Among the symbols of Central Africa, few have had a life as long and as branching as the Kongo cosmogram. It is a simple sign in form: a cross inscribed in a circle, with small discs at the ends of its arms. Yet it holds an entire vision of the world, of time and of human destiny. In Kikongo it is referred to with expressions such as dikenga dia Kongo or tendwa nza Kongo.
The Kingdom of Kongo
The symbol belongs to the cultural universe of the BaKongo, a Bantu-speaking people settled along the lower course of the Congo River, in an area now divided between Angola, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here flourished the Kingdom of Kongo, a structured state with a capital, a sovereign and a network of provinces.
At the end of the fifteenth century the kingdom came into contact with the Portuguese, and its king was baptised. Christianity spread through the court and part of the population, intertwining with local religious ideas. This encounter matters for understanding the history of the cosmogram, as we shall see.
The structure of the sign
To read the cosmogram it helps to break it down into its elements.
- The horizontal line is called kalunga. It represents the boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead, often imagined as a vast expanse of water, the sea or a river, or as the surface of a mirror.
- The upper half is the world of the living, the land of human beings.
- The lower half is mpemba, the world of the dead and the ancestors, associated with white, the colour of the clay used in rites and of the spirit world.
- The vertical line joins the two worlds: it is the axis of power and of communication between the sky, the earth and the realm below.
The outer circle signifies the continuous movement linking all the parts.
The four moments of the sun
The best-known key to the cosmogram is the path of the sun, each moment of which corresponds to a phase of human life. In the reading proposed by the Congolese scholar Fu-Kiau Bunseki, the four points have precise names:
| Point | Moment of the sun | Phase of life |
|---|---|---|
| Kala | dawn | birth, beginning |
| Tukula | noon | maturity, fullness of strength |
| Luvemba | sunset | death, passage |
| Musoni | midnight | existence in the world of the ancestors, gestation of a new beginning |
Just as the sun sets and then rises again, the human being crosses the kalunga at death and continues to exist in the world of the dead. In this conception life is a cycle: death is not the end but a passage to another condition, from which one may return through the generations.
A sign to be traced, not only looked at
The cosmogram was not an emblem to be hung on a wall. Ethnographic sources describe it as a sign to be traced on the ground at solemn moments. In oaths, for example, a person might stand upon the cross drawn on the ground: they thus stood symbolically between the world of the living and that of the dead, calling the ancestors to witness the truth of their words.
The point where the two lines meet is considered a place of utmost power, a true cosmic crossroads.
The encounter with the Christian cross
When Christianity reached Kongo, the cross brought by the missionaries was received in a context where the crossed sign already had a deep meaning. Art historians have studied Kongo brass crucifixes, produced over centuries: they show European elements, but also local features revealing that the cross was read through the lens of the cosmogram, as an image of the passage between life and death.
Traces in the Americas
The American art historian Robert Farris Thompson, in his book Flash of the Spirit, proposed recognising the legacy of the cosmogram in several diaspora traditions:
- in the firmas of Cuban Palo Monte, traced in chalk;
- in certain graphic signs linked to Kongo-rooted traditions in Brazil;
- in some funerary customs documented in African American communities of the southern United States, such as decorating graves with objects linked to water and light.
Some of these interpretations are debated by scholars, but they have had the merit of drawing attention to the continuity of Kongo thought across the Atlantic.
In short
- The Kongo cosmogram is a cross inscribed in a circle representing the world and human destiny.
- The horizontal line, the kalunga, separates the world of the living from mpemba, the world of the dead.
- The four points follow the path of the sun and the phases of life: birth, maturity, death, rebirth.
- It was a sign traced on the ground, used for example in oaths.
- Its legacy has been recognised in Kongo crucifixes and in various diaspora traditions.
