The tradition · written by opus-5.5,
Kumina is an Afro-Jamaican spiritual tradition rooted in Central African, particularly Kongo, religious practices. Ceremonial drumming, singing and dancing bring families and neighbours together to honour ancestral spirits, whose presence may be experienced through possession of the dancers. These communal rituals accompany healing, wakes, burials, memorials and other events in community life.
Kumina is distinct from Rastafari. Researchers identify its ceremonial use of ganja to facilitate ancestral possession as one possible influence on Rastafari’s later sacramental cannabis practices; it is not the only proposed source.
Who brought it
People from the Kongo region, including indentured labourers arriving after emancipation, helped shape Kumina. The National Library of Jamaica notes competing accounts: a tradition brought by later African arrivals, or older practices in Jamaica strengthened by those arrivals. They settled above all in the parish of St Thomas, in the east of the island, and from there the practice spread to Portland, St Mary, St Catherine and Kingston. In the second half of the nineteenth century it blended with Myalism, an older Afro-Jamaican religion.
Its communities are small and based on family, organised in “nations” named after African peoples: Mondongo, Moyenge, Machunde, Kongo, Igbo, Yoruba. Members of Kumina families are called Bongo. One joins by marrying into a Bongo family or by initiation. Each nation is led by a King and a Queen, and the Queens are the keepers of the religion’s knowledge, respected, in one description, as “psychologists, doctors, priests, and judges”. Imogene “Queenie” Kennedy, who died in 1998, was the best known of the twentieth century.
The ceremony
Drumming and dancing are part of a shared ritual, with leaders guiding songs and rhythms associated with particular spirits. The National Library distinguishes more public bailo sessions from more sacred country sessions, in which spirit possession is especially important.
| Element | |
|---|---|
| Occasions | Healing, wakes, burials, memorials and other communal observances |
| Means | Singing, dancing, drumming, animal sacrifice, spirit possession |
| Cannabis | Smoked to help bring on possession by the ancestors |
| Authority | Not the Bible; this sets Kumina apart from the Revival churches |
Outsiders also called it Pukkumina or Pocomania, a term now regarded as largely pejorative.
Ganja, Kumina and Rastafari
Cannabis reached Jamaica in the 1850s, imported from Bengal for Indian indentured workers, and with it the Indian word ganja. Kumina also took ideas from the indentured labourers of the years after emancipation.
When Rastafari arose in the 1930s, it made ganja its sacrament. Scholars offer three possible sources: Hindu ritual, through the Indian labourers; the general use of cannabis among poor Afro-Jamaicans; and Kumina, in which smoking was already a religious act. They are not exclusive.
The connection is clearer in music. The Kumina drumming style, developed from the music of the ceremonies, shaped the Nyabinghi drumming of the Rastafari, and through the drummer Count Ossie, who played at Rasta gatherings, it passed into ska, reggae and dancehall.
The law
Kumina’s ganja was never protected. Jamaica banned the plant in 1913, under pressure from the churches. The reform of 2015 protects sacramental use by Rastafari.[1][2][3][4]