Death and the Invisible Powers: The World of Kongo Belief

by Simon Bockie

Book Overview

" Bockie's] description of Kongo culture is vivid, beautifully clear, and absolutely authentic, as only a native could make it. . . . I don't know of anything of its kind that is both as good, ethnographically, and as readable." --Wyatt MacGaffey

"Simon Bockie has written an engaging, often personal account of the views and behaviors surrounding death in his own society, the Kongo of Lower Zaire, northern Angola, and the Congo." --Cahiers...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253208084
• ISBN13: 9780253208088
• Release Date: September 1993
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

I enjoyed this book very much

The author states this book arose out of his doctoral thesis, which explains the rigorous approach to its subject matter. Anyone who has studied history or anthropology at college could easily understand the author's approach. I was very impressed with this book's presentation of Kongo community, family, education, social mores, and religion. Mr. Bokie himself qualifies as a member of a Christian church, but, as he explains in numerous examples, many if not most Kongo peoples beleive and practice Kongo traditions even if they are members of various Christian or syncretic churches. I personally prefer the scholarly over the confessional, though it should be noted the author presents numerous personal ancedotes throughout the book that help further his discussion of the subject matter. All in all I found this to be a very well written, intelligent and thoughtful book. I highly recommend it.

Concise, intelligent survey - even though dry at times

Simon Bockie does a bang-up job surveying the religious structures, beliefs and practices of one large tribal affiliation (BaManienga) in the Kongo region. Though a bit deadening, being more scholarly than confessional, it's very thoroughgoing as to what he sets out to do: in addition to covering purely native cults, he includes mention of the numerous eclectic amalgams of native and Christian faiths which were an eventual result of early rampant colonialism. Since he's not a medicine man or sorcerer or any of that kind of thing himself, he doesn't get inside the system as does, say, Malidoma Somé (the Dagara people of Burkina Faso and Ghana), or the Zulu shaman Credo Mutwa. But his last chapter "God" does an about face from the general dryness, and shows how in fact God was in Congolese religion well before the Christian missionaries hit the beaches, and how the new proselytizers really didn't bring anything gratifyingly new or spiritually enlightening to the region. He writes some beautiful and wise passages here, then also makes it plentifully evident that the best of the 'amalgams' graft the new onto the old, rather than indulging in subordination of native to Christian beliefs.