Simbi

Lore & Background

The Bakongo people traditionally believe that bisimbi are magical water spirits (in Kikongo: nkisi mia mamba) that can appear as a person, a snake, pottery, a calabash vine, or Kalûnga, a spark of fire, similar to the spark that begot the universe in Kongo creation mythology. There have also been claims of bisimbi appearing as birds, twisted trees, and mermaid-like beings. They are seen as the guardians of nature and the intermediaries who travel the Kalûnga Line between Ku Seke, the physical world of the living, and Ku Mpémba, the spiritual world of the ancestors. Bisimbi are also believed to be spiritual guides, using storytelling and oral tradition to connect the living to the ancestors and their history.

The earliest known record of simbi spirits in the Americas was recorded by a European observer, but no reliable account supports a penalty of death for telling about seeing a simbi.

Reader's Guide

The significance of simbi lies in their role as a cultural and spiritual bridge between Central Africa and the African diaspora. Because forty percent of Africans taken during the Atlantic slave trade came from Central Africa's Congo Basin, and forty percent of all enslaved people brought to South Carolina between 1733 and 1807 were people of Kongo or Ambundu descent from Angola, bisimbi became revered in the United States in Black American communities in Hoodoo tradition across the American South. The belief that bisimbi 'inhabit rocks, gullies, streams, and pools, and are able to influence the fertility and well-being of those living in the area' was translocated to the United States by enslaved Bakongo and Mbundu peoples.

In Haitian Vodou, bisimbi such as Mami Wata, Nsimba, and Nzuzi are still nlongo, or sacred, in traditional Haitian spirituality and culture. In the Afro-Cuban religion Palo, bisimbi are called both Nkitas and Mpungus and are believed to be guardians of all of nature, including lakes, forests, or mountains. The legacy of simbi also appears in Black American folklore, such as the Gullah Geechee children's story Sukey and the Mermaid, which comes from the belief in Simbi spirits. In popular culture, Governor General Michaëlle Jean of Canada, born in Haiti, bears two simbi serpents as supporters on her coat of arms.

Did You Know?

• The word simbi may derive from simba, a Kikongo word meaning 'to hold, keep, preserve.'
• The earliest known record of simbi spirits in the Americas was recorded in the nineteenth century by Edmund Ruffin at Pooshee plantation in South Carolina.