UN NOUVEAU CHAMP HEURISTIQUE A KINSHASA AU ZAIRE : LE GROUPE DE PRIERE

Despite eyewitness accounts, rumour, oral tradition, street gossip, and life stories, we do not yet have an exhaustive inventory of the contemporary Zairian historiography. In fact, historiography must be ready to grasp new categories of sources which are emerging as democracy restores the freedom of speech to the people. Thus we are participating in the birth of a new literature where certain historical players are choosing to reveal their secrets, denouncing and occassionally accusing. Historiography is being enreiched by this new contribution. This study proposes to illustrate this by presenting an oral document, both popular and increasingly used in the urban environments of Zaïre, which up to now has remained largely unknown : religious testimony. As part of an autobiographical story this religious testimony constitutes a distinctive form of a life story and is developing in the specific environment of Christian meetings called "prayer groups".