The word jongo denotes an Afro-Brazilian popular tradition which incorporates music, dance and poetry. However, the same term occurs, with different meanings, among negro comunities not related with jongo performance, which points out it's broader semantic range. The speculative confrontation of different aspects of jongo tradition with similar structures found in onjango, comunity council of the ovimbundu of Angola (such as the practice of collective speech, the use of metaphoric wordings, the existence of different dialogical modalities ) led to the comprehension of jongo as the place of speech, consonant with African civilization principles. Could jongo represent a diasporic rebuilding of African institution of spoken word, shaped by the restrictive conditions of slavery?
Jongo; Ondjango; Afro-Brazilian Oral Tradition