Mwatabu S. Okantah


Muntu Kuntu Energy Poetry


Muntu, Kintu, Hantu and Kuntu are the four categories of African philosophy.  All being, all essence, in whatever form it is conceived, can be subsumed under one of these categories.  Nothing can be conceived outside them.... Man is a force, all things are forces, place and time are forces and the 'modalities' are forces.  Man and woman (category Muntu), dog and stone (category Kintu), east and yesterday (category Hantu), beauty and laughter (category Kuntu) are forces and as such are all related to one another.... NTU is Being itself, the cosmic universal force ... which ... never occurs apart from its manifestations: Muntu, Kintu, Hantu and Kuntu.  NTU is that force in which Being and beings coalesce.... NTU is what Muntu, Kintu, Hantu and Kuntu all equally are.

    

--Janheinz Jahn, Muntu: African Culture and the Western World