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“Versions of some of the ritual authorities responsible for Kongo herbalistic healing and divination appeared in the Americas and served as avatars of Kongo and Angola lore in the New World. Kongo ritual experts in Cuba took the appropriate ancient name banganga; those in the United States were known largely as ‘conjurors’ and ‘root-persons’; and others in Brazil were called pae de santo and mae de santo, names apparently originating in Yoruba worship—babalorisha and iyalorisha, ‘father of the saint’ and ‘mother of the saint.’ These ritual authorities were largely responsible for the dissemination of Kongo religious and artistic culture throughout the New World.”
-Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit
