Philadelphia that dwells along the Schuylkill River.
Other festivals held in June are the various
“Juneteenth” celebrations that commemorate the
news of emancipation reaching the last of enslaved
African communities. Nakumbuka, a Kiswahili
term meaning “I remember,” is a solemn public
remembrance held each November to commemorate
those unknown Africans who suffered and died
resisting enslavement.
Jomo Nkombe, a Tanzanian who lived in
Canada, conceived the idea of Nakumbuka in
1990, and it was embraced by the World Pan
African Movement held in Lagos, Nigeria, in
- Nakumbuka Day celebrations are now held
throughout the African world. The Fi Wi Sinting,
again a Kiswahili phrase meaning “It is ours,”
was started by Pauline (Sister P) Petinaud in 1991
as a way to raise funds for a rural school in
Jamaica. It has grown into a yearly celebration of
Afro-Jamaican culture held during Black History
Month. Although these celebrations began rela-
tively recently, have structure and regularity, and
in a sense have become neo-African rituals, Rites
of Reclamation can be traced back to the early
stages of the encounter between Africa and
Europe, when they were far less formal. These
rites included physical and spiritual resistance to
enslavement, such as shipboard mutinies, upris-
ings, and escapes; and secret meetings held in the
woods, where Africans refused to let European
saints, Gods, beliefs, and styles of worship replace
African ones. A more sobering Rite of
Reclamation was enacted by those Africans who
chose suicide as a method to reclaim themselves.
Not all rites of reclamation involve the living.
In Vodun, there is an actual ritual called Rites
of Reclamation (Retire Mo Nan Dlo). This is per-
formed 1 year and 1 day after a person dies. The
purpose is to call the animating force of the body,
the person’sGros Bon Ange (Big Good Angel),
from the community of the Ancestral Dead. Once
it is in its new “body,” a special container called a
Govi, it can participate in the living community
once again by giving guidance and advice. This
practice is essential to Vodun cosmology, which
acknowledges that life constitutes a cycle and
people must be reclaimed from the land of the
ancestors so that they may continue to be active
members of the community. Whether it is reclaim-
ing a person’s spirit, preparing a home altar, or
journeying on a trip to Kemet, rites of reclamation
have been and continue to be an essential aspect
of the African experience.Denise MartinSeealsoCeremonies; RitualsFurther Readings
Cannon-Brown, W. (2007).Nefer:The Aesthetic Ideal in
Classical Egypt. New York: Routledge.
Karenga, M. (2006).Maat:The Moral Ideal in Ancient
Egypt. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press.RITUALS
Rituals are set forms or prescribed procedures for
carrying out religious actions or ceremonies.
African rituals constitute collective statements of
continuity and unity that function to express
communal definition through group participa-
tion. People assimilate the religious ideas and
practices that are held or observed by their fami-
lies. Through communities and families, rituals
are passed down from one generation to the next
across centuries. Rituals are vital. When the life
and safety of a community are threatened, rituals
can psychologically and emotionally strengthen
the community’s members by creating a sense of
order. The African propensity to seek and main-
tain order, balance, and reciprocity is grounded in
Maat, the guiding principle of African ethical
existence articulated best in ancient Kemetic
(Egyptian) culture and society.
African people have carried their culture and its
rituals wherever they have journeyed through time
and space. Rituals have survived and sustained
spiritual order even under the extreme chaos
imposed during the period of Maafa (disaster in
Kiswahili), the most prominent aspect of which is
the European- and Arabian-dominated trade in
enslaved Africans. In the example of the Yoruba
religious tradition carried to the Americas and the
Caribbean from Africa in the 16th century, We
find adherents performing the same rituals in
Brazil, Cuba, the United States, and other coun-
tries in the 21st century.Rituals 575