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Traditions of Genesis and the Luba Diaspora*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Thomas Q. Reefe
Thomas Q. Reefe*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
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Extract

Origin stories are an important genre of central African oral traditions. Historians have long been intrigued by these stories, for their plots tell of the beginnings of societies and of the founding of ruling dynasties. It has been possible to cross-check the information in the oral traditions of many of the societies of west central Africa against data in Portuguese written records dating to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These documents have helped to direct investigators towards the best assumptions to make when analyzing the oral traditions of west central African societies. However, writing the early history of the savanna societies in the very middle of central Africa (in southern Zaire and northern Zambia) has always been hampered by the absence of written documents which describe the area much before the early nineteenth century. Historians studying the early political history of these societies have been forced to link the events and characters of origin stories to each other without any anchor in written documentation.

Recently, doubts have been raised about the nature and function of origin stories. It is no longer clear that the first step in studying the early history of central African savanna societies is to compare different origin stories with each other, as one would a group of written documents, in order to establish a consistent historical story-line or narrative. Rather, questions raised about the nature of origin stories have brought out the point that the first step in writing the early history of this area is to resolve methodological and historiographical issues, before the historical essence can be distilled from these tales.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 4 , 1977 , pp. 183 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1977

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to Joseph Miller, Martin Klein, Gerald Hartwig, David Patterson, Robert Schechter, and Jan Vansina for their advice and comments about earlier drafts of this article. However, they bear no responsibility for its contents, and I remain accountable for the arguments presented here. Andrew Stock prepared the map as a personal favor to me, and I appreciate the time and effort he spent on the task. The research upon which this article is based was assisted, in part, by grants from the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Memorial Fund of Stanford, California and the Graduate Division of the University of California at Berkeley. I am grateful to both of these institutions for their support.

References

Notes

1. Miller, Joseph C., “The Imbangala and the chronology of early central African history,” JAH, 13 (1972), pp. 549–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is an example of the use of this approach in the study of the early history of an Angolan society.

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14. Gouldsbury, and Sheane, , Great Plateau of Northern Rhodesia, p. 30Google Scholar; Roberts, , History of the Bemba, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 45.

16. Ibid., p. 51; Van Avermaet, E., Diationnaire Kiluba-Français, (Tervuren, 1954), pp. 304–5.Google Scholar

17. Roberts, , History of the Bemba, pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

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20. See pp.

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22. Ibid., pp. 39, 54.

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24. Reefe, , “History of the Luba Empire,” pp. 196–220Google Scholar; Wilson, “Long Distance Trade,” pp. 577–9.Google Scholar

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27. Roberts makes a similar suggestion when he explains the Bemba claim that their royal clan is related to the royal dynasty of the neighboring kingdom of Kazembe. “Probably the Bemba story about Kazembe simply expresses, in the idiom of kinship, the mutual, if qualified, respect and goodwill which the Bembe and Lunda, as the strongest powers in the area, have usually felt towards each other, along with an awareness that both chieftainships originated in the west.” (Roberts, , History of the Bemba, p. 53).Google Scholar I suspect that this process of alteration of oral traditions as an expression of the awareness of powerful neighbors is not unique to this part of central Africa. Stevens, Phillips Jr., “The Kisra legend and the distortion of historical tradition,” JAH, 16(1975), pp. 185–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has described an analogous process which he identified as the ‘Kisra effect’ going on among certain western Sudanic societies.

28. Chiwale, , Central Bantu Historical Texts III, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., pp. 43-4; Cunnison, , Luapula Peoples of Northern Rhodesia, pp. xiv, 239Google Scholar; Kazembe, XIV, Central Bantu Historical Texts II, p. 70.Google Scholar

30. Burton, Richard F., The Lands of Cazembe, (London, 1873), pp. 40-1, 176, 188.Google Scholar

31. Kazembe, XIV, Central Bantu Historical Texts II, p. iiGoogle Scholar; Roberts, , History of the Bemba, pp. 96-7, 199, 223, 351.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., pp. 55-6.

33. Ibid., p. 55.

34. Watson, , Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy, p. 13.Google Scholar

35. Marwick, , “Northern Rhodesia Cewa,” p. 378Google Scholar; Wilson, , “Early History of North Malawi,” p. 141Google Scholar; Ntara, , The History of the Chewa, pp. 1, 5.Google Scholar

36. This negative conclusion is the result of my own research among the Luba and of a survey of published material on Luba history.

37. Duysters, , “Histoire des Aluunda,” p. 83.Google Scholar

38. Verhulpen, , Baluba et Balubatsis, pp. 134–6.Google Scholar

39. Kazembe, XIV, Central Bantu Historical Texts II, p. 4.Google Scholar

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41. Kazembe, XIV, Central Bantu Historical Texts II, p. iiiGoogle Scholar; Roberts, , History of the Bemba, p. 10.Google Scholar

42. Carvalho, , Ethnographia e historia tradiaional, p. 78.Google Scholar

43. Kazembe, XIV, Central Bantu Historical Texts II, pp. 4–5Google Scholar; Verhulpen, , Baluba et Balubaises, pp. 134–5.Google Scholar

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47. De Heusch, , Le roi ivre, pp. 200-1, 221–9.Google Scholar

48. Here I am taking De Heusch's argument one step further than he does himself. Morever, De Heusch assumes that the Luba and Lunda royal lines are historically related. De Heusch, , “What Shall We Do,”, p. 364.Google Scholar

49. Henige, David P., The Chronology of Oral Tradition, Quest for a Chimera, (Oxford, 1974), p. 35.Google Scholar

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55. Ibid., p. 69.

56. De Heusch, , Le roi ivre, pp. 186–202.Google Scholar

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65. Administrateur du Territoire Homble, H., “Etude concernant les insignes et la cérémonie indigène des Bene Kalundu (chief Mutombo Mukulu),” (21 August 1918), p. 3Google Scholar, in the archives of the Poste de Kalundwe in the Zone de Mutombo Mukulu; de Marchovelette, E. d'Orjo, “Notes sur les funerailles des chefs Ilunga Kabale et Kabongo Kumwimba,” Bulletin des juridiations indigènes du droit coutumier aongolais, 18(1950), p. 352Google Scholar; Verbeke, , “Le bulopwe et le kutomboka,” p. 59Google Scholar; author's interview with kyoni Kumwimbe, Kabongo village, 18 April 1973; tape recorded testimony to the author by nsenga Banza, Kabongo village, 23 April 1973.

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68. Heusch, De, Le roi ivre, pp. 297–9.Google Scholar

69. Heusch, De, “What Shall We Do,” p. 370Google Scholar; Wrigley, , “Myths of the Savanna,” pp. 134–5.Google Scholar It is unlikely that the presence of ‘The Drunken King’ episode in Lunda and Kuba genesis myths is the result of feedback from the Old Testament through missionary influence during the colonial era. The earliest written versions of Lunda and Kuba genesis myths contain this episode, but they were collected before a significant missionary presence was established.

70. Lucas, Stephen A., “L'état traditionnel Luba,” Problèmes soaiaux aongolais, 74(1966), pp. 83–97 and 79(1967), pp. 93-116Google Scholar; idem, “Baluba et Aruund,” vol. 1. The distribution of kutomboka and its exact meaning for historians is a complex issue, for it has significance beyond the realm of political investiture. It is a war dance used in the mukanda circumcision ceremony of the Ndembu, and as a verb kutomboka means to rebel or to commit unjustified homicide among the Luba. Turner, , The Forest of Symbols, pp. 259–60.Google ScholarVan Avermaet, , Dictionnaire Kiluba-Français, pp. 710–1.Google Scholar