Combat and the Crossing of the Kalunga

7/30/2019 Combat and the Crossing of the Kalunga

1/4

Combat and the Crossing of the

Kalunga

by T.J Desch Obi

This paper investigates the unexplored Central

African controbution to new world culture in terms of martial arts

and the spiritual underpinnings of ritual practise. there is a

growing body of literature on the martial art of capoeira Angola(much

more than a martial art)in Brazil , but being written in isolation

from the wider world of capoeira's cognate and reflective forms in

the atlantic world , none has delt with capoeira Angola's african

background beyond speculation. ion contrast, this current discussion

will root itself in the combative and philosophical traditions of

Central African and then look onward to Martinique , north america ,

and Brazil. this broad perspective is important for highlighting the

fact that this arts were thriving even in places such as Virginia andMartinique where Central Africans did not constitute the dominant

pluralities of the enslaved african population. in this light these

martial arts are properly viewed not as riesidual by-products of the

demographic cluctering of central Africans , nor as retentions or

memories doomed to fade, but rather as living traditions that spread

from enslaved central Africans to other Africans and their desendants

and eventually to people of european descent. durring the dynamic

spread of this martial art inthe americas the cetral fighting system

of the tradition remained remarkably constantin most areas while the

practise rituals of the system where influenced by by the dynamic

religious practices they interacted with in the ninteenth and

twwentieth centuries. yet even these combative practice rituals in

the america's could not be fully understood apart from the underlying

Central African cosmology that linked human combat to the interplay

of spiritual forces from across the kalunga or the threshold between

the landsof the living and the dead.

contin: John Thorton spoke of the religious and ceromonial life

illusrated the existance of dissenting religious beliefs in central

Africa. in this regard the central African religious tradition is no

different than the judeo-christian tradition with its myriad of

diffussing groups and theologies all emanating from an inherited

group of theological concepts. in central africa, one of these common

inherited paradigms revolved around the concept of kalunga. this term

was used throughout the central African region to mean the sea ,

rivers , the world of the ancestors and god. these various meaningsfor kalunga were reconciled by the common cosmology represented in

the Kongolese cosmograms that symbolized the nature of the cosmos in

miniature. there were numerous varieties of the Kongo cosmograms, but

of particular interest are those involving counterclockwise circles

and crosses. Fu Kiau Bunseki explains these cosmograms represented

the nature of the universe which the Kongolese unerstood as

parallelingthe counterclockwise movement of the sun. within the

counterclockwise movement a cross could drawn or implied. the


2/4

horizontal line of this cross referted to as the kalunga was linked

with the rivers or the sea which was believed to form a line between

this world and the next. the point coresponding with cardnal east was

linked with cocecption , whereas cardnal north represented maleness ,

noon , and on's peak of physical strength. from there to the cardnal

west represented a phase of decline reaching death at the kalunga

line. this death for the Kongolese people just a passage through the

kaluga to the spirit world ,an inverted world of white clay.

regeneration in the spirit world contiued to the southern point

corresponding to midnight, femaleness , south ,the highest point of a

persons other worldly strength. acording to Robert Farris Thompson,

for the good and heroically strong Kongo person completing the

cosmic circle by returning to the cardinal east point represented

eternal life: The Kongo yowa cross dose not signify the crucifixion

of jesus for the salvation of mankind; it signifies the equally

compelling vision of the circular motion of human souls about the

circumference of the intersecting lines ..... the four disks at the

points of the cross stand for the four moments of the sun, and the

cicumference of the cross the certainty of reincarnation: especially

the righteous Kongo person will never be destroyed but will come back

in the name or body of progeny.

continued: While some ancestors might be reborn into the land of

the living all had the power to affect events in the land of the

living . thus Kongo cosmograms were more than mere symbols; they could

also be ritually activated to mediate power between the spiritual

world of the ancestors and the world of the living. However , it was

not only trough cosmograms that the central Africans believed that

they could cross the kalunga to gain access to spiritual power. a

number of agents could bring the spiritual power from beyond the

kalunga to bear on the world of the living. the three major players

in the universe were the chief, the witch, and the ritual expert, and

among some central African groups the prophet/diviner was

distinguished as the fourth group. the chief were believed to accesspower from across the kalunga by means of their lineage ancestors,

who interceded on behalf of the entire community. a chief's

associationwith lineage ancestors linked with him to the power of

death, and he was expected to use his power to kill antisocial

elements and witchs.on their part witchs drew on the powers of the

dead(through "ghosts" or nzumbi among the Kongolese) but for their

own selfish ends and at the cost of the rest of society. finnally,

between these two stood the ritual experts, called nganga or kimbanda

drew on the ancestral power to divine and/or resolve the physical or

spiritual problems of the client. the Kongolese divided this last

office into nganga (ritual experts) who create sacred medicine figures

called minkisi to protect their clients from harm or to hurt there

enemies , and ngunza (prophets/diviners). the ngunza or prophet drewon the healing power of bisimbi spirits to heal individuals and

society of witchcraft. as a result of these various spiritual

intermedeiaries, there was a constant antagonism between those

individuals that used the power from across the kalunga for good,

which for central african peoples ment for the good of the

community , and those who used the power for the selfish desires of

an individual , which was considered evil. this understanding of

spiritual antagonism was reflected in the the KiKongo term for ritual

mvita whichliterally ment war.


3/4

continued: Just asthis central African ritual system was

conceptualized in terms of warfare between these opposing forces, so

too was human combat considered inseparable from the interplay of

these religious forces. for central African warriors, a war's out

come was ultimately determined on the spiritual level . this belief

ran so deep among west central Africans that once two armies engaged,it was not uncommon for the losers of the initial melee to flee as it

was considered futile to resist since the outcome of the battle -

which had already been determined on the spiritual plane across the

kalunga - was evident inthe first clash. for Kongolese this often

took the form of harnessing ancestral power through spcial war

charms. Miller notes that warfare preparation for the seventeeth-

century Mbundu primarily consisted of intense rituals to draw on ever-

more powerful forces from across the kalunga to secure a victory.

thus for days and weeks before a battle, the Mbundu conducted rituals

which, they believed, could determine which army would prevail,

arming themselves with the best magical charms available, waitingfor

omens to indicate the most propitious momentto attack and cementing

their good relations with spiritual forces which couldturnthe actual

battle in their favor. suchprepartions were not a simple task as

there was always a chance that enemies could access forces even more

powerful than their own ; thus the importance of ritual war experts.

continued: This paradigm linking combat and the crossing of the

kalunga could also be found as far south as the highlands. in the

eighteenth and ninteenth centuries many warrior-kings onthe southern

highland plateau would not declare war without first approching their

kalunga, the hoiliest place of there palace. this kalunga shiine

housed the ritual emblems and relics of their ancestors and thus

acted as a bridge to the spirit world. it was believed that all who

approached the kalunga apart fromthe king would die fromsuch direct

contact with the land of the dead. even the king approached only onspecial occadions of communnal calamity such as drought or war. on

declaration of war the king approached the kalunga to petition the

royal ancestors in the other world to battle for his warriors on the

spiritual plane. in the kingdomof Ecovongo(Bie)these most sacred

relics of the kingdom could only be touched by the highest ritual

expert in the land who carried them into battle in a vanguard unit

also consisting of a war general beiieved to embody the soirits of

human sacrifices, and the generals hand crack troops. the king and

the main army remained at a distance and would not engage in combat

if his crak troops broke. thus it was essential for suchelite

warriors to be well prepared ritually and militarily. although not a

ubiquitous practice in central Africa, many warriors fromthe interior

of the loango coast to the highlands were both physically and

spiritually prepared for the battle through a martial art that waslinked to the comological paradigm of crossing the kalunga . as a

combat system, the art of N'golo and its cogates utilized kicks and

powerful headbutts for attack and acrobatic evasions for defense.

these attributes were developed in a number of training exercises one

of which was the ritual practice with a partner inside a circle of

singers who were at the same time potential combatants. individual

singers/fighters took turns leading call and response song in which

all those present answered back with the chorus. once the music


4/4

reached its crescendo a pair of fighters would enter the circle,

dancing and swaying to the music as they squared off. one adept would

launch an attack normally consisting of a circular sweep or kick,

often with the hands supporting the body weight. the defender either

crouched low to the ground to duck under the kick, or blended with

the attack in such a way that he could respond with a smooth

counterattack. the two conued in a cycle of attacks, defenses and

counterattacks in a flow that allowed them to diplay their technique,

trickery, and finesse. the encounter ended when one or both of the

two felt that their engagment had come to completion. the two then

rejoined the circle to allow another pair to enter the circle.

continued: This riual circle, or elola, was designed to bring the

practitioner into the spiritual world through circling or physically

enacting the counterclockwise comograms to draw on spiritual power.

this involved counterclockwise movement arround the elola. such

enactments of cosmograms were believed to give the fighter spiritual

powerfor combat. the techniques of the combative system itself

reflected the kalunga paradigm, with fighters predominantly using

their feet to fight, often supporting their weight on their hands and

kicking while upside down. in this way they ritually mirrored the

ancestors as the other world across the kalunga was believed to be an

inverted one. these kicks from an inverted position were considered

among the most powerful techniques in the ngolo arsenal. from an edic

perspective, the precarious nature of such an inverted position could

not have allowed for the generation of much power incontrast to the

power of a kick launched from a normal upright position. however, the

power refered to by ngolo exponents was rather the more important

spiritual power derived by harmonizing the body with that of the

ancestors. somefighters sought even deeper connections to ancestral

power through ritual initiations instruction in the martial art and

its most important festivals were linked to male and female rites of

passage. beyond this community initiation, full mastery of the artwas relegated to those whohad been further initiated into the art as

a sacred profession. this ritual process involved having a cross

drawn on their heads in white powder, the color of crossing the

kalunga. after completing the ritual, these fighters could tap

directly into the superhuman combat abilities of ancestral ngolo

fighters.

well its late I hope that you are enjoying this

article so far I'll finish posting it later today until then please

feel free to send any comments to the group or my email:

[email protected]

Documents

Combat and the Crossing of the Kalunga