Bakongo
There is abundant description about Kongo people's religious ideas in the Christian missionary and colonial era records, but states Thornton, these are written with a hostile bias and their reliability is problematic. The Kongo people's beliefs included "Kilundu" as "Nzambi" (god) or "Jinzambi" (gods, deities), all of which had limited powers. They believed in a creator absolute god, which the 16th-century Christian missionaries to Kongo stressed is same as the Christian God, to help spread their ideas by embracing the old Kongo people's ideas. Similarly, the early missionaries used Kongo language words to integrate Christian ideas, such as using the words "nkisi" to mean "holy". Thus, states Thornton, church to Kongo people was "nzo a nkisi" or another shrine, and the Bible was "mukanda nkisi" or a charm. Kongo people maintained both churches and shrines, which they called "Kiteki". Their smaller shrines were dedicated to the smaller deities, even after they had converted to Christianity. These deities were guardians of water bodies, crop lands and high places to the Kongo people, and they were very prevalent both in capital towns of the Christian ruling classes, as well as in the villages.