Thread by @Paracelsus1092

In Oct 2012 a strange object was found whilst a canal was being drained in western Massachusetts. A cauldron - filled with railroad spikes, a knife, coins, herbs, a padlock and a human skull.

Welcome to the world of Palo Mayombe in America 🧵

Afro-syncretic religions in the Americas are plentiful, and include some well known examples like Santeria, Haitian Voodoo and Rastafari. These religions are a mix of native African and American beliefs, Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

The exact 'flavour' of these diaspora religions often depends on which African peoples they originated with - for example Santeria is derived in part from the Yoruban religions of West Africa.

Palo, or Palo Mayombe, is a set of religious and spiritual practices which are rooted in the beliefs of the Bakongo people from the Kingdom of Kongo. Palo emerged from Bakongo slave descendants in Cuba, in distinction to Yoruban-Catholicism elsewhere on the island.

Palo is a loose religion with no orthodoxies or central authority. A creator deity called Nsambi is invoked, but most veneration is directed towards ancestral spirits and animistic nature spirits called mpungus. The dead have power over the living and must be engaged with.

The most well known method for Palo practitioners to work with the dead is through the creation of a special object called an nganga. This spirit-vessel, typically an iron cauldron or pot, becomes a home for a particular mpungu and is believed to be alive.

Creating an nganga involves entering into a relationship with a spirit. The cauldron is filled with soil, special sticks, offerings and has to be fed with animal sacrifices and food. Each one is unique and different objects can be found in them depending on the particular spirit

Human bones are added as the practitioner grows in confidence and experience. These are often taken from graveyards, guided by a spirit the Palo worshipper will exhume a body and placate the spirit with wine and cigar smoke.

The power of the nganga is said to exert a domineering will over the practitioner, and the two may clash in a struggle. Some may be dominated by their nganga , becoming a servant or even driven insane. The spirit may become jealous and cause misfortune or accidents.

Sometimes the nganga may demand blood from its creator, or from other victims, which may have to be placated or ignored. The Palo practitioner might have to trick the spirit or exert his will over it, berating it or beating and whipping it.

Such an intimate relationship with the nganga is one of the key features of the practice, and the offerings may spill over the cauldron and begin to take up large amounts of space in a house. The blood, rum, soil, food, tobacco and other offerings become an intense combination.

In the nganga mentioned at the beginning, railroad spikes were found in the cauldron. These are associated with evil or nganga judía. Such spikes are an 'anti-crucifix', and the intention of the spirit may be malevolent. Bones of murderers or insane people might have been added.

Examples of grave robbing to provide bones for ngangas have been identified in the United States. Here two men were charged with robbing four military graves for the skulls of veterans in order to create powerful spirit-vessels.

Northern New Jersey and Newark both saw Palo practitioners arrested in the 1990s for grave robbing and corpse desecration, including of an infant and potentially a known mobster, presumably for their extra spiritual power.

In 2015 a man was arrested in Massachusetts for stealing bones from family mausoleums, he claimed to be a Palo priest.

Probably the most crazed example was the cultist serial killer Adolfo Constanzo, who ran a 'narcosatanist' gang which resulted in him killing people to feed to his own nganga.

Obviously the vast majority of Palo practitioners are not Adolfo Constanzo, and the Palo religion is typically a benevolent way of engaging with ancestral spirits for love, luck, fortune and well being.

However, the use of human bones as a standard practice presents huge challenges to law enforcement and medical authorities, who may have no idea how the bones were procured and how they may have been treated, including the use of elemental mercury.

I didn't know until I researched for this thread that Azealia Banks practices Palo Mayombe, and she may have exhumed her pet cat to add to her stylish nganga. Brujx Womanism indeed!