Bakulu: To Die is not Enough

Today is the Catholic Feast of All Souls. Over a billion people around the world are celebrating their beloved dead, and assuredly many of them in tandem with other folk beliefs and practices, some by personal choice, others in syncretic colonial inheritance.

How one’s ancestors are honored in Quimbanda varies from house to house, lineage to lineage, practitioner to practitioner. We all acknowledge the power of the Cruzeiro, the Cross of the Cemetery, around which the Souls gather, named and unnamed, dead and ancestor alike, where Omolu reigns and keeps watch. The Cruzeiro rejects no one, it is the place where all dead may be prayed for, regardless of the physical resting place of your beloved dead.

Bakulu, the Kongo-Angola conception of ancestors, forms the foundation of our practice in Quimbanda de Angola. We first secure their blessings to proceed in our work, to stabilize the waters of the Great Ocean as we wade in to call out to our spirits. They provide strength, wisdom and steadfastness when we are lost. The currents of the Calunga are always moving; nothing is stagnant. Bakulu are the anchor that allows us to rest without constant toil. We are the fruit on the Tree, they are the roots which support us.

And yet to die is not enough, there is a journey that each soul is on, with a trajectory and its own conceptions of where it is going, of who each is. This ancestralization of our Dead brings stability to their spirit, and to our very blood. What must be let go must be allowed to, and the individual dead becomes one with the Ancestors through actions on both sides of the Calunga. And through this process we may in turn be the vessels for future generations to enter into the Kingdoms we create and nourish. Through initiation we incorporate the Ancestry of the lineage we join, the quimbandeiros whose work we continue to build upon, whose teachings we cherish and honor.

We call out to the Dead, and to the Mighty Dead, to cross the Great Ocean of Fire, the Calunga, to be in this world with us. We endeavor, through our rites and practices, to ancestralize our spirits, to incorporate Exu and Pombagira into our Ancestry. Where once was spiritual affinity, there is now kinship and foundation. We become inseparable from the Mighty Dead that are Exu and Pombagira. There is no Quimbanda without first acknowledging the Dead.

May the Dead, on this Day, the Feast of All Souls, and all days, be blessed and in turn bless the lives of their descendants. May we inherit the world we create, may we harvest the fields our children plant. May the offerings be accepted, may our medicines be effective, as we remember that we always stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

Bakulu Akua Ukulu.
Salve os mortos! Salve os ancestrais!

Photo taken by: @sarahjezebel
Originally posted on Instagram @cabulamavilekitulakianjila
Reposted on Cabula Mavile Kitula kia Njila