Understanding the difference(Mpungu/Mpungo) Getting to the root of our practice

“Writing about the Mpungo takes determination, with concise thoughts and accurate accounts of life based on things that we live and see on a daily basis. In order for the reader to understand what is we’re communicating in this article he must ask how the Mpungo pertains to him in life. This article is intended to open the reader’s eye on Diasporic practice, and is mostly directed around the practices and rites of Palo Mayombe worship. There is a question surrounding the old infamous word “Mpungo”, and general misunderstandings about its meaning and the entities that it alludes to.

This terminology comes from the Kikongo word “Mpungu”, meaning literally “elemental force that surrounds us.” This topic is controversial as the idea of Mpungo has become a bastardization of what Mayombe is; a sincretic flavor has been added to it due to the intermingling of Orisha practices that filtered into Mayombe and now have become mainstream. When you look at the reality entities like 7 rayos, Zarabanda, Chola Wengue, and so forth were nkisi’s made from plantations in cuba that eventually took on a life of their own. The Mpungo are not the same beings as the Orisha, and a Nkisi is not an Orisha.”

Taken from My own page…..

When I first open my page in 2012 I wrote this with the idea that people would understand what I was trying to relay to all you readers. Yet 6 years later we still have an ongoing problem with this issue. I feel that now is the right time to touch this subject full on with no hesitation and people may get upset about it. But if you are good with what you have and it works then be about it. This post is to bring you to an understanding that Palo as it is practiced today somewhere along the line people have lost their touch with nature and its forces that retain in the land you practice. Again this is not a disrespect to those people who practice syncretism in Palo. I am not trying to misrepresent my Afro Cuban brethren that would be slapping myself in the face. I am an initiated Mayombero from an orthodox style of Mayombe teachings. My godfather was an initiated mayombero from Pinar del Rio Cuba. Also I have Yemaya made and my father is oggun in the diasporic practice of lukumi. My oriate is Cuban. So I have Cuban friends and people I consider family and would never write against my Cuban compatriots.

But we have to start looking at an ongoing situation with Mpungo practices in Palo. This idea of a mpungo whether it is matriarchal in presence of patriarchal in presence never existed in Palo until 300 years later with the conceptual idea of orisha. Now I can say this that an mpungo in Palo is represented by a Stone. which is washed in ritual as if it were the embodiment of a deity. Placed in the nganga with herbs and that is all I can say. This idea of 7 rayos as a Kimpunguele( Congo Deity) in actuality was born in cuba and has no direct lineal trace to the Kongo as it should be stated. In some writings you here of Nsasi which people say oh there is the connection. Not really because Nsasi as an elemental force can not be contained as Deity. There is a fine line between subjugating to a nganga which you would consider a deity to an Nganga priest who is represented by all of nature. In other words, when people say Chola is my mother and zarabanda is my father… Well how do you depict that when in Lukumi practice is where orisha are conceptualized as mother and father yet Palo is the birthplace of a person being one with the universe as Man, Woman and child?

Nganga names are part of the characteristic that nganga perceives with your shadow and spirituality, But now it is to be worshipped as a deity? A lot of times your enslaved by people force feeding you misinformation and rhetoric. But Bantu Philosophy pertains to being a better human being on this plane and the next. So why do we keep allowing for a few people to make it out to be Horror fest and grand killers? But when you want to make a conscious effort to heal people now they say you are re inventing religion. Well I could name a few people who would love to tear this article to shreds and say I am crazy but the proof is in the past all you have to do is study and look. I have heard this nonsense before that in the Antilles and especially in cuba all the aboriginal people were exterminated. Ok…. So what happened to the women who were taken captive and subjugated sex slaves who gave birth to next generation Cubans?

I propose that anyone who wants to understand there past a mother Mitochondrial DNA never changes so studies have been done where 80 percent are etymological proof that native taino blood runs through all of the Caribbean island folks. Now further proof of people ancestral roots here we have a higuera(gourds)

In the Barracon(hut) ancestral bones were hung the kongos who escaped into the mountains where the Spanish could not go met with communities and here is where the first ngangas were born. For those kongos that was nkisi worship(ancestral worship) But people out there have this mindset they died. Palo is more antillan than people know. The word Palo in the Bantu philosophy would not be present because trees in the Kongo republic were sacred they would not cut one tree down. Yet how is it that Kongos cut the trees to bring healing if it were not the influence of the Pre Columbian people who were on the island?

Open your mind and stop being lead like puppets. All the root words in palo are Taino in nature. The feeding of turtles to the nganga of nsasi and the feeding of Chango in the new world. Was shown by the anthropologist Gauch he was a Cuban professor who showed and demonstrated the aboriginal origin of the Afro Cuban practices and influences. But like a Cuban friend once told me how do you explain that to people who are close minded? Better to leave everyone with his version of his own history.

But I can not because now we have a new world of practitioners who are not Cuban and need the truth so they can believe with faith and knowledge. Mexico, The United States of America, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and all other places has Palo as their faith. So the money people make initiating people who are not Cuban is good but to teach them they are not worthy of learning?

Bayamanaco the old man of fire and the turtle woman. Is represented as the god of lightning(Nsasi/Chango) again a natural force which is respected as such from the taino culture in cuba and Antilles.

“As soon as they came to the door of Bayamanaco, the old man and saw that he carried cazabe (bread made from cassava flour), they said “Ahiacabo guarocoel!” which means, “We know our grandfather!” In the same way, Deminan Caracaracol, seeing his brothers ahead of him, entered to see if he would be able to get some cazabe. Upon entering the house of Bayamanacoel, Caracaracol asked for cazabe. He (Bayamanaco) put his hand to his nose and threw upon (Deminan’s) back a guanguayo (spittle). This guanguayo was filled with cohoba which had just been made for that day. [Cohoba is some kind of powder that they take at times for purification and for other effects described below. Cohoba is taken in a reed about half as long as one’s arm, and they put one end in their nose and the other in the powder. Then they inhale through the nose and this greatly purifies them.] Thus were they given this guanguayo, spittle, instead of the bread they make. He [Bayamanaco] left there very indignant because they had asked for it … after all this, Caracaracol returned to join his brothers and he told them what had happened with Bayamanco(el) and of the blow that had been delivered to him by the guanguayo upon his back, which hurt terribly. Then his brothers looked at his back and they saw it was seriously swollen. This swelling grew so much that he was at the point of dying. They then sought to cut it off but were unable. Taking a stone axe, they opened it and out came a live female turtle. Thus they built their house and took care of the turtle. All of the brothers used her in turn, and from her their sons and daughters were born. An Account of the Antiquitites of the Indians, Diligently Gathered by Fray Ramon Pané, A Man Who Knows Their Language, by order of the Admiral [Christopher Columbus].From the translation by José Juan Arrom (to Spanish) and Susan C. Griswold (to English).”

This is again to open your conscious mind a lot of people are walking around unconscious and we need to open those minds up.