Evening Courier
Evening Courier is a Luthorian-language Tukarese newspaper providing high-quality coverage of Tukarese news for an international audience.
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January 5279
What is Mbanda?
Brief overview of Tukarali's new official religion
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This month the Assembly of the Republic approved a new law called the Mbanda Act that, among other things, establishes Mbanda as the official state religion of the Tukarese Republic and provides it with significant government support. The use of the term Mbanda and its meaning may be unfamiliar to many, especially given that there are no Mbanda practitioners according to the latest Tukarese census. As the bill establishing Mbanda as the official religion clarifies, the faith does in fact have a significant following in Tukarali under a different name, with roughly 8% of the population practising Inkolo Esintsundu Sizwe Syncretism, an academic and outdated term for Esinsundu-derived syncretism established in the former nation of Ibutho. Mbanda and IESS are similar in that they are both syncretic faiths where the primary component is Esinsundu, but the similarities end here. Unlike IESS, Mbanda is a uniquely Tukarese religion, where, apart from the Esinsundu origin, the main syncretic influences are Hosianism, Daenism, Yazdism, and indigenous Tukarese beliefs. Until recently Mbanda was ignored when it was not downright persecuted, as it recently happened in 5036. But now it has entered prominence with its recognition as a state religion and greater visibility for its practitioners, of whom President Sebastião Fontes Coelho is the most noteworthy example.
Mbanda is a monotheistic religion that believes in a supreme transcendental creator God, assisted by a host of lesser spirits known as the orixás, paralleling the role Yazdān and his assistant ahuras play in Yazdism. These orixás or saints, of Asli origin and name, are syncretized with Aurorian saints and act as forces of nature. Reincarnation and karmic law, of clear Daenic origin, is a core belief in Mbanda, whose practitioners believe souls must pass through various stages of evolution on different material planes before they reach enlightenment. Most Mbanda rituals take place in temples known as terreiros and are led by a priest or priestess known as pai-de-santo or mãe-de-santo ("father-of-saint" or "mother-of-saint"), and consist in the veneration of orixás through fruit offerings and animal sacrifice, as well as ritual drumming and dancing in order to convince an orixá to possess one of the participants.
This latter practice has proven the most controversial, with Hosian ministers, mostly Ameliorate, condemning Mbanda as demon worship and possession by the orixás as demonic possession. In spite of this the Patriotic Party is keen to aggressively promote Mbanda as a pan-Tukarese religion, due to its uniquely Tukarese character and syncretic incorporation of elements from most religions practised in Tukarali. The new policy is explicitly inspired by the establishment of Kanzo in the 31st century, itself a deliberate syncretism of the major Tukarese religions of that time. It is unlikely that government promotion of Mbanda will outlast the current administration, but this quintessentially Tukarese faith's days of obscurity and neglect are now over.
Religious hymn honouring a Mbanda orixá
