Nkondi

Nkondi (plural varies minkondi, zinkondi, or ninkondi) are religious idols made by the Kongo people of the Congo region. Nkondi are a subclass of minkisi that are considered aggressive. The name nkondi derives from the verb -konda, meaning "to hunt" and thus nkondi means "hunter" because they can hunt down and attack wrong-doers, witches, or enemies.

The primary function of a nkondi is to be the home of a spirit which can travel out from its base, hunt down and harm other people. Many nkondi were publicly held and were used to affirm oaths, or to protect villages and other locations from witches or evildoers. This is achieved by enlisting spiritual power through getting them to inhabit minkisi like nkondi.

The vocabulary of nkondi has connections with Kongo conceptions of witchcraft which are anchored in the belief that it is possible for humans to enroll spiritual forces to inflict harm on others through cursing them or causing them to have misfortune, accidents, or sickness. A frequently used expression for hammering in the nails into a nkondi is "koma nloka" (to attach or hammer in a curse) derives from two ancient Bantu roots *-kom- which includes hammering in its semantic field, and *-dog- which involves witchcraft and cursing. "Kindoki", a term derived from the same root is widely associated with witchcraft, or effecting curses against others, but in fact refers to any action intended to enlist spirits to harm others. If exercised privately for selfish reasons, the use of this power is condemned as witchcraft, but if the power is used publicly by a village, tribe, political leaders, or as a protective measure by innocent people, however, it is not considered witchcraft.

In the catechism of 1624, which probably reflects Christian language dating back to the now lost catechism of 1557, the verb koma was used to translate "to crucify."

Because they are aggressive, many nkondi with human figures are carved with their hands raised, sometimes bearing weapons. The earliest representation of an nkisi in this pose can be seen in the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Kongo, designed around 1512 and illustrated between 1528 and 1541, where a broken "idol" is shown with this gesture at the base of the shield. Nailed minkisi are not described in the literature left by missionaries or others in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.

Wyatt MacGaffey, citing the work of the late seventeenth century Capuchin missionary Luca da Caltanisetta, noted that in his day, nganga sometimes banged minkisi together, perhaps a method of activating them, and nails, which MacGaffey contends were first being made at the time eventually replaced the metaphor. Other scholars believe that the Portuguese missionaries brought images of Christ nailed to the cross and the martyr Saint Sebastian to the peoples of Central Africa, and these experts believe that this iconography maybe have influenced nkisi tradition. MacGaffey, for his part, speaks against this interpretation, arguing that the concept of nailing is tied up with too many other concepts to be a simple misunderstanding of missionary teaching.

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