Christianisme et image de l'Autre en Afrique belge. Les catégories de langages dans les stratégies de dénomination.

Martin Kalulambi Pongo — Christianity and the Image of Otherness in Belgian Africa. Categories of Languages in Denomination Strategies. Western Christian historiography represents the missionary priest in 'pagan' coun-tries as a saviour completely divorced from his cultural traditions, and the converted natives as belonging to a new ethnie group founded on spiritual rather than biological ties. The giving of Christian names to natives through baptism longed served as a means to construct this representation and, at the same time, the power of the elergy. It is not the efficiency of missionary action which is ques-tioned here, but rather the models used to interpret their action. This article attempts to provide several readings and interpretations of 'we' and 'they' categories as construeted and distributed by the Catholie elergy at the end of the 19th century in the Kasai (Zaire).Kalulambi Pongo Martin. Christianisme et image de l'Autre en Afrique belge. Les catégories de langages dans les stratégies de dénomination.. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 33, n°130, 1993. pp. 275-293