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The Imbangala and the Chronology of Early Central African History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Joseph C. Miller
Joseph C. Miller
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

Articles by Vansina and Birmingham in the J.A.H. have explored the possibility of deriving the chronology of state-formation in central Africa from the date when warrior armies known as Imbangala (also, erroneously, as ‘Jaga’) appeared in Angola. This article, drawing on new traditions collected in Angola during 1969, shows that the figures described by the oral histories are permanent named titles in systems of positional succession and perpetual kinship; they therefore contain no implicit chronology based on assumed human life spans. The new evidence suggests that many years elapsed between the origin of one Imbangala title in the nascent Lunda empire and its successors' appearance on the coast. Although documents establish the Imbangala presence in Angola as early as 1563, this date reveals little about preceding events in Katanga, which may have taken place many decades, or even centuries, earlier. Finally, by extending the methodological techniques developed for the Imbangala traditions to published Lunda histories, it is suggested that the Luba and Lunda kingdoms may have passed through several periods before the stage previously assumed to have initiated the development of states in central Africa. The article concludes by suggesting that formation of (probably very small-scale) states began much earlier than previous analyses have demonstrated.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , October 1972 , pp. 549 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 Vansina, Jan. ‘Foundations of the Kingdom of Kasanje’, Journal of African History (J.A.H.), IV, 3, 355–74;Google ScholarBirmingham, David, ‘The Date and Significance of the Imbangala Invasion of Angola’, J.A.H., VI, 2 (1965), 143–52;CrossRefGoogle ScholarVansina, Jan, ‘More on the Invasions of Kongo and Angola by the Jaga and the Lunda’, J.A.H., VII, 3(1966), 421–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 I wish to acknowledge the receipt of a Foreign Area Fellowship, awarded in 1968–71 by the Foreign Area Fellowship Program of New York, in support of this research; the Program bears no responsibility for the conclusions expressed in this article.

3 de Carvaiho, Henrique Augusto Dias, Expediçāo Portugueza ao Muatiânvua: Ethnographia e história tradicional dos povos da Lunda (Lisboa, 1890), 78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Vansina drew primarily on António de Oliveira de Cadornega, História geral dos guerras Angolanas (1680) (eds., Delgado, José Matias and da Cunha, Alves), 3 vols. (Lisboa, 1940–1942),Google Scholar and a secondary account, Delgado, Ralph, História de Angola, 4 vols. (Lobito, 1948–1955).Google Scholar

5 Verhulpen, E., Baluba et Balubaïsés (Antwerp, 1936), 165.Google Scholar

6 Vansina, , ‘Foundation‘, 371–2.Google Scholar

7 Birmingham, , ‘Date and Significance‘, 147, 151.Google Scholar

8 Vansina, in a personal communication, has recently indicated that new Lunda king lists raise the possibility of an earlier date for the foundation of the Lunda empire than previously published materials made possible.

9 Vansina, , ‘More‘, 429.Google Scholar

10 A more complete exposition appears as chapter II of my unpublished dissertation, ‘Kings and Kinsmen; The Imbangala Impact on the Mbundu of Angola’ (University of Wisconsin, 1971).Google Scholar

11 The twin institutions of positional succession and perpetual kinship occur from Angola eastward through Katanga and Zambia, at least among the core Lunda, the Bemba, and the peoples of the Luapula valley. These practices also typify the Cokwe and Mbundu (including the Songo and Imbangala) of Angola. They have thus influenced nearly all extant traditions bearing on the history of the Imbangala. See Cunnison, Ian, History on the Luapula (Rhodes-Livingstone Papers, no. 21) (London, 1951);Google Scholar‘Perpetual Kinship: A Political Institution of the Luapula Peoples‘, Rhodes-Livingstone Journal, xx (1956), 28–48;Google Scholar‘History and Genealogies in a Conquest State‘, American Anthropologist, LIX, I (1957), 20–31.Google Scholar

12 Vansina's and Birmingham's differences derive in no small part from the divergent accounts recorded by Neves (favoured by Birmingham) and Carvalho (Vansina's choice).

13 Vansina clearly suspected this feature of the traditions when he noted, ‘More’, 429, that several details in the Neves version of the traditions obviously came from the 1850s rather than the 1600s.

14 A fuller explanation is in chapter II of ‘Kings and Kinsmen’.

15 I have spelled the names in this paper approximately according to Imbangala pronunciation, noting well-known alternative forms in parentheses.

16 The tubungu are the oldest known set of Lunda political titles; their exact functions at that early period in Lunda history must still be regarded as largely unknown.

17 Vansina, Jan, Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison, 1966), 78–9.Google Scholar

18 Carvalho, , Ethnographia, 76.Google Scholar

19 Testimonies of Sousa Calunga, 29 Sept. 1969; 1 Oct. 1969; All references to ‘testimonies’ denote interviews with Imbangala informants conducted in Angola during 1969–70. The notes of these interviews remain for the present in my possession awaiting deposit in suitable archives in Africa and the U.S. They may be consulted by qualified scholars at any time.

20 Testimonies of Sousa Calunga, 9 July 1969; 29 Sept. 1969; 1 Oct. 1969.

21 Testimonies of Sousa Calunga cited above; this list fails to account for still another Lunda kota position found in Kasanje, the kahete.

22 Carvaiho, , Ethnographia, 76.Google Scholar

23 For the Imbangala, see testimonies of Vaz, Domingos; de Matos, Apolo, 4 Oct. 1969;Google Scholar Alberto Augusto Pires, ‘História dos sobados do Posto de Cinco de Outubro’ (Xa-Muteba, 1952) (unpublished manuscript). For the Lunda, see Carvalho, Ethnographia, 87–8. The Imbangala say that ‘mutswalikapa’ means ‘we are separated’.

24 Kasanje never extended east of the Kwango river.

25 Although the Cokwe, who should remember something about it under the rules governing these traditions, have vague memories of a former kingdom in this area; see Redinha, Jose, Campanha etnografica ao Tchiboco (Alto Tchicapa) (Lisboa, 1953–1955), 87–8 on the place known as ‘Muheuhe’(Muwewe).Google Scholar

26 Testimonies of Vaz, Alexandre, 30 July 1969, 31 July 1969;Google ScholarCalunga, Sousa, 16 June 1969, 23 Aug. 1969, 29 Sept. 1969, 7 Oct. 1969; Kambo and Calunga.Google Scholar

27 Carvaiho, , Ethnographia, 91. That is, the kings who left Lunda after Kinguri.Google Scholar

28 Duysters, Léon, ‘Histoire des Aluunda’, Problèmes de l'Afrique Centrale, XII, 40 (1958), 84.Google Scholar

29 The evidence showing the existence of these states consists of numerous Mbondo and Imbangala genealogies which I collected in 1969–70; additional details appear in my unpublished dissertation, ‘Kings and Kinsmen’, chapter III.

30 Testimony of Domingos Vaz. Also Magyar, Ladislaus, Reisen in Süd-Africa (Pest und Leipzig, 1859), 266.Google ScholarNeves, Antonio Rodrigues, Memória da expediçāo ao Cassange (Lisboa, 1854), 98–9Google Scholar, gave the location as the ‘Lukombo’ river, probably the Lukumbi which flows into the upper Jombo in approximately 10δ 50'S.

31 Neves, , Memória, pp. 98–9.Google Scholar

32 de Magalhães, Afonso Alexandre, ‘Origem dos Basongos‘, Mensário Administrativo, no. 8 (1948), 33–5;Google Scholar also testimonies of Vaz, Donungos; Calunga, Sousa, 1 Oct. 1969;Google Scholarde Matos, Apolo, 18 June 1969.Google Scholar

33 Based on analogous and better-known developments in Kasanje after 1620.

34 The evidence on this point is complex and receives extensive examination in my unpublished dissertation, ‘Kings and Kinsmen’. Published traditions which mentioned the munjumbo include Schütt, Otto, Reisen im Südwestlichen Becken des Congo (Berlin, 1881);Google ScholarCapello, H. and Ivens, R., From Benguella to the Territory of the Yacca, trans. Elwes, A. (London, 1882), 1, 158, 191;Google Scholarvan den Byvang, M., ‘Notice historique sur les Balunda’, Congo, 1, 4 (1937), 435;Google Scholar Magalhães, ‘Origem’, 35 João António Cavazzi de Montecúccolo, Descrição histórica dos Três Reinos de Congo, Matamba e Angola, trans. and ed. de Luguzzano, P. Graciano Maria (Lisboa, 1965), 1, 373–5Google Scholar, had a confused account of the munjumbo whom he called ‘Zimbo’. Cadornega, , História Geral, III, 176, 177, 218, had him as ‘Muzumbo a Kalunga’.Google Scholar

35 Testimonies of Mwanya a Shiba, 15 June 1969; Sousa Calunga. Also Pires, ‘História dos sobados’, I; Neves, , Memória, 97Google Scholar; Schütt, , Reisen, 79. The same cliché elsewhere describes other Mbundu and Kongo rulers.Google Scholar

36 Van den Byvang, ‘Notice historique’, 433–4. This story also occurs in some Imbangala traditions; see testimony of Domingos Vaz.

37 Testimony of Mwanya a Shiba, 15 June 1969.

38 Schütt, Reuen, 79–80.Google Scholar

39 Magyar, Reisen, pp. 266 ff.Google Scholar

40 Cavazzi, , Congo, Matamba e Angola, 1, 177–9.Google Scholar

41 This term not only denoted the war camp, which became famous in connection with the misnamed ‘Jaga’ of the seventeenth century, but referred primarily to a social institution with military and political functions. In Brazil, and later in Angola, the word came to refer to ‘fugitive slave settlements’ which, it has been argued, ‘recreat[ed] African societies in a new environment’. See Kent, R. K., ‘Palmares: An African State in Brazil’, J.A.H., VI, 2(1965), 162.Google Scholar

42 The evidence in support of this interpretation of the Imbangala and the kilombo appears in ‘Kings and Kinsmen’, chapter V and appendix G.Google Scholar

43 Cavazzi, , Congo, Matamba e Angola, 1, 189.Google Scholar

44 Cavazzi, , Congo, Matainba e Angola, 1, 190.Google Scholar

45 The only western Angolan language containing the form imbangala is Umbundu. The word in that language today means a brave and courageous person, especially one who has no settled home. This is an apt description of the warriors who called themselves by this name. See Alves, Padre Albino, Dicionário etimológwo Bundo-Portugues (Lisboa, 1951), 1, 664.Google Scholar The word still retained a distinctive Umbundu prefix in the nineteenth century: ocimbangala (singular prefix, oci-); see de Carvalho, Henrique Augusto Dias, O Jagado de Cassange na Provincia de Angola (Lisboa, 1898), 7.Google Scholar

46 Letter of Irmão António Mendes, to the Father General, 9 05 1563;Google Scholar published in Brósio, António, Monumenta Missionaria Africana (Lisboa, 1952–1965), II, 509.Google Scholar

47 Testimonies of Calunga, Sousa, 16 June 1969;Google ScholarVaz, Domingos; de Matos, Apolo, 18 June 1969.Google Scholar All published versions of these traditions fail to mention the period of rule by the Lunda makota, with the partial exception of Neves, Memória, 99Google Scholar, who named the kinguri's successor as a ‘Kasanje ka Imbe’. Neves's informant evidently meant to refer to Kulashingo, whose Cokwe title was kasanje ka kibuna (or kasanje ka musumbi), but he mistakenly introduced the surname ‘Imbe’ (kasanje ka imbe) through confusion with the missing Lunda titles Mbongo wa Imbe and Kalanda ka Imbe.

48 There is no basis for identifying the ‘king of Banguela’ with the title kinguri kya bangela, contrary to the arguments of Birmingham, ‘Date’, 146. The kinguri kya bangela was a nineteenth-century title-holder in Kasanje, but this position was not created until the middle of the eighteenth century. The name kinguri recurs repeatedly in Kasanje political titles, none of which have any relationship to the original Lunda kinguri.Google Scholar

49 For example, the Lui (pronounced Lúi) river in Kasanje, whose Kirnbundu name is Lui (pronounced Lwí).Google Scholar

50 For example, see Vansina, ‘More’, 425.Google Scholar

51 Letter of Padre Diogo da Costa to Provincial de Portugal, 31 05 1586;Google Scholar published in Brásio, , Monumenta, III, 337.Google Scholar

52 Bal, Willy, ed., Description du Royaume de Congo et des Contrées Environnantes (par Filippo Pigafetta et Duarte Lopes—1591) (Louvain et Paris, 1965), 24.Google Scholar

53 Bal, Description, 156.Google Scholar

54 Mendes letter, published in Brásio, , Monumenta, II, 509.Google Scholar The letter stated that the ngola a kiluanje appointed two ‘sons’ to rule the territory taken from a defeated ‘king of Banguela’. These were, of course, ‘son’ titles, permanent positions created as subordinates to the ngola a kiluanje. Mbundu genealogies show so many of these positions that it is impossible to specify which ones were involved in this instance.

55 Cavazzi, , Congo, Matamba e Angola, 1, 173–6.Google Scholar Although Cavazzi did not specify the source of his information on this point, it is clear that he included then-prevalent Portuguese traditions about the misnamed ‘Jaga’ in his version of the story of ‘Zimbo’. A lively set of mariners' tales, visible in Battell's account and other places, must have provided this detail.

56 Letter from Manuel de Cerveira Pereira to el-Rei, 13 Oct. 1620; British Museum, Egertoniana, ms. 1133, f1s. 385V–386V; published in Brásio, Monumenta, VI, 521–7.Google Scholar

57 Memorial of Jerónimo Castaño; Biblioteca Nacional—Madrid, ms. 3.015, fl. 202; published in Claudio Miralles de Imperial y Gomez, , ed., Angola en Tiempos de Felipe II e de Felipe III (Madrid, 1951), 73.Google Scholar

58 Ravenstein, E. G., The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Angola and Adjoining Regions (London, 1901). 20.Google Scholar

59 Battell in Ravenstein, Strange Adventures, 33–4.Google Scholar

60 Spelled ‘Imbangola’, again suggesting a shift in stress which allowed the penultimate vowel to shift; Ravenstein, Strange Adventures, 84. cf. footnote 49.Google Scholar

61 Battell in Ravenstein, Strange Adventures, 31, 33, 85–6.Google Scholar Battell elsewhere called him Imbe ya Kalandula, apparently reversing the first and second elements of the kalanda ka imbe's title.

62 Battell in Ravenstein, Strange Adventures, 85.Google Scholar

63 Battell in Ravenstein, Strange Adventures, 19–20.Google Scholar The etymology of the name kinguri provides a ready explanation for the occurrence of the phrase ‘Mountains of the Lion’ in Battell's interview with Purchase, the name would be Serra de Leão in Portuguese, misinterpreted by Purchas as Sierra Leone in upper Guinea. The name probably came from a garbled reference to the kinguri, whose title (nguri, or nguli) means lion in the Wambo dialect of Umbundu. See Alves, Dicionário, II, 959;Google Scholar and testimony of Apolo de Matos. This was precisely the area from where the Imbangala and Kulembe had come, and the hypothesis fits other evidence indicating that the Imbangala language at that time was basically Umbundu. (The Cokwe, Kimbundu, and Kikongo word for lion is koshi, or hoje; the Lunda use natambo. See de Carvalho, Henrique Augusto Dias, Methodopraticopara faller a lingua da Lunda contendo narracoes históricos dos diversos povos (Lisboa, 1890), 347.)Google Scholar

64 Consulta do Conselho Ultramarino sobre as coisas que faltam no governo de Angola pars sua governação, c. 1617 (but relating to earlier events); Arquivo Historico Ultramarino-Lisbon (A.H.U.), Angola, Cx.I.Google Scholar

65 Sometime between 1595 and 1602 (during the governorship of Joāo Furtado de Mendonça), several Portuguese allied with the Imbangala south of the Kwanza for slave raiding purposes; see Cadomega, História Geral, I, 52.Google Scholar

66 Only uncircumcised males could belong to the warrior association; evidence in support of this argument appears in ‘Kings and Kinsmen’, chapter VII.Google Scholar

67 Mbundu and Kongo fears of the Imbangala attained such heights that the mere rumour of the Imbangala could send large opposing armies fleeing in disarray; see relaçāe of Bispo do Congo (?) to el-Rei, 7 Sept. 1619; A.H.U., Angola Cx. I, doc. no. 176;Google Scholar published in Brásio, , Monumenta, VI, 375–84.Google Scholar Also see letter from de Sousa, Fernão to eI-Rei, 28 Sept. 1624; Ajuda, 51-vIII-30, fls. 303–305V;Google Scholar published in Brásio, , Monumenta, VII, 255;Google Scholar de Sousa used the Imbangala as a symbol of the most dreaded things imaginable in seventeenth-century Angola, saying that the African mercenaries in Portuguese armies had hated a previous governor so intensely that they preferred to march with the Imbangala rather than to fight for him.

68 The traditions' placing of these events in Mbola na Kasashe, of course, cannot be taken literally. They attempt to trace a direct line of descent from Lunda through Kinguri and Kulashingo and have consequently elided almost completely the period of rule by the Lunda makota, whose authority derived from the non-Lunda sources of the kiombo.Google Scholar

69 Testimonies of Calunga, Sousa, 16 June 1969, 21 July 1969; Manuel Vax; Domingos Vaz; Mwanya a Shiba, 14 June 1969; Apolo de Mains, 28 June 1969.Google Scholar

70 Letter from Alvaro II (Rei do Congo) to the Pope, 27 Feb. 1613; Vatican Library, Cod. Vat. Lat. 12516;Google ScholarBrásio, , Monumenta, VI, 128–132.Google Scholar These complaints continued with some regularity through that decade. The original reference probably concerned a 1612 campaign against the Dembos; see Delgado, , História de Angola (Lobito, 1948–1955), II, 34.Google Scholar The first confirmation of Portuguese use of the Imbangala (always under the name ‘Jaga’) from the governor in Luanda came in 1615; see de Bento Banho Cardoso, Auto, 17 Aug. 1615; A.H.U., Angola Cx. I, doc. no.46.Google Scholar

71 Treslado dü aviso que mandou Fazer o snór. g. dor bento banho Cardoso, 21 Aug. 1615; A.H.U., Angola, Cx. I, doc. no. 176.Google Scholar

72 Letter from Andre Velho da Fonseca to el-Rei, 28 Dec. 1612;Google Scholar published in Brásio, , Monumenta, VI, 64–70;Google Scholar also in Arquivos de Angola, sér. I, vol.III (1937), 71 ff.Google Scholar

73 The dramatic rise of slave exports from Angola at this time was directly owing to the entry of the Imbangala into the trade; see Curtin, Philip D., The Atlantic Slave Trade (Madison, 1969), 106–7, 112.Google Scholar

74 Copia dos excessos que se cometem no governo de Angolla que o bispo deu a V. Mg. de pedindo remedeo deflles de presente e de futuro, 7 Sept. 1619;Google Scholar A.H.U., Angola Cx. I, doc. no. 175 published in Bràsio, , Monumenta, VI, 366–74.Google Scholar

75 de Carvalho, Henrique Augusto Dias, ‘Expedição ao Muata Yanvo (Cartas à Sociedade de Geographia)’, Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, ser. 6. no. 3 (1886), 135–6.Google Scholar

76 Testimonies of de Matos, Apolo, 7 July 1969Google Scholar; Mwanya a Shiba, 14 June 1969; 15 June 1969; Sousa Calunga, 16 June 1969, 29 Sept. 1969.

77 It was merely coincidental, of course, that the governor who made most extensive use of the Imbangala was a Manuel (Cerveira Pereira). Such coincidences serve as warnings against the use of traditional data without careful analysis of its structure and special characteristics.

78 Data in support of this point consist of analyses of the known vocabulary and customs of the seventeenth century Imbangala; see ‘Kings and Kinsmen’, chapter v (and appendix G) and chapter VII.

79 Carvaiho, , Etnographia, 59–75Google Scholar, is still authoritative on the earliest period of Lunda history. This summary, and most further analysis, is based on Carvalho's recording of traditions told in the 1880s.

80 The Imbangala genealogies, which escaped modification by the later Luba state of the mwata yamvo among the Lunda, may be expected to have preserved certain ‘archaic’ features obscured in later Lunda traditions; they show a marriage between the lineage holding the yala mwaku and a Luba male. This is the conventional means of representing the imposition of an outside political authority. Testimonies of Vaz, Domingos; Vaz, Alexandre, 26 June 1969, 31 July 1969. Compare Duysters, ‘Histoire’, 82, which showed two (unidentified) phases before the sire of Kinguri (whom he called Konde).Google Scholar

81 Cf. Duysters, ‘Histoire’, 82, where the same metaphor recurs in a different context.

82 Carvalho, Ethnographia, 76.Google Scholar

83 Carvalho, , Ethnographia, 76.Google Scholar

84 The Duysters tradition (‘Histoire‘, 81–3) agrees in substance with the Carvaiho version.Google Scholar

83 See Vansina's discussion in Kingdoms, 251–7.Google Scholar

86 This conclusion accords fully with the implications of recent publications in this Journal by Boston, J. S., ‘Oral Tradition and the History of the Igala‘, JAH, x, I (1969), 29–44,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Alagoa, E. J., ‘The Development of Institutions in the States of the Eastern Niger Delta‘, JAH, XII, 2 (1971), 269–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although no extensive Cokwe traditions were available for analysis in the preparation of this paper, a recently published testimony (Mesquitela Lima, Fonctions sociologiques des figurines de culte Hamba dans la socidté et dans la culture Tschokwé (Angola) (Luanda, 1971), pp. 42 ff.) from the Cokwe fits well with the approach taken here.Google Scholar