intuitively assume at first sight. Copying is part and parcel of human action and transformation but, paradoxical as it may sound, it may not be as opposed to originality as we tend to think. By looking at how Kyangyang works, how imagination is put to play by prophets in order to make Balanta farmers ‘move forward’ towards a potential ‘new world’, we may be getting at the very heart of what it means to be original, at least in terms of religious creativity.

The Mandombe, graphic system invented by David Wabeladio Payi, responds to complex logic. As a system of writing and artistic creation, entirely conceived from the 5 and 2-shaped symbols that Wabeladio recognized in the lines joining the bricks of the wall of his bedroom, the Mandombe is a good example of writing that does not respond to the great classical functions. Wabeladio chose to prioritize mathematical elegance over ease, the spirit of system on simple efficiency, developing a script serving more support for the semiotic or aesthetic imagination than a simple transcription of languages.

Ecumenism has been a constant effort of many Christian agents in war-torn Angola ever since the 1960s, and certainly in the reconciliation initiatives that have taken place since the end of the war in 2002. Today, ecumenism is a structuring concept in the new law of religious freedom, which stipulates that, in order for religions to be legal, they must belong to an ‘Ecumenical Platform’. Yet, in the northern parts of Angola, Bakongo people remember too well how strongly allied Christianity has been with oppressive forms of power since the arrival of Diogo Cão five centuries ago, and especially since the martyrdom of Kimpa Vita in 1706. The local cosmology and an acute sense of historical resentment have created a strong resistance to any form of Christian ecumenism, especially among the thousands of exiled Bakongo who are returning to the country from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, where they explored their Kongo, rather than their Portuguese, roots. Thanks to these returnees, Kongo religious institutions, some officially banned by Angolan laws, are being visibly revitalised and spread among local people to whom Christianity and ecumenism have little to offer beyond memories of suffering and oppression. How far grassroots ecumenism may be possible among these Kongo religious institutions remains uncertain.

The existence of an objectified 'folklore' is often used by Baga interviewees not only to proudly show that Baga do have a cultural heritage but also to argue that whatever is seen in public performances is just the tip of the iceberg. But, to understand this present-day situation, it recalls the rudiments of Baga cultural history. Here it uses the notion of 'folklorisation' as a self-conscious objectification of what people perceive to be their folklore or tradition and its display in cultural performances. The fate of Baga cultural heritage is inevitably linked to such entanglements between secrecy and display. While in the demystification campaigns state monitors were sent to the villages to police ritual activity and to make sure that nothing 'irrational' happened, in post-socialist Guinea ressortissants often aim at reintroducing such practices and logics and make sure that nobody is punished for that. If they do not meet this challenge, they will not be reclaiming their heritage.

In 2009, as the Pope visited Angola, the Portuguese Kimbanguists prepared themselves to receive Simon Kimbangu Kiangani, the spiritual Chief of the Church (living in the Democratic Republic of Congo). According to Kimbanguists themselves, Lisbon is as marginal to Europe as Bethlehem was to the Roman Empire or N'kamba was to the Belgian Congo when, respectively, Jesus Christ and Simon Kimbangu were born. While they are not active proselytizers and do not use “reverse mission” arguments, Kimbanguists insist that Europe hosts a vast amount of “marginalized” people in need of a fresh spirituality. Analysing the Lisbon event, in this paper the authors discuss the dialectics between “centre” and “periphery” (N'kamba and Portugal) and suggest that the Kimbanguist religion must be simultaneously regarded as a mechanism by which Africans reaffirm a presence in the diaspora as well as being a means to orient efforts aimed at reinforcing their spiritual centre in Africa.

Over the last decade, there has been an ‘expectations turn’ in anthropology. Anthropologists have produced a substantial body of literature on aspirations and hope (Crapanzano, 2003; Eggerman and Panter-Brick, 2010; Miyazaki, 2004); on uncertainty and ‘waithood’ (Honwana, 2013); and on futures (Appadurai, 2013; Cole, 2010; Cole and Durham, 2008; Piot, 2010; Temudo and Abrantes, 2015). This development seems in sharp contrast with the previous interest in the anthropology of memory, which tended to overemphasise the power of memory and of tradition to the detriment of creativity and invention (see Berliner, 2005 for a critical review). One of the arguments of this chapter is to suggest that we ought to find a balance, if not a synthesis, between studying the ways in which the past is used in people’s search for exemplarity and studying the expectations generated by people’s beliefs, education, and socialisation.

Em 1956 novas formas de música e de dança de inspiração francesa, designadas le bal, foram introduzidas entre os Baga Sitem da Guiné Francesa, numa época de tomada de consciência global da juventude. Nessa altura, enquanto os jovens ficaram fascinados pelos novos instrumentos e linguagens corporais de le bal, os mais velhos, ligados a formas locais de música e dança ritual, não quiseram aceitar a nova expressão musical da esfera pública. Baseado na história oral, este artigo aborda a tensão entre os jovens e anciãos, e propõe uma abordagem geracional e estrutural para o estudo da juventude e modernidade, sugerindo que as tensões entre jovens e idosos, e entre as novas e velhas formas de cultura popular, podem ser muito mais antigas do que normalmente se supõe., In 1956, le bal, i.e. new forms of French‑inspired music and dance were introduced among the Baga Sitem of French Guinea at a time of global youth consciousness. At the time, the youths fell fascinated by the new instruments and bodily languages of le bal, but their elders, much more aEached to local forms of music and ritual dance, did not want to accept the new one in the public sphere. Based on oral history, this article discusses the tension between youths and elders and proposes a generational and structural approach to the study of youth and modernity, suggesting that the tensions between youths and elders, and between new and old forms of popular culture may be much more ancient than normally assumed.

Th e academic study of African Christian communities in Europe has proliferated since the groundbreaking work of people like Roswith Gerloff (1992), Gerrie ter Haar (1998, 1999) and Afe Adogame (1998). African churches, more than groups from Latin America or Asia, seem to draw the academic attention, especially within the disciplines of religious studies and cultural anthropology. Th e burgeoning of these churches as well as their liturgical exuberance might be the rationale for this focus on African churches. Initial research was mainly ethnographical, focusing on thick descriptions of these new phenomena. In recent years the paradigms of transnationalism, of reverse mission, of recognition, and of geography, locality and place have served as analytical foci in the study of these groups. Th is issue consists of six contributions that focus on theoretical issues in the study of African Christian communities in Europe. Ramon Sarro and Joana Santos in their article on the Kimbanguist Church in Portugal show how the notion of ‘return’ characterizes the life of the Kimbanguists in Lisbon and demonstrate that there is a link between this notion of return and the growing respect for the contributions of the wife of Simon Kimbangu in the Kimbanguist Church. Nienke Pruiksma discusses the limited usefulness of territorial notions of context in situations of migration. Taking her starting point in a case-study of the Celestial Church of Christ in Amsterdam she argues that in circumstances of migration

Since 1989 the Baga people of Guinea, West Africa, have celebrated an annual football tournament that they like to compare to the masquerades performed in the old days (that is, when the old people of today were young men and women). This tournament proves to be one of the best occasions to assess the dynamics of intergenerational competition. While football is indeed a ‘new’ thing, a modern activity for young people away from their elders, the elders behind it are increasingly taking control of the situation and are not letting it be just a youth activity. By revitalising ritual activities long since disappeared and by reinforcing age structures mediated by the demands of the elites in Conakry (the capital city) the elders are indeed ‘domesticating modernity’ and using football matches as a context to retain the power youth were in principle trying to escape from.

This article analyzes some events related to the Kimbanguist church that have taken place in Portugal and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It unearths a connection between an increasing feminization of practices and narratives within this church and the emergence of an ideology of return to Africa linked both to eschatological beliefs and to notions of 'mission,' 'example,' and 'success.' The article shows the advantage of a multi-sited fieldwork in the study of transnational religion, as well as the changing nature of religious institutions in today's world, in which socio-political dynamics in the migrants' new settings both affect and are affected by what happens in the headquarters of their religious institution.

The communities of the coastal Republic of Guinea arose through the gradual incorporation of outsiders into rice farming areas where the gathering of 'wealth-in-people' by landlords was important and strangers were welcome to become farmers. This model of 'landlord and stranger' is not viable today for three main reasons: firstly, a political trend that started in colonial times made ethnicity rigid and incorporation difficult and not always desired; secondly, ecological changes and a land shortage are making strangers less and less welcome today; thirdly, democratic idioms of citizenship do not allow for such distinctions as 'landlords' and 'strangers'. As a reaction to all this, some communities, such as the Baga, are witnessing an emergence of the notion of an 'ethnic territory' to be controlled by the putative descendants of the original 'landlords'.. Keywords: Baga; coastal Republic of Guinea; communities; landlords