Conference Agenda

Music and ritual played an integral role at the royal court of the early modern kingdom of Kongo in vibrant manifestations of indigenous traditions, spiritual practices, social hierarchies, political power, and cultural identity in Afro-European encounters. The adoption of Christianity as the state religion in the 1490s led to the creation of an Afro-European Christian music influenced by both traditions. Yet while scholars have worked extensively on early modern cultural and religious histories of the Atlantic world, demonstrating the impact of African Catholicism emanating from West Central Africa on the emergence of African-Atlantic performance traditions, few musicological studies have focused on music and spirituality in 16^th- and 17^th-century Kongo and Afro-European musical manifestations of Christianity. Drawing on foreign travelers’ narratives, together with visual and textual components from missionary archives, this paper explores the role of music-making and musical instruments in indigenous ritual and religious practices in the kingdom of Kongo, and how these impacted on local Afro-European interactions and the development of a distinct Afro-European Christian music. First, it focuses on music in relation to traditional Kikongo spiritual practices, rites and ceremonies, which included chanting, song and ululation, especially in spiritual communion with nature. Second, it traces evidence of the incorporation of European sacred music (hymns, chants and litanies) alongside local rituals, Kikongo texts and instrumentation, which reflected the cultural syncretism developing after the advent of Christianity in the region and created a layered and dynamic hybrid sound. Lastly, it centers on Afro-Catholic performances, such as the sanga, which served as further musical expressions of this form of African Catholicism. Studies have analyzed the Afro-European visual and symbolic components of these ritualized performances, articulated in the choreography, dress and material symbolism, however their unique sound worlds have yet to be considered as another layer of Afro-European musical synergies. These transform our understanding of early musical practices in the region before 1800, African music and instruments in relation to spirituality and rite, and global interactions between Africans and Europeans unfolding outside of a colonial context which substantially contributed to the multifaceted and intersecting musical identities of the early modern world.