He Coal that Cannot be Washed: Bantu Onomastics and the Clinical Practice of Colonial Specters.

Abstract

This article proposes a critical revision of classical psychoanalytic metapsychology, confronting it with the specificities of the African psyche, specifically of Bantu origin. The central objective is to investigate how onomastics and transgenerational traumas resulting from the colonial period structure the symptom in contemporary clinical practice. The theoretical framework is anchored in Ibrahima Sow's "Metapsychology of Lineage" and Abraham and Torok's concepts of "Crypt and Phantom," establishing a dialogue with the work of Frantz Fanon. Methodologically, the study uses the "Archaeology of Affect" applied to two case studies: one focused on the symbolic efficacy of ancestral interdictions (curses) and another on colonial transference manifested in marital conflicts. The analysis of lineage onomastics such as Wegya Kamulongwe and Mysula dya Calunga reveals that the traditional name acts as an ontological pillar of resistance, symbolized by the metaphor "Makala katu kusukula" (the coal that cannot be washed). It concludes that the decolonization of clinical practice requires the restitution of the original name and the pacification of ancestors through the symbolic crossing of Calunga, reaffirming the immutability of African identity in the face of historical attempts at cultural erasure.