Paper short abstract:

The Claretian missions in Equatorial Guinea (1883-1968): religious and ethnological description of different aspects of the body and the traditional religion of the Bubi, and of their vision of their world and the conflict between this and the economic expectations of the colony.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is the fruit of documentary investigation carried out in the archive of the Center of Claretian Spirituality in Vic (Barcelona). It begins with the historical context of the Spanish colony in Equatorial Guinea, in particular the Catholic (Claretian) missions in Fernando Pó (modern day Bioko) between 1883 and 1968, and the interaction between these colonies and the Bubi people. The paper then makes a religious and ethnological description of different aspects of the body and the traditional religion of the Bubi in terms of meanings that they ascribe to physical and spiritual bodies and of their vision of their world and the conflict between this and the economic expectations of the colony.