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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Action as the Way of Transcendence: The Religious Significance of the Bwami Cult of the Lega |
Author: | Zuesse, Evan M. |
Year: | 1978 |
Periodical: | Journal of Religion in Africa |
Volume: | 9 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 62-72 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Congo (Democratic Republic of) |
Subjects: | Lega African religions secret societies Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1581084 |
Abstract: | The Bwami (the major cultic group among the Lega) have preserved their integrity without any central government or political unity. They accomplished this through the teaching of proverbs. The article describes the role of proverbs in initiations, their symbolic nature, the integration of the proverbs into the way of seeing the world and acting in it. It is easy to see that these proverbs, which are put to music and sung, danced out in little dramas, carved into beautiful forms in wood, and discussed at length and repeatedly by initiates wherever they gather, raise every action and experience of everyday life into the realm of the emotionally aesthetic and spiritually symbolic. Notes. |