Stories told by plants on graveyards in Northern Angola

Abstract

Background Worldwide, different traditions of symbolic statements in graveyards can be found. However, studies on sub-Saharan Africa are rare. For BaKongo cemeteries, it is only known that they traditionally do not exhibit plants for decoration purposes. Our study wanted to inspect the influence of Portuguese culture due to the long shared colonial past. Methods During 2015 and 2019, plant use in 87 graveyards in 13 municipalities of the province Uíge was documented. Five expert interviews with the village eldest in five municipalities completed the data collection. Results While 24% of the graveyards didn´t have any planting, 27 plant species were found in the remaining ones, including a high percentage of alien species (59%), mainly from the Americas. The most abundant plant species are Euphorbia tirucalli (23%) and Agave sisalana (22%). With increasing distance from the city Uíge (especially towards the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the utilization of living plants in cemeteries is decreasing except along the road. In most of the cases, just one plant species per gravesite was found. Conclusions This unexpected high number of plants might be interpreted as a strong evidence of outside influence. Cultural symbols of the BaKongo cosmology and Christianism appear to coexist or coalesce. Furthermore, plants are used as a marker for graveyards. Modern influences like the use of concrete in proximity to urban areas indicate a certain wealth.

Sixty-seven species newly recorded for the flora of Angola: recent findings from vegetation surveys and herbarium collections

“…The northern provinces are characterized by elements of both the Guineo-Congolian and the Zambezian Regions and form a Regional Transition Zone of high complexity (White 1983). Recent botanical studies in this region have focused on new records or species of vascular plants (Cheek et al 2015;Abrahamczyk et al 2016;Lautenschläger et al 2020b, Smith and, ferns and lycophytes (Mezonda et al 2020), and mosses (Müller 2015;Müller et al 2018Müller et al , 2019, or on the documentation of traditional knowledge regarding plant uses (Göhre et al 2016;Lautenschläger et al 2018Lautenschläger et al , 2020a. Darbyshire et al (2014) updated the checklist of the flowering plants, gymnosperms, and pteridophytes of Lunda-Norte Province provided by Cavaco in 1959. The Bié Plateau in Central Angola is characterized by an undulating, small-scale mosaic of wetlands, grasslands, and miombo woodlands.…”