Maroonage as an Approach to Afrikan Spiritual Traditions
The concept of Kilɔmbonu (Maroonage) is simple yet dynamic. In its simplest form, Kilɔmbonu (the Kongo-Ajã combined word we use for Maroonage) is comprised of the concepts and ideas of culture and sovereignty manifested. Hwɛndo (“Culture”) is all aspects of living life – economics, finance, spirituality, defense, language, worldview, marriage, courting, kwk. That’s the ideology. Physically, Maroonage often comes about when those who have such ideas realize they have to separate themselves (in various forms) from those who do not hold such a worldview, and are often directly or indirectly in opposition to those noble sentiments of mɛdésúsínínɔ (sovereignty). Afrikan monarchies have been created from this approach. Many are familiar with the Maroons of Jamaica and the Quilombos (Kilombos) of Brazil. These were communities set up by Afrikans who had escaped from captivity who continued to live their culture, spiritual traditions, and worldview. Unfortunately, some of them, especially many of the Jamaican Maroons, turned their backs on true sovereignty and ended up cooperating with the British putting many escaped Afrikans back into caltivity. Well, we don’t count them as Maroons.
Maroonage is very rarely talked about as an approach to the way we live our Afrikan spiritual traditions. It seems to be a scary topic to broach for the religious minded practitioner. We take Maroonage to be the only viable approach to obtain true cultural, spiritual, economic, and physical sovereignty. It is the true healing, and not the continuous patching up of old wounds that religious thought brings.
A degree of separation will have to come about for the success of Maroonage to manifest. Separation can come physically, mentally, spiritually or all of the above. It’s about sovereign space and that space starts within the Afrikan mind.
By Ayìnɔn Àgɛ̀lɔ̀gbàgàn Fáwensagun Jǐsovì Azàsinkpontín Àgbɔ̀vì I
Revised from my book “Ìwákiri: An Afrikan Spiritual Quest”
In the Ajã language, the word xɛxó means tales, story, fable, narrative, myth.
Myths are stories that narrate the structure and origins of a culture. They reveal the symbols, meanings, and values that make up the foundations of a culture. They are far from the stereotypical “fanciful” ideas that many deem them as. They deal with the very real and essential concerns of the culture that created them. Regardless, all people must keep a sense of their origins as many historical facts are intermingled within their myths.
Purposes of Myth
Myths present guidelines for living
For instance, when myths tell about the attitudes and activities of deities, the moral tone implies society’s expectation for our own behavior and standards based upon the heavenly example.
Myths grant continuity and stability to a culture
They foster a shared set of perspectives, values, and history. The myths of the culture reflect a collective worldview in which all life’s challenges are handled according to the ancient accumulated wisdom of their own cultural myths.
Myths justify a culture’s activities.
Through the traditionalism contained within myth and its respective “characters” (deities, hero, sheros, etc.), myths establish a culture’s customs, rituals, religious tenets and structure, laws, social order, power hierarchies, territorial claims, aesthetics, holy days, and other recurring events. By extension myths can establish a culture’s technical approach to civilization.
Myths give meaning to life
A true understanding of myth within this realm all of a sudden makes our pains become our sacred lessons.
Myths explain the unexplained
They reveal our fate after death and the reasons for crises or miracles, but yet they even retain an aura of mystery for our existence. Every individual has their personal myth. Consciously or unconsciously, we create our own myths. We are heroes in mythic journeys by which we develop our own sagas – our tales of tribulation and triumph. Thus, the truly satisfying and exciting myths are those which arise from our own passions, dreams, visions, and experiences. Myth, combined with ritual, gives us very sure methods in dealing with the core of the human psyche. What is your myth?
Awŏvì (Entity-Chaos), Its Yõvó Enemy-Parasite Agent and How to Overcome Them
From a Maroon perspective, we have discovered and expounded upon the concept of the -enemy-parasite, how it operates from outside, how it effects Afrikans from without and within, and solutions on how to remove it. We expound on it here in brief with these excerpts from my book “The Kilombo Paradigm: Maroon Sovereignty Through Vodun Culture”.
When we say kɛn-nùvíɖogbɛ or “enemy-parasite”, we are speaking of the historical enemies and oppressors of Afrikan people. Those are primarily the European and Arab. Yet, in truth, when you break it down the enemy-parasite has conquered nothing of great substance. They are as large, or as hegemonic as we are intimidated by their confused and boisterous machinations. What they have done is to zealously accommodate themselves as agents of the entity-chaos. This is the more formidable challenge. Its existence antedates the enemy-parasite. In Vodún, this is the spirit entity called Awŏvì.
The enemy-parasite is a small thing. It is like those pesky yet weak lower level spirits of bad intent who must have hosts (preferably those weaker in spirit and open to such negation) in order that they may find expression. They are what people make and allow them to be.
We must learn to recognize intrinsic and extrinsic challenges. We must recognize the enemy-parasite and the entity-chaos that we carry unconsciously in the recesses of our psyche; their major vehicle. We must know the entity-chaos, its vehicles, and the enemy-parasite in all of their manifestations. This will take continual and intense study and analysis of authentic Afrikan cultures and spiritual sciences.
The agents of destruction (the yõvó – historical enemies and would be destroyers of Afrikan people) are no more than agents. They act in the service of an entity greater than themselves. They have embraced it, celebrated it, and defined themselves within it. It is an entity that has no name. The closest descriptive term in Vodún culture is Awŏvì (leader of the spirits of complete and uncontrollable chaos).
Don’t Continue to be a Host to the Enemy-Parasite: Build Up Your Spiritual/Cultural Immune System
Notice that we use the term parasite. Parasites use hosts to survive and perpetuate themselves. Like a marauding, viral disease, it senses the internal weaknesses and the self-compromised defenses of a possible host. It then infiltrates, neutralizes the host’s defenses, camouflages and multiplies itself, and finally overwhelms the host in a feeding frenzy. In its greedy, blinded engorgement, it eventually exhausts itself. A weakened host galvanizes heretofore unrecognized resources and mounts a renewed offensive that facilitates its own recovery and expulsion of the disease. It is not enough, however, to merely arrest or contain the disease. It must be expelled.
The problem is that some hosts don’t know they are hosts and are devoured from within. Some Afrikans are agents of their own destruction by aiding the ailments brought by the enemy-parasite. This is why a Maroon approach to healing and sovereignty is very important. The Maroon realizes that there may be more power in our quality than our quantity.
The enemy-parasite and the entity-chaos are virulent and insidious. The consequence of any accommodation of the enemy-parasite at this point in our history will be a perpetually enfeebled and humiliating subservience.
Check list on overcoming the entity-chaos and its agent, the enemy-parasite
– learn the various cultured ways to identify the Enemy-Parasite in all forms
-check yourself that you do not aid white supremacy (this includes Arabs). Check for the inner enemy.
– return to your original culture and realize it has the keys to empowerment
– live your culture with every intent of achieving proper family development, nation building, and sovereignty
Kani ka bwe, kana ku lumoso-ku lubakala-ku n’twala-ku nima-mu zulu evo mu nsi ukwenda, vutukisa va didi i yand. No matter what, you may walk leftwards, rightwards, forwards, backwards, upwards or downwards, you must come back to the core/center.
The holy Odù Ifá Ọ̀ṣẹ́ Ògúndá states:
E baa lo loo lo bi olo
E baa re ree re bi ere
Ibi ti e ti lo naa
Le o pada si
Dífá fun Ojola
Ọmọ Ere L’apa
E ma ma paa o
Eran ab’ohun ni o
e ye e ma p’Ojola
Ọmọ Ere L’apa
Ifá ni Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ lo máà leke
Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ lo máà gbeniyan
No matter how far you wander like the grindstone
No matter how far you wind like the boa constrictor
It is your starting point
to which you shall all return
These were the declarations of Ifá to the royal python
the offspring of the boa constrictor of Apa town
Pray, do not slay it
Do not slay the royal python
The offspring of the boa constrictor of Apa town
Ifá says Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ will prevail
Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ will allow mankind to prevail.
*Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ – the original primordial wisdom and the true name of the Yorùbá spiritual and cultural way of life
It is my belief that most of the problems in our Afrikan communities stem from the fact that we have forgotten how to walk in what the Kongo call the 7th direction; the direction within. Abrahamic religious devotion and distortion is part of the reason. Yet, we have the information now. It is time to go back within to the core. The core? Our inner being where our true Creator, ancestors, personal and familial spirits and our true Self reside. To do this is to engage in a constant process of de-polluting and shedding of the old body forced upon you from a deviant oppressive culture. This is our strength and our victory. Claim it, for this is the true knowledge of self.
Ayìnɔ̀n Àgɛ̀lɔ̀gbàgàn Jǐsovì Azàsinkpontín Àgbɔ̀vì I
A View of Demonic Energy from the Afrikan Vodún Perspective
In general theory, the demons have their own sphere. The demons not only live in the dark spiritual worlds (Yɛ́tɔ́mɛ Tágbà), they also live in various aspects of manifestation, including our minds and bodies, as tendencies and impulses. When they invade bodies, people lose their discretion and indulge in senseless acts of violence, anger, cruelty, delusion, greed, pride and lust. Many even pursue these things under some distorted guise that they are doing the right thing. When enough people thus engage, as we can see in our communities, the demonic becomes the new “norm”. By collective name, in African Vodun the demons are called Yɛ Kplinu. For humans, the earth is a battleground for the Yɛkplinu and the Hùn (deities) with the Yɛ Kplinu trying to overtake the mind and soul of the human.
Conceptual rendering of a powerful Yɛ Kplinu
Depending upon our state of mind-soul and propensities, we may nurture either the deities or the demons that that are present. If we “feed” the divinitie, and good thoughts and actions, we allow the divinities to grow in strength and help us in our self-transformation and liberation. On the contrary, if we “feed” the demons, they grow in strength and transform our minds and bodies into virtual hells with the same actions manifesting from that hell. What we do and what we sow within our consciousness, therefore, is of utmost importance in our lives and our wellbeing.
The sacred Vodún teachings called Hwlεngãn describes the demonic beings as destructive, cruel and deluded beings, who most often do not acknowledge Mãwù (the Creator) or Her role as the sole controller of the universe. Because of their self perpetuated ignorance, they most often will lack respect. Even if they do claim to “worship” Mãwù, they do so out of egoism and vanity, to satisfy their personal desires and show off their power and status. If it suits them, they worship Mãwù but if they deem it necessary, they do not mind to oppose Mãwù and fight with Mãwù.
For those hosting the demonic, the true enemy is within themselves. The demonic loves darkness. The divine, or those seeking such, love light. The demonic beings perform actions selfishly out of vanity and egoism; the divine beings perform actions selflessly as offerings to a divine life. The demonic people love to spread chaos, they love noise (especially early in the morning and late at night), confusion and disorder; the
light beings love to spread peace, happiness and orderliness.
Some Expressions of the Demonic
Lack of discrimination: Demonic people lack discrimination since their intelligence is deluded by ignorance and impurities. Therefore, they do not know what actions should be performed and what should be avoided. They refuse to choose right over wrong and they do not spiritually investigate; as they are opposed to pure spirit by nature.
Considerable Lack of balance: Demonic people lack balance. The go to extremes in performing their actions or voicing their opinions, with little consideration for their strengths and weakness and in disproportion to their wealth or power.
Lack of virtue: Demonic people do not believe in virtuous conduct.
Lack of and aversion towards proper knowledge: They often will hold perverted opinions about the nature of the world and creation.
Lack of compassion: Since they cannot discern the truth of our existence, they engage in hostile and cruel actions seeking the destruction.
Lack of respect for truth and justice: Driven by expectations and given over to thoughts of lust and anger, they try to amass wealth by unjust and unlawful means for the fulfillment of desires.
Lack of respect for tradition: Conceited, arrogant, proud, and intoxicated by desire wealth, they perform sacrifices for namesake only out of vanity and against tradition.
Lack of devotion to Mãwù
Lack of respect for the inner Self
In the beginning, the demons used to live in faraway worlds of total darkness. Later they began living in remote places upon earth, where light could not enter. Then they began entering people’s thoughts, as their minds became polluted with degeneracy. In this age of Uga Azi (last and most degraded of the perpetual four ages of the world; a concept we adopted from the Igbo cosmology), the world will increasingly become vulnerable to demonic nature, whereby people lose their sense of right and wrong and become
excessively materialistic and demonic.
Nowadays they live very much inside of people as they begin more and more to give themselves completely to the dominance of the lower being. They demonic powers are now not only influencing people from the outside, but also from the inside. The demons are being allowed to conquer the world, at least temporarily, until another incarnation comes. In fact, all religions are completely under their sway. This is why we find that some of the most foul, darkhearted and vehement people are some of the loudest when it comes to religion and what they often misnomer as spirituality.
Keep in mind that the Yɛ Kplinu demonic spirits cannot exercise any real power that effects our everyday world without humanhosts. When allowed to enter the human and accumulate in certain areas with other humans are likewise influenced, the foundations for spiritual vortexes are laid. Eventually whole cities or the majority of certain cities become a vortext breeding ground for the Yɛ Kplinu. Just take a good look at Atlanta.
We must overstand without a doubt that we are war with various factions; both human and spiritual. We must be equipped. Watch the type of energy you allow to enter your home. Watch the type of energy you’re around at any given time. Clean your houses and vehicles with copal and/or sage (I highly favor copal). Be very mindful of a healthy diet, as there are certain demonic spirits that try to enter through such (we have currently identified, by name, 27 Yɛ Kplinu…they are expounded upon in a section of our 6 hour Vodun Video series that we have for sell at this link).
