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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The religious therapeutic functions of the cemetery for the Kongo of Zaire
Author:Kimpianga Mahatah Mahaniah
Year:1978
Periodical:Cahiers des religions africaines
Volume:12
Issue:23-24
Pages:107-124
Language:English
Geographic term:Congo (Democratic Republic of)
Subjects:African religions
death
Kongo
cemeteries
Abstract:This study is the result of research undertaken in the Lower-Zaïre region (formerly Lower-Congo) between 1972 and 1974 and which has been continued in the city of Kinshasa since 1976. This work has an ethno-historical orientation in the sense that it studies both the thoughts of the Kongo people concerning life after death and the place occupied by the land of the dead in their philosophico-religious system. Discussed are the ideas of the traditional Kongo concerning death, and the religious and therapeutic functions of the cemetery. The monograph provides a background to the understanding of modern beliefs about death and funeral practices, especially in Kinshasa. Sections: Introduction - Death and its causes - The importance of graveyard's location - Ablution at the cemetery - Hunting the ghost - The impact of modernism in buriar in present-day Kongo society - The place of the cemetery in the religious thought of the Kongo - Conclusion. Notes, rés. anglais.
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