Minkisi are power objects believed to house spirits of nature known as Bakisi.
The Kongo people are an ethnic group from an area made up of northwestern Angola, the southern Republic of the Congo, and the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo River and its basin are their namesake. By the 15th century they had established a sizable kingdom and engaged with the Portuguese kingdom as equals during the early exploration age. There was a cultural flowering and Roman Catholicism was readily adopted by the upper class. Relations would turn sour as the trans-Atlantic slave trade ran out of control and ravaged the Kongolese.
One consequence of this phenomenon was the spread of Kongolese myths and beliefs to the New World. New syncretic faiths such as Palo, Umbanda Bantu, and even Haitian Voodoo would find their origin in Kongo mythology to varying degrees.
It was believed that our earth was actually an enormous mountain sitting on top of a great sea or the Kalunga line, on the opposite side there was a twin mountain where the dead resided. The path of the sun across the universe was taken as the macrocosm in contrast to the human microcosm. It began with Musoni in the underworld which was the time people spent as an ancestor spirit. Next came Kala or childhood when a soul was reborn. Then came Tukula which is adulthood where man has its greatest creative ability. Finally came Luvemba which was the transition from this world to the next.
Tropes from Kongo Mythology include:
- Angel Unaware: Nzambi once went about in the guise of an old woman.
- Creation Story: Long ago there was only the earth, the river Congo, and the bush. Four spirits in the shape of great snakes lived in the whirlpool between the tide and the mouth of the Congo: Kuitikuiti the waver, Mboze the fertile, as well as their children Makanga and Mbatilanda. Kuitikuiti left the waters to create all animals without tails, Mbatilanda followed by making the animals with tails. After their journey home they learned Mboze was pregnant by her son Makanga. Kuitikuiti was furious and beat her to death with a club. As she lay dying she gave birth to her snake daughter Bunzi. Bunzi is the goddess of rain, fertility, and the rainbow. Bunzi begat a water spirit named Lusunzi. Lusunzi loves his mother and visits her often, bringing springtide with him. Kuitikuiti felt remorse and brought Mboze back to life, but her skin was now white. He responded by changing his own skin from black to white, then had sex with his granddaughter Bunzi. From this union came Kambizi, the storm goddess.
- Disability Superpower: Nzondo were quite deformed, but had great magical powers. Many were basically split in half vertically. But they could glide faster than a man could run, hear beyond what normal men could, and see far more than normal men do. One of their number almost exterminated humanity in a flood.
- Divine Conflict: Mbumba the rainbow serpent and Nzazi the thunder god fought each other for control of the world. At first Mbumba climbed a tree to heaven in peace and built a nice village, but Nzazi tried to demand he stay in heaven to run it. Mbumba went back to his water hole on earth which had dried up. Some women saw him and thought he was a fish, so they moved to kill him. Mbumba bit and scared them before flying back to heaven to continue his fight. Nzazi declared he was going to kill the humans while Mbumba protected them with heavy rain. Bunzi allied with Mbumba and helped fight Nzazi, brokering a peace deal between them. Things remained tense between Nzazi and Mbumba. Not long after, Bunzi decapitated Mbumba for supposedly getting his son killed.
- Engagement Challenge: Nzambi’s daughter claimed she would only marry the one who could steal fire from her father.
- Familiar: Nzazi owned a pack of lightning dogs. Very beautiful canines with black or red coats and curly tails. Their barking was thought to be the sound of thunder.
- Find the Cure!: Moni Mambu’s wives once ate their respective totem animals (a monkey and a lizard) and fell deathly ill. Moni Mambu had to seek out Nzambi for the cure.
- Giant Flyer: Mwiyas were a type of familiar witches and sorcerers could create to capture or kill thieves with. They were enormous black raptors capable of destroying entire villages when set loose. Mwiyas could collect more debris to make themselves even bigger. Few things could stop them besides the perpetrators confessing.
- The Great Flood: The race of humans prior to the modern variety transformed themselves into monkeys and lizards to survive.
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- The Nzondo were a race of pre-human entities who were sometimes said to eat people.
- Moni Mambu once roasted and ate a bunch of children because their mother said “Have roasted peanuts with the children”.
- "Just So" Story:
- Ntangu the sun and Ngonde the moon had a race to see who was faster. Ntangu bragged about how fast he was but lost anyway. Now he hides at night out of embarrassment, but Ngonde feels no shame about being seen during the day.
- Ntangu once splashed mud on Ngonde’s face which is why the moon has dark spots.
- Literal-Minded: Moni Mambu frequently got into trouble because because figures of speech frequently flew over his head.
- Naïve Everygirl: One of Nzambi’s daughters was kept indoors by her mother who cared for her alone. Her slave very quickly exploited her curiousity during a journey to the purification house by answering her questions about all the things she saw in the world and slowly bribed the princess’s clothing away from her so the townspeople thought she was the princess and the princess was the slave.
- Nature Spirit: Simbis were nature spirits. As a rule they considered more benevolent than the fearsome ghosts, witches, and other frightful spirits who wandered the earth. Simbis healed sickness and disabilities unlike the Nkitas who inflicted them on people.
- Old Beggar Test: Nzambi wandered around in the shape of an old woman with a baby on her back asking strangers for a bit of water. A group of women refused while a palm tapper gave her a calabash full. As a reward for his charity she gave him a lake teeming with fish, but forbid women from fishing it. Any woman who tried eating the fish would die as if they’d been poisoned. Nzambi saddled the palm tapper with more gifts and sent him on his way.
- Other Worldly And Sexually Ambiguous: Mahungu was both male and female, as such the perfected being. Mahungu looked like a palm tree with two heads. One side looked female and the other a bearded man. Mahungu led a blissful existence until it saw a tree called Muti Mpungu: Tree of the Almighty. Mahungu tried to embrace it when Muti Mpungu split it in half. One was called Lumbu (Man) and the other Muzita (Woman). That was why men are violent but good at hunting while women are cowardly but gentle. Marriage is Mahungu attempting to reunite once more.
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Averted. The Tebo was a vicious little dwarf with grey ashy skin, long red hair, and a taste for human flesh. They were known to beat travelers unconscious and drag them back to their caves to eat. They had the ability to shapeshift and were faithful servants to witches.
- Our Ghosts Are Different:
- Nkitas were hostile ghosts of people who died violently or had their souls rejected by the ancestors for their sins. They were white in color and harassed people who entered the bush, ranging from affliction with diseases to devouring them. The strongest Nkitas are men died in battle and are led by Na Ngutu. The next most powerful ghosts are women who were killed with knives, their leader is called Ma Kiela. The third strongest ghosts are suicide and miscellaneous murder victims, their leader is Dinganga.
- Kulus were ancestral ghosts, also white in color. They were peaceful and gentle. Their homes were in underwater villages. During the dry season the Nkitas like to eat all of the fruits available.
- Rescued from the Underworld: Kivanga’s twin sister was kidnapped by the leader of the Nzondo to be his bride. He set out with 8 companions for the west in order to reach the underworld beyond the Kalunga line. They sang to keep up their spirits and travel the cold dark trails of Mpemba. They came to a hideous door decorated with writhing twisted human shapes which Kivanga opened using magic. He found his twin and they flew away together, pursued by angry Nzondo. His sister had taken the human masks they had stolen from the earth god Mbenza and used to sneak up on humans with. Mbenza rewarded them by letting them establish the first village.
- Semi-Divine: Moni Mambu was often believed to be the son of Nzambi.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Funzi was the divine blacksmith. He created lightning each time he struck his anvil. He showed humanity how to work iron and copper after they learned the secret of fire from a river god.
- Unicorn:
- The Abada was said to be a sort of equine-like creature with a horn on the nose and another horn on its head. It was reddish colored and had a head like an antelope.
- The Capalanca was stated to be a pure white antelope with a single horn it used to cleanse waters of poisons. Sometimes they’re white and red spotted.
- Wish Upon a Shooting Star: Averted. Shooting stars were considered evil spirits in Kongolese culture. They were called Matombola and would try to land inside a human to infect them with the witch power.
