• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Espiritismo in the Puerto Rican Community: A New World Recreation with theElements of Kongo Ancestor Worship
Marta Moreno Vega
 Journal of Black Studies
, Vol. 29, No. 3. (Jan., 1999), pp. 325-353.
Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-9347%28199901%2929%3A3%3C325%3AEITPRC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
 Journal of Black Studies
is currently published by Sage Publications, Inc..Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/sage.html.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.http://www.jstor.orgFri Feb 22 13:19:51 2008
 
ESPZRZTZSMO
IN THE PUERTO RICAN COMMUNITY A New World Recreation With the Elements of Kongo Ancestor Worship 
MARTA MORENO VEGA
Baruch College
RATIONALE
Throughout the African world, traditional communities haveretained the practice of venerating the spirit of the ancestors. Addi-tionally, while weathering the onslaught of enslavement and colo-nization, Africans and their descendants have continued to veneratetheir ancestors and African gods throughout the diaspora. There issignificant information available on the African-based religionsdeveloped in Brazil, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Haiti, Trinidad,Jamaica, Suriname, and the United States. One of the diasporalocations that has been little studied by scholars regarding Africanreligious continuities has been Puerto Rico.This article seeks to examine and trace ancestor worship-espiritismo-in the Puerto Rican community as a probable legacyof African cultural traditions with specific focus on the AfricanKongo cultures brought to the island by enslaved Africans. TheKongo cultures being addressed use the definition of historian Rob-ert Farris Thompson set forth in his book Flash
of
the Spirit
(1984):
The slavers of the early 1500's first applied the name "Kongo"solely to the Bakongo people. Then gradually they used the name todesignate any person brought from the west coast of Central Africato America.
. . .
The meanings of "Kongo" and "Angola" over thespan of the Atlantic trade reflect the expansion of European slavetrafficking into the heart of Kongo and Kongo-related societies
JOURNAL
OF
BLACK
STUDIES,
Vol.
29
No.
3,
January
1999
325-353
O
1999
Sage
Publications,
Inc.
 
326
JOURNAL OF BLACK
STUDIES
I
JANUARY
1999
during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Thou-sands of persons were abducted from this culturally rich area.(pp.
103-
104)
The records of the Spaniards during the 19th century maintaineda listing of enslaved Africans brought to Puerto Rico, indicating theethnic groups of origin.
Los Registros Central de Esclavos
main-tained by the Spaniards from 1859 to 1872 in the collection of
LosArchivos Nacional de Puerto Rico
have a significant list of entriesidentifying that the enslaved Africans they transported were fromthe following locations and/or ethnic groups. The entries are con-fusing in that there are varied spellings for what appears to be thesame ethnic group and/or location. What is clear is that the capturedAfricans brought to Puerto Rico during the 19th century have a pre-dominance of Kongo ethnic groups. Some of the names recordedinclude the following:
Longo, Congo, Lingongo, Linga, Lambe,Liguelo,
and
Dingongo,
which are similar to the names of groupsidentified by anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran as groupsoriginating from the area located within the northern and southernareas of Zaire from Nyanga to Dande.
Los Kongos ocupaban las tierras situadas al norte y a1 sur del Zaire,desde el Nyanga hasta el Dande. El territorio a1 norte del Zaire fu,conocido por 10s gedgrafos antiguos con el nombre de Reino deBramas y en seguida con el de Reino de Loango. En su costa se esta-blecieron factorias desde 10s dltimos aiios del siglo
XVII:
enCabinda por 10s portugueses, en Loango por 10s franceses y enBanana por 10s ingleses. [The Kongos occupied the area situated atthe north and south of Zaire, from the Nyanga to the Dande. The ter-ritory at the north of Zaire was known by the ancient geographers bythe name of the Kingdom ofBramas and soon after as the Kingdomof Loango. On this coast were established factories from the laterpart of theXVII century: in Cabinda by the Portuguese, in Loangoby the French and Banana by theEnglish]. (Beltran,
1989,
p.
139)
It is the premise of this article that the influence of the Africanfrom the Kongo area in the later phase of the slave trade in PuertoRico significantly influenced the beliefs of earlier arrivals, withtheir prevailing belief in ancestor worship.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...