Palo Monte and Mayombe Lineages

Record summary

Palo Monte, including branches often called Mayombe, Kimbisa, and Briyumba, developed among Central African-descended communities in Cuba through the nineteenth century and later diaspora. Its practices involve initiation, ritual objects such as prendas or ngangas, divination, healing, and relations with the dead, though terminology and organization vary by lineage. It matters for comparison as a durable esoteric tradition shaped by African continuities, colonial repression, Catholic overlap, and modern media. Claims of sorcery should be separated from ethnographic description and criminalizing folklore.