The nganga, also called the prenda, is the consecrated vessel at the heart of Palo, the Kongo-derived religion of Cuba, and the descendant of the Kongo nkisi.
The centre of the religion
Held in an iron cauldron, the nganga is understood to concentrate the spirit of a dead person together with the powers of the earth, the forest and the animals, bound into a pact with the palero who keeps it and works with it on behalf of the living. It is the source of the priest's power and the focus of the religion's ritual. Its assembly and its contents are closed initiatory knowledge and are not described here; this entry records only that the vessel exists and what public role it holds.
Inheritance and reputation
The nganga carries the Central African nkisi into the Americas, reconstituted in Cuba by enslaved people from the Kongo region and their descendants as the central object of the Reglas de Congo. Because it houses a spirit of the dead and because its workings are secret, it has been the object of intense outside sensationalism casting Palo as black magic. The tradition, like Vodou, distinguishes work done to heal and protect from work done to harm, and the reduction of the whole religion to the latter is a distortion.