Nganga
Sign in to savethumbnail|Nganga mask, from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum A nganga (pl. banganga or kimbanda) is a spiritual healer, diviner, and ritual specialist in traditional Kongo religion. These experts also exist across the African diaspora in countries where Kongo and Mbundu people were transported during the Atlantic slave trade, such as Brazil, the southern United States, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba.
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Encyclopedic overview
8 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Central Africa
- Southern Africa
- The Americas
- See also
- References
- Works cited
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thumbnail|Nganga mask, from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum A nganga (pl. banganga or kimbanda) is a spiritual healer, diviner, and ritual specialist in traditional Kongo religion. These experts also exist across the African diaspora in countries where Kongo and Mbundu people were transported during the Atlantic slave trade, such as Brazil, the southern United States, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba.
== Etymology == Nganga means "expert" in the Kikongo language. The Portuguese corruption of the meaning was "fetisher." It could also be derived from -ganga, which means "medicine" in Proto-Bantu. As this term is a multiple reflex of a Proto-Bantu root, there are slight variations on the term throughout the entire Bantu-speaking world.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Nganga” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.