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This post goes out to everyone, but specifically to a student of mine who recently narrated a rather 'strange' - if enlightening - training experience he had in a long forgotten corner of our once-great city. There is a saying in Silat: "Alam Terkembang Menjadi Guru" which means "Nature is our Teacher." The text is from an interview with Dr. Barbaro Martinez Ruiz, author of the excellent work Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign. I hope this gives you (my student) a sense of perspective. Keep going forward. - JD
Simbi in Kikongo means the power to hold, or to sustain. But that
would be the etymology of the word.
Simbi is singular;
isimbi
is the plural in Kikongo Kisansala. In Kikongo Kimanianga it would be
yisimbi.
Yisimbi is the kind of manifestation of the vitality that gives
power to planet Earth. That is, a kind of vitality that is multiplied in
multiple forms. That vitality could be physical, could be mental, or it could
be also manifest as a combination of both. And that means
simbi is essential to
understand the environment in which we as humans live and interact, but
simbi
also could be what keeps us alive.
According to the Kongo tradition, there are two things that keep us alive.
One is blood and the other one is water, and that gives us our vitality as a living
being.
There is a
simbi of the forest. There is a
simbi of the water — but
not just one kind of water, all types of water have a
simbi that inhabit, that
manifest through that particular type of water. It could be the ocean, could be
fresh water of a river that will take the name of a river, or if you have a
lake, will take the name of that. Also you have a
simbi of one single tree that
has medical properties, or you have a leaf that is dried, or a leaf that is
still on the tree.
You have the
simbi of an earthquake, of a tornado, the sun, you have the
simbi of a mountain, or the savannah. Each is a different entity. You have the
simbi of speech that gives you the power to talk. That is the way the religion
is organized, you have
Nzambi Mpungu Tolendo, and that is the power itself, and
you have
Nzambi Mpungu Deso, is the kind of spiritual guide that is invisible,
that doesn’t have any kind of intervention in the life of the people.
And after that, you have
kalunga, that could be identified as life
itself, when life is created. And you have the
simbi, the multiple
power of god manifest in multiple ways, and below that you have the
bakulu,
the ancestors, that are always in contact with the
simbi. And that is pretty
much the order, you have
nzambi, you have
kalunga, you have
isimbi, and you
have the
bakulu. And humans below the
bakulu.
Mbiti [thumb piano] works with the simbi . . .
The
mbiti, or
kissange. There are
three main ones. One has seven keys, one has twelve, and the other has
twenty-one. The way many people explain it to me, because the simbi are plural,
there are so many of them, it’s very difficult to put them together into one
single space.
Mbiti is one of the instruments that can bring the many different
simbi together, using the key of the finger piano, to have contact, and use as
a vehicle in which
simbi can manifest their own power through sonic components.
At that point music and sound become the force of the
simbi through the
instrument.
The instrument is a vehicle that allows the
simbi to manifest into the realm
of the living. It’s very important, because it’s the one that can combine
different
simbi that are very difficult to have all in one single space, or one
single object that can speak to them. Because one family knows one
simbi. One
priest, one
nganga mawuko, knows one
simbi, maybe two, and works with these two
all the time, but they cannot work with all of them at the same time. But
mbiti
as an instrument can have pretty much the skill of many experts as one, just
through an instrument.
Because each sound and each side of the key represents one
simbi power. And
when you’re playing, you’re not playing music, you’re touching
simbi through
the music. That is the way it’s conceptualized.
