What is Palo Mayombe?

Palo Mayombe is a living initiatic religion passed orally from teacher to initiate. Thus it can only be fully understood within the context of a spiritual lineage (rama) and house (munanso) as each will have their own set of secret teachings, taboos and techniques through which they interact with the spirit and natural world. This initiatory structure is paramount to understanding the religion. It empowers the initiate with a spiritual line of ancestral practitioners thereby granting him or her a degree of authority to work the spirits and the dead; an authority that is otherwise unattainable by any single individual on their own. Thus you cannot simply learn Palo from books, videos or through solitary practice. I encourage everyone to re-read those last two sentences; not because they are well written, but rather because of the fundamental importance of the message … no lineage, no spiritual authority to work Palo, simple as that!

The underlying cosmology in Palo is one of animism.  In short, everything has spirit (nkisi) and it is the Palero’s role to form pacts and work with the spiritual landscape in order  to produce sacred medicines for the community and to personally grow, transform and evolve spiritually. There is a creator god who we call Nzambi who is the a catalyzing agent of creation rather than a judging and wrathful demiurgic god and is far removed from our day-to-day human concerns. We do catch glimpses of Nzambi expressed throughout the universe; perhaps the most prominent are his celestial manifestations as the masculine power of the Sun (Ntango) and her feminine manifestation as the Moon (Ngonde).

While there is no official pantheon of deities in Palo, there are various catalogs of spirits and named forces of nature (mpungu). This is a major point of misinformation on the web and in books. Even some otherwise reputable sources will discus a pseudo pantheon of Palo mpungos as core to the tradition, but this is not entirely accurate, at least not when discussing pure Palo Mayombe. Mpungos are the essential forces of creation and life on earth, many are indeed universal, while others can pertain to specific landscapes or natural phenomena of a region and even specific lineages.

The ritual life and heartbeat of the religion is centered on the Munanzo and in particular around a foundational Nganga (prenda or fundamento) to which initiates (ngueyos) are sworn to serve. At very high level the Nganga is the physical vessel in which Nkisi, Mpungu and Nfumbe ( spirit of the dead) reside, interact with the physical world and receive offerings and sacrifice. Should an ngueyo be deemed ready to become a Tata Nganga or Yaya Nganga they will receive an Nganga birthed from the fundamento of their godfather aligned to the specific ancestral , natural and cosmic forces that correspond to their own spirit. As a Tata (‘Father’) or Yaya (‘Mother’) of the religion progresses on their spiritual paths, they may receive other ngangas linked to the forces of different Mpungu for specific purposes.

The belief in the totality of Nzambi together with the importance of the ancestors (bakulu) and making pacts and working with the spirits of nature (mpungu) the landscape (basimbi) and the dead (nfumbe) are the foundational tenets of the religion. It is a core ideology that originates with the traditional Bantu religions of the Bakongo people of central Africa and thus Palo is identified as Regla-Kongo (Congo Law/Rules). But despite this Congolese foundation, Palo as we know it does not exist in this exact form in Africa.

Palo as we know today emerged in Cuba when escaped Bakongo slaves, their ancestors and sprits and their decedents came into contact with the the Cuban wilderness. A simple testament to this fact is that the entirety of the plants, herbs and animals we employ for medicine and ritual are of Caribbean origin. It it thus improper to say that Palo is an ATR in the strict sense since it is not a direct import – or a true continuation – of an African religion. It is however a diasporatic offspring of Bantu belief systems and perhaps best described as a cousin-tradition to the Nkisi cults of the Congo.

Is Palo related to Santeria?

The short answer is No!

Despite what you have read or seen on the internet, Palo has nothing to do with the Yoruba/Lukumi religion (Ifa, Ocha, Santeria). The Yoruba people are from the western African Coast (modern day Nigeria and Benin) and compose an entirely different ethnic group (culture, language, religion, etc.) than the Bantu people of the Kongo traditions. This is import to understand. To lump them into one “African” tradition is as ignorant as saying that all Asian traditions or all European traditions compose one cultural group simply because they share a continent.

Today the lines between the Congolese Regla-Kongo and the Yoruban Regla-Ocha or Regla-IFA are indeed very blurred in Cuba and elsewhere around the world as many initiates into Palo are also initiated into Santeria or Ocha and some Tatas are also practicing Babalawos (priest of Ifa). In Cuba, many people will simply refer to the whole corpus of IFA, Ocha and Palo traditions alongside Catholicism and Kardecian spiritualism as simply “religion” without any other descriptors.

The practices however don’t mix, and any practitioner worth his/her salt will keep them and their protocols separate. Ocha is Ocha and Palo is Palo. Each beautiful in their own right.

Reglas & Ramas of Palo

Outside of Cuba, Palo is generally called Palo Mayombe ; however, this is a misnomer since not all lineages and houses are truly Mayombe – in fact, most are not. To my knowledge there is only one (perhaps a couple) Munanzo outside of Cuba that are accepted as a true Mayombe houses amongst the elders on the Island.

In Cuba, “Palo Monte” is used far more frequently to speak to the entire body of Regla-Kongo Palo tradition. Other terms such as Palo Cruzado (‘crossed palo’, denoting heavy syncretization with other religions), Palo Cristiano (‘Christian palo’) and Palo Judio (‘Jewish palo’, not actually jewish, but simply non-Christian) deserve a brief mention. However, these are not specific ramas of Palo, but rather terms that are used to denote the degree of syncretism and mixing in individual lineages and practices.

There are many houses (munansos) and foundational lineages (ramas) of Palo Monte, but commonly they are understood to fit within three major  forms or sub ‘reglas’ within the greater Regla-Kongo:

1. Mayombe

2. Biyumba (Vrillumba o Brillumba)

3. Kimbiza

Palo Mayombe is the oldest and most orthodox form of Palo. The origins trace back to a specific Nkisi cult in the Mayombe region of Cabinda (NW Congo) from where it gets its name and the tradition came into its own in the caves and wilderness of the Pinar del Rio highlands of Cuba. Mayomberos typically shun away from syncretism and are extremely orthodox in our practices. The most well known of the Mayombe houses are the houses of “Batalla Saca Empeño” and “Bejuco Nfinda”.

Palo Biyumba developed out of Palo Mayombe and rose in popularity during Cuba’s war of Independence. It was the first regla to initiate people of non-Bantu ancestry and frequently worked with and developed pacts with dead spirits of no particular blood or spiritual lineage (often times to send them out for warring intentions). It is a vast regla and has many ramas and sub-lineages. Indeed, a great number of houses today are some offshoot of Biyumba. Broadly speaking, Palo Biyumba is more oriented toward the various mpungos and over time some lineages have introduced a degree of syncretization with elements of Ocha and Catholicism.

Palo Kimbisa was popular on the eastern side of the Cuban island and has absorbed many influences from Catholicism to Freemasonry to Haitian Vodou. Kimbisa likely originated within an already syncretized Catholic-Kongo religious tradition from the Kingdom of Kongo following Kimpa Vita’s Christian reform in the 18th C. In Kimbisa the mpungos are paramount and are seen as divinities and saints. Thus, Kimbiseros will venerate the mpungos and focus much of their work calling upon them, instead of upon the dead. The most well known Kimbisa rama is Andrés Petit’s La Regla Kimbisa de Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje.

The Kimbisa prendas/ngangas I have seen also tend to be huge in comparison to Mayombe. Although my elders have reassured me that there are Kimbisa prendas that are built almost identical to Mayombe as there is more variance per house/lineage than across the greater sub-reglas. It is also common to see Kimbisa (as well as Briyumba) prendas with crucifixes. Moreover, many Kimbiseros and Biymberos will make a distinction between prendas judias or prendas ndoki(those without crucifixes and containing the bones of non-baptized individuals) used to curse, kill, and other malefica; and prendas cristianas (with cross and baptized nfumbe) used to heal and general benefica. This distinction does not appear in Mayombe.

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Assortment of now defunct/dormant Briyumba Ngangas on display in the Museo Municipal de Regla

Palo & Necromancy

The issue of necromancy is one that is difficult to answer flat out as it will greatly depend on the querent’s definition of the term. What is necromancy?  If your vision of necromancy is hollywood-style  “raising the dead” to perform tasks commanded by the Ngangulero, then most definitely not! However, if for you – as for me – necromancy encapsulates ancestor veneration, communication and forming working relationships with the dead; then indeed Palo has necromantic elements. As I have discussed in The Ancestors and the Dead and Honoring the Ancestors, our beloved dead are our strongest allies, teachers, and guides in spiritual matters.

I have no problems with the term necromancy.  I also firmly believe that necromancy – in its base etymological meaning from the Greek νεκρός (nekrós), “dead” and μαντεία (manteía), “prophecy”, “oracle”, or “divination” is at the core of nearly all magical and mystical religious systems. It is that ancestral component that links the physical world of the living to the spiritual world of the dead; thus, even mainstream religions are necromantic in this sense. What do Christians do? They venerate the spiritual ancestor of their religion, who just so happens to be represented as a dead man on the cross. Through prayers directed to him – in other words, by speaking to the dead – the faithful seek wellbeing for themselves and their family in this life and the next.  Catholics take this one step further and venerate the dead through the cult of saints even storing their body parts as relics and objects of worship.

But here is the truth; there is nothing dark or sinister about death or the dead. It is part of the natural cycle of existence. In nature, death always births new life!

Death, as understood in Palo and by countless traditional societies, is a new beginning – one of eternal existence in the world of the spirits, not some unclean, detested and feared finality as viewed by modern western society.

However, brace yourself, for I am about to reveal a major secret…well actually not, it is just a simple truth. Palo  does not focus on the dead, but rather on Nature itself! The word “Palo” literally means “stick” and is used colloquially to reference the sticks, roots and herbs used to make the sacred medicines of the religion. The dead and the ancestors are part of the natural spiritual landscape and thus form an integral component of the tradition, but contrary to popular belief, are not the sole focus.