The Kongo Kingdom

Download or read book The Kongo Kingdom written by Koen Bostoen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique and forward-thinking book that sheds new light on the origins, dynamics, and cosmopolitan culture of the Kongo Kingdom from a cross-disciplinary perspective.

Download or read book The Art of Conversion written by Cécile Fromont and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2014-12-19 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, the west central African kingdom of Kongo practiced Christianity and actively participated in the Atlantic world as an independent, cosmopolitan realm. Drawing on an expansive and largely unpublished set of objects, images, and documents, Cecile Fromont examines the advent of Kongo Christian visual culture and traces its development across four centuries marked by war, the Atlantic slave trade, and, finally, the rise of nineteenth-century European colonialism. By offering an extensive analysis of the religious, political, and artistic innovations through which the Kongo embraced Christianity, Fromont approaches the country's conversion as a dynamic process that unfolded across centuries. The African kingdom's elite independently and gradually intertwined old and new, local and foreign religious thought, political concepts, and visual forms to mold a novel and constantly evolving Kongo Christian worldview. Fromont sheds light on the cross-cultural exchanges between Africa, Europe, and Latin America that shaped the early modern world, and she outlines the religious, artistic, and social background of the countless men and women displaced by the slave trade from central Africa to all corners of the Atlantic world.

Download or read book The Kingdom of Kongo written by John Kelly Thornton and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kongo: Power and Majesty written by Alisa LaGamma and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating account of the effects of turbulent history on one of Africa’s most storied kingdoms, Kongo: Power and Majesty presents over 170 works of art from the Kingdom of Kongo (an area that includes present-day Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola). The book covers 400 years of Kongolese culture, from the fifteenth century, when Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian merchants and missionaries brought Christianity to the region, to the nineteenth, when engagement with Europe had turned to colonial incursion and the kingdom dissolved under the pressures of displacement, civil war, and the devastation of the slave trade. The works of art—which range from depictions of European iconography rendered in powerful, indigenous forms to fearsome minkondi, or power figures—serve as an assertion of enduring majesty in the face of upheaval, and richly illustrate the book’s powerful thesis.

Download or read book Kongo Ndongo written by Kenny Mann and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A survey of the oral traditions and history of the African kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo, which once occupied the region of west central Africa that is now the nation of Angola.

Download or read book From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square written by Jeroen Dewulf and published by University of Louisiana. This book was released on 2017 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book presents a provocatively new interpretation of one of New Orleans's most enigmatic traditions--the Mardi Gras Indians. By interpreting the tradition in an Atlantic context, Dewulf traces the 'black Indians' back to the ancient Kingdom of Kongo and its war dance known as sangamento. He shows that good warriors in the Kongo kingdom were per definition also good dancers, masters of a technique of dodging, spinning, and leaping that was crucial in local warfare. Enslaved Kongolese brought the rhythm, dancing moves, and feathered headwear of sangamentos to the Americas in performances that came to be known as 'Kongo dances.' By comparing Kongo dances on the African island of Saao Tomae with those in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Louisiana, Dewulf demonstrates that the dances in New Orleans's Congo Square were part of a much broader Kongolese performance tradition. He links that to Afro-Catholic mutual-aid societies that honored their elected community leaders or 'kings' with Kongo dances. While the public rituals of these brotherhoods originally thrived in the context of Catholic procession culture around Epiphany and Corpus Christi, they transitioned to carnival as a result of growing orthodoxy within the Church. Dewulf's groundbreaking research suggests a much greater impact of Kongolese traditions and of popular Catholicism on the development of African American cultural heritage and identity. His conclusions force us to radically rethink the traditional narrative on the Mardi Gras Indians, the kings of Zulu, and the origins of black participation in Mardi Gras celebrations"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860–1913 written by Jelmer Vos and published by University of Wisconsin Pres. This book was released on 2015 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insightful look at the onset of colonialism in Central Africa from economic, religious, and political perspectives, examining the ultimately tragic participation of African elites in colonial rule.