Religions of Africa

The Basongye inhabited the central parts of Zaire and believed in Efile Mukulu as the chief god of good. They also believed in the god of evil who was responsible for four kinds of phenomena by the ethnic group. The first phenomenon lies in the fear of common people of sorcerers, thus they would fight against them occasionally. The second phenomenon is that sorcerers used their enormous powers to bring about evil for people.

The third phenomenon has to do with witches and buchi who were people of evil intentions. Finally, the last phenomenon believes that the ancestral spirits could be incarnated and continue existing among the living people. These spirits were believed to be compassionate, though at times they harmed humans. Basongye also believed that the human body was composed of four elements: the spirit, body, shadow and a conscience. They believed that the spirit was more important since after incarnation it splited into different parts. Another important thing to mention is that Basongye believed that it is humans who caused the death, not the gods.

The Basongye also had a special believe in the moon which symbolized water but was combined with the sun to grow crops. They would always conduct rituals on the first day of the moon and every time they saw shooting stars they would symbolize a season of new babies. They believed that the spirit knew Efile Mukulu and was more connected than the body. The will of the spirits was communicated to the body by means of dreams which guided it to identify what it wanted; in this regard the body could only be controlled by the spirit to conducts its will. To conclude, spirit and body, incarnation and magic were the foundation of the religion of Basongye.