Many fanciful things are said around the meaning of the word kôngo.

Some, for example, starting from a dubious methodology, want us to believe that kôngo means country of leopards, simply because the ngo component of the term means leopard. But, what becomes of such an argument when we point out that ngo also refers to egg yolk? Would we be in a country of chickens ? 🤣🤣🤣

However, the word has a meanings that require no analysis to be understood. In Kinkîmba, the Kôngo martial initiatory academy, the term was pronounced khôngo and alluded to the commandments of Nzâmbi Ampûngu Tulêndo, the Most High.

In the Kimpasi, the Kôngo academy of divine mystery, the same commandments were designated by “nkondo mi Nzâmbi”. As for the term kôngo, it designated the place of initiation, i.e., where the divine science was taught.

A serious hermeneutical approach consists in seeking for the verb from which stems a word. In the case of kôngo it is kônga which is easily offered to the mind.

From kônga we take kongudila to judge. However, in the Kongo tradition the goal of a court judgment is always to maintain the unity of the kânda (clan). In this case the maxim used is, “Nsing’akânda ningina ka tabuka ko” (the clan bond can be strained but must never be broken). And if the problem was at the level of the makânda (plural of kânda), it is the unity of the nation that should be preserved: Kôngo tadi, kabue mbasinga.

The tradition of Kimpasi teaches us that the goal assigned by the ancestors to the Kongo nation is to unify Black people. And the instrument par excellence of this unification is the kôngo (the divine mystery).

Since 2008, our initiatory academy, Nzil’Alowa, is demonstrating that Bukôngo, the Kongo religion, is an exact science. However, science has a universal import. A comparative study shows that this scientific configuration is also that of the religion of Kemet and Sumer. It is therefore the original form of African traditional religion.

Science having a universal vocation, re-establishing this high dimension of our religion in its different variants will bring the cultural unity of Africa so sought by Pan-Africanism. In this, the mission of the Kôngo will be accomplished: to unify Black people.