"Vital force is seen as powering the whole living world. To acquire it personally is the only sure avenue to success. Placide Tempels, in his seminal work on Bantu philosophy, tells us that for the Bantu

"supreme happiness, the only form of good fortune is to possess the greatest possible amount of vital force, while the worst adversity and indeed the only real misfortune is to see a reduction in one's stock of this power." [5]

Among the Baluba, vital force is referred to as 'muntu'. A powerful man is described as 'rnuntu mukulumpe', a man with a great deal of muntu; whereas a man of no social significance is referred to as a 'muntu mutupu', or one who has but a small amount of muntu.

A complex vocabulary is used to describe all the changes that can affect a man's stock of muntu. All illnesses, depressions, failures in any field of activity are taken to be evidence of a reduction in this vital force and can be avoided only by maintaining one's stock of it. A man with none left at all is known as 'mufu'. He is as good as dead. [6]

Tempels considers the same to be true of the Bantu in general. "The goal of all efforts among the Bantu", Tempels tells us, "can only be to intensify this vital force". And indeed, their customs only make sense if one interprets them "as a means of preserving or increasing one's stock of vital force". [7]

Leopold Senghor, the poet, philosopher and former President of Senegal, considers that the goal of all religious ceremonies, all rituals and indeed of all artistic endeavour in Africa, is but "to increase the stock of vital force". [8] The same is true in Melanesia; so much so that, according to Codrington,

"all Melanesian religion consists in getting this mana for oneself, or getting it used for one's benefit." [9]

Vital force was not just accumulated by individuals; it is usually seen as flowing through the cosmos and concentrating in certain things and beings and in so doing, forming a pattern of power and hence of sanctity - a philosophy known as 'Hylozoism'. Paul Schebesta tells us that for the Pygmies of the Ituri forest in Zaire, vital force or megbe

is spread out everywhere, but its power does not manifest itself everywhere with the same force nor in the same way. Certain animals are richly endowed with it. Humans possess a lot more of some types of megbe but less of other types. Able men are precisely those who have accumulated a lot of megbe: this is true of witch-doctors. [10]"

From http://www.edwardgoldsmith.com/page181.html