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Tracing the history and development of visual traditions in the Kongo religions of Africa and Cuba (where it is known as Palo Monte)
Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign
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Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz
"Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign by Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz is the most complete exploration and explanation of a specific indigenous African writing system, i.e., the bidimbu of the Bakongo people of Central Africa. As the text illustrates, this writing system had a profound influence in the formation of similar forms in the Caribbean and the Americas, such as firmas or gandó of Cuba, vèvè of Haiti, and pontos riscados of Brazil. Fluent in both Central African and Afro-Cuban cultures, Martínez-Ruiz fuses an original yet rigorous scholarly methodology with years of in-depth field research to produce one of the most useful texts for understanding the living nature of the African Diaspora. He also expands our consciousness of the religious objects themselves, the minkisi and prendas, as ‘physical forms of graphic writing’. For those interested in the spiritual and artistic traditions of Africa and their influence in the Americas, Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign is an essential new treasure."
—C. Daniel Dawson, Columbia University Institute for Research in African American Studies
Written symbols, religious objects, oral traditions, and body language have long been integrated into the Kongo system of graphic writing of the Bakongo people in Central Africa as well as their Cuban descendants. The comprehensive Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign provides a significant overview of the social, religious, and historical contexts in which the Kongo kingdom developed.
Author Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz, an art historian and practitioner of the Palo Monte devotional arts, illustrates with graphics and rock art how the Bakongo's ideographic and pictographic signs are used to organize daily life, enable interactions between humans and the natural and spiritual worlds, and preserve and transmit cosmological and cosmogonical belief systems.
Exploring cultural diffusion and exchange, collective memory and identity, Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign artfully brings together analyses of the complex interconnections among Kongo traditions of religion, philosophy, and visual/gestural communication on both sides of the African-Atlantic world.
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Reviews
"Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign is a work of distinction, detailed and innovative, and one that enriches and deepens the topic immensely. The impact of Yoruba-speaking peoples on the African Diaspora in the Americas had dominated the literature, while the much older and deeper Kongo and Central African influences have been largely ignored. This book is well written and organized and will re-orient the entire field of African Diaspora arts/cultures debate. Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign is an excellent and groundbreaking work. It will be an essential book on the content and impact of Kongo thought on the formation of culture, society, and the arts that have had a profound impact on the shaping of the Black Atlantic world."
—Henry John Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor in the Departments of Art History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign provides an engaging exposition of the logic of signs connecting times and places otherwise divided by centuries and seas. Martínez-Ruiz offers a very unusual insider’s perspective to esoterica, bringing his intimate knowledge of Cuban religion to bear upon his studies among Kongo peoples while applying insights from his work in west-central Africa to reflections upon his own Afro-Cuban heritage. The originality of his research and the compelling nature of the subject matter are matched by the book’s excellent illustrations."
—Allen F. Roberts, Professor of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Existing Literature
Methodology
2. The Atlantic Passage: The Spread of Kongo Belief in Africa and to the Americas
3. The Process of Meaning Making: The Kongo Universe
Kongo Cosmogony: Nza Kôngo
Kongo Cosmogony: Nza Cuba
4. Afro-Atlantic Graphic Writing: Bidimbu, Bisinsu, and Firmas
Kongo Graphic Writing Systems: Overview of Character and Origins
Ancient Memory: Rupestrain Art in Central Africa
Writing to Preserve: Bidimbu and Bisinsu
Writing to Remember: Firmas
5. Beyond the Scripture: Physical Forms of Graphic Writing
Minkisi and Prendas: Written Objects
Mambo: Writing Out Loud
6. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author(s)
Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz is an Assistant Professor in the African Art and Its Diaspora/Latin American and Caribbean Arts at Stanford University.
Subject Categories
African Studies
Art and Photography
Latin American/Caribbean Studies