Cette thèse est un comparatisme religieux entre les pentecôtistes et les nganga à Libreville (Gabon). Autour de l’imaginaire du malheur, mis en exergue par l’expression endogène du «sang de l’iguane», nos spécialistes de l’infortune proposent sur le marché des religions, des traitements pour atteindre le salut. Pour rendre compte de la Weltanschauung librevilloise, les conceptions du corps, de la santé et de la maladie ont été interrogées. Cela a permis de mettre en évidence les « destructeurs » du corps, c'est-à-dire la démocratisation de la sorcellerie et la politique du ventre, mais également les pratiques religieuses utilisées pour combattre le «sang de l’iguane». Cette étude souligne aussi les théories profanes de la maladie et leur impact sur la réinterprétation des «maladies des Blancs» et celles des «Noirs». Ici, le corps est hybride, car les sources du « sang de l’iguane » et les techniques pour le combattre dérivent du mélange des imaginaires, fruit de la rencontre coloniale. / In order to understand what is the Weltanschauung of the body and its imaginery, the health and healing habitus process, we have made a survey among the medecine men and the pentecotists and the laymen. It appears that most of them suffer of the so-called "iguana's blood". Thus, we have found the causes of those who are destroying the bodies and who are responsible of "iguana's blood” and how to fight them. The dissertation is about the folk comprehension of disease and how it is divided in the city of Libreville: into “diseases of whites” and “diseases of blacks”. The specialists of misfortune propose some treatments of the body on the religious market in order to achieve healing and prosperity of any kind. The body is seen in Libreville as a hybrid, since the causes of "iguana's blood" and the tools needed to fight it, are found in the representations of both cultures of the postcolonial world.

Daniel Ndoundou (1911 – 1986) was born in the southern part of French Equatorial Africa, close to the border of the Belgian Congo. At an early age he joined the Swe-dish protestant mission. As a young man he began to work as an evangelist and in 1946 he was ordained pastor. The following year a spiritual revival started and soon Daniel Ndou¬ndou became its leader, a position he held for the rest of his life. The aim of this thesis was to describe and analyse how Daniel Ndoundou carried out his ministry as a revival leader in the intersection between traditional beliefs and the new religion introduced by the protestant missionaries. He experienced the pro-cess of his country gaining its independence and the founding of the autonomous Evangelical Church of Congo. As a well-known counsellor and healer he received many pilgrims at his home. During revival meetings he sometimes preached to thou-sands of people. He had to take a stand on different movements of political and religious character that emerged especially during the colonial era. The thesis shows that the doctrines adopted by Daniel Ndoundou were close to those of the missionaries. However, he sometimes accepted and applied practices that were seen as controversial by his Church leaders. This was particularly evident when he invited people to the “Pool of Siloam” where he organized ritual baths for healing. The thesis also describes the legacy left by Daniel Ndoundou namely how the Evangelical Church of Congo manages the revival almost 30 years after his death. Many charismatic Christians play an important role and for the local pastor they are sometimes difficult to handle. The void left by Daniel Ndoundou is strongly felt by many church members since he was seen as the authority in matters relating to spiritual gifts.

Ethnographic collections in western museums such as the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) carry many meanings, but by definition, they represent an intercultural encounter. This history of this encounter is often lost, overlooked, or obscured, and yet it has bearing on how the objects in the collection have been interpreted and understood. This thesis uncovers the hidden history of one particular collection in the RAMM and examines the multiple meanings that have been attributed to the objects in the collection over time. The Richard Dennett Collection was made in Africa in the years when European powers began to colonise the Congo basin. Richard Edward Dennett (1857-1921) worked as a trader in the Lower Congo between 1879 and 1902. The collection was accessioned by the RAMM in 1889. The research contextualises the collection by making a close analysis of primary source material which was produced by the collector and by his contemporaries, and includes publications, correspondence, photographs and illustrations which have been studied in museums and archives in Europe and North America. Dennett was personally involved with key events in the colonial history of this part of Africa but he also studied the indigenous BaKongo community, recording his observations about their political and material culture. As a result he became involved in the institutions of anthropology and folklore in Britain which were attempting to explain, classify and interpret such cultures. Through examining Dennett’s history this research has been able to explore the Congo context, the indigenous society, and those European institutions which collected and interpreted BaKongo collections. The research has added considerably to the museum’s knowledge about this collection and its collector, and the study responds to the practical imperative implicit in a Collaborative Doctoral Project, by proposing a small temporary exhibition in the RAMM to explore these histories and meanings. In making this proposal the research considers the current curatorial debate concerning responsible approaches to colonial collections, and assesses some of the strategies that are being employed in museums today.