Bwiti initiation at Pointe-Denis
On the Gabon estuary, the Assiga clan has handed down the Bwiti Missoko for eleven generations. Eight guests at most, one session a month.
Their collections preserve our history
The experience
The spiritual masters of the estuary
The Bwiti is handed down throughout Gabon; at Pointe-Denis, it is received from the hands of those who keep it. Here the Rapontchombo family gathers the customary chiefs and the spiritual fathers and mothers of the main branches of the Gabonese tradition, around eight guests at most.
Here, in the royal burial ground, lie the ancestors of the line. Here stands the temple photographed as early as 1861. Here the sea itself closes during the rites. The guests of the House do not buy an experience: they enter a line handed down without interruption for more than 200 years, which the family tree traces generation after generation.
A peninsula between two worlds.
Facing Libreville, at the gates of Pongara National Park: 870 km² of mangroves, savannahs and beaches. Here leatherback turtles nest; here whales pass by.
Explore the House
The House in four parts
Who
History
King Denis, the treasure of the House, the Assiga line.
Discover : HistoryWhat
The Bwiti
The initiatory path of Gabon, its branches, its place in the country’s history.
Discover : The BwitiWhere
The Domain
The temple, the burial ground, the museum, the rooms and Pongara park.
Discover : The DomainHow
The Initiation
Eleven days on the Domain, three sacred nights, a Myene–English interpreter at your side.
Discover : The Initiation
The library of the House
Keeper of the vigils.
Son of Marie-Anne Ankombie Rapontchombo, Jacques Makaya Zimamo oversees every initiation, with Jérôme Mouele Niangou, spiritual father of the Missoko. Songs, fire, the ngombi harp that carries the voice of the ancestors: all remain in their keeping.
What the House hands down
Four values left by the ancestor, kept by his own.
Hospitality
“He has a taste for hospitality,” Le Tour du Monde wrote of King Denis in 1865. The House still receives travellers, initiates and customary chiefs of Africa.
The Given Word
The first to sign a treaty with France, in 1839, the ancestor never went back on his word. On land he granted, freed captives built Libreville, the free city.
Fidelity
The ancestor always refused to leave his temple for the new houses of his sons. A temple is not moved: the House has kept its own for more than two centuries.
Transmission
Before he died in 1876, he handed his gold ring to his son, King Denis II, Louis Denis Marie Félix Adandé Rapontchombo. Since then, nothing has been lost: neither the rites, nor the heirlooms, nor the memory.
A history the world preserves
From Paris to Washington, London to New York, Oxford to Geneva, great institutions preserve the portraits, objects and deeds of the line. The press has written of its rites for more than a century. Maison Assiga is their guardian.
In their collections
In the press
Maison Assiga
Where it all began.
The House of Assiga opens its night vigils to those who feel called. A letter, a conversation, an invitation, a welcome at the airport: we walk with you at every step.