Luba People
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The Luba people or Baluba are an ethno-linguistic group indigenous to the south-central region of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
. The majority of them live in this country, residing mainly in Katanga, Kasai and
Maniema Maniema is one of 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Kindu. Toponymy Henry Morton Stanley explored the area, calling it Manyema.Stanley, H.M., 1899, Through the Dark Continent, London: G. Newnes, Vol. One , ...
. The Baluba Tribe consist of many sub-groups or clans who speak various dialects of Luba (e.g.
Kiluba Luba-Katanga, also known as Luba-Shaba and ''Kiluba'' ( lu, Kiluba), is a Bantu language ( Zone L) of Central Africa. It is spoken mostly in the south-east area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by the Luba people. Kiluba is spoken in th ...
, Tshiluba) and other languages, such as Swahili. The Baluba developed a society and culture by about the 400s CE, later developing a well-organised community in the
Upemba Depression The Upemba Depression (or Kamalondo Depression) is a large marshy bowl area ( depression) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo comprising some fifty lakes, including 22 of relatively large size including Lake Upemba (530 km) and Lake Kisale ...
known as the Baluba in Katanga confederation. Luba society consisted of miners, smiths, woodworkers, potters, crafters, and people of various other professions. Kingdoms of the Savanna: The Luba and Lunda Empires
Alexander Ives Bortolot (2003), Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Their success and wealth grew greatly over time, but this also caused their gradual decline to marauding bands of slavers, robbers, and
terrorists Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
from among
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
and
Omani Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...
led or influenced
invasion An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...
s.


History

Archaeological evidence proves that the Baluba had settlements around the lakes and
marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...
es of the
Upemba Depression The Upemba Depression (or Kamalondo Depression) is a large marshy bowl area ( depression) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo comprising some fifty lakes, including 22 of relatively large size including Lake Upemba (530 km) and Lake Kisale ...
by the 5th century CE. The evidence suggesting an advanced Iron Age society by then comes from multiple sites, and these are among the best developed archaeological records in
Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...
. The ''Kamilambian'', ''Kisalian'' and ''Kabambian'' series of evidence has been dated to be from 5th to 14th-century, suggesting a settled stable Luba culture over many centuries.Pierre de Maret (1979)
Luba Roots: The First Complete Iron Age Sequence in Zaire
Current Anthropology, University of Chicago Press, volume 20, number 1 (Mar., 1979), pages 233–235
Of these, the Kisalian period (8th to 11th century) pottery and utensils found, were crafted with extraordinary excellence. The finds dated to pre-8th century by modern dating methods are iron objects or pottery, thereafter copper objects appear. The
archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
studies suggest that the Luba people lived in villages, in homes made of reeds and wattle, around the shores of numerous streams and lakes found in the Upemba Depression of Central Africa. This Depression has been historically flooded from the water runoff from southern Shaba highlands for parts of the year, its water bodies filled with papyrus islands and floating vegetation, the region drying out after rains ended. As a community, the Luba people constructed dams and dikes as high as 6 to 8 feet using mud, papyrus and other vegetation, to improve the marshy soil conditions for agriculture and stock fish during the long dry season. With settled communities, states Thomas Reefe – a professor of History, the Luba people had developed metal extraction techniques, skills to make utilitarians products from them and "high degree of craft specialization". The metal working techniques in use by the early Luba people included drawing out thin wires, twisting and laminating them, plaiting them into complex well designed shapes such as necklaces, bracelets and hooks for fishing, needles for sewing and such. These products attracted interest and demand from far off ethnic groups, creating trade opportunities and traders amongst the Luba people. This trade and all economic activity in the villages of Luba people had a tribute system, where a portion of the hunt, fish or produce was given to the lineage head or the people guarding the borders. These were natural borders, such as that created by waters of Lake Upemba, where passage across required channels and bridges. The movement into and out of the Luba people lands was thus controlled and taxed.


Luba Empire

Around 1500, possibly earlier, the Luba people began to coalesce into a single, unified state which historians now call the Kingdom of Luba or
Luba Empire The Kingdom of Luba or Luba Empire (1585–1889) was a pre-colonial Central African state that arose in the marshy grasslands of the Upemba Depression in what is now southern Democratic Republic of Congo. Origins and foundation Archaeologic ...
. The kingdom grew and became more sophisticated over time, reaching its peak between 18th to 19th-century. The demands, raids and violence of the 19th-century slave and ivory trade by the European colonial empires such as Belgium and the Arab-Swahili chiefs such as
Tippu Tip Tippu Tip, or Tippu Tib (1832 – June 14, 1905), real name Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī ( ar, حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), ...
and Msiri, states Thomas Reefe, "tore the Empire apart" and ended it. The political sophistication of the Luba Empire was the adoption of two layers of power, one of ''Balopwe'' (hereditary kingship) and another a council of royals or elders. These provided governance stability through mutual balancing, when there were disputes of succession from death or other causes. This idea was adopted by the neighboring Lunda people and other ethnic groups. The development and evolution of the Luba Empire, and the life of Luba people therein, has been unclear. This is in part because the Luba people were an entirely
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...
culture where knowledge and records were verbally preserved without a written script. The orthography for the Luba language, called ''kiLuba'', was invented in the 19th century, and thus early information about the Luba Empire has been derived from documents written by others usually hostile and only aware of the communities at the Luba Empire's border, or by the Luba people only in the late 19th-century and the 20th-century after the best decades of the Empire were long over. The later written texts suggest that the Luba people had developed sophisticated literary traditions around their concepts of good and evil, and integrated these concepts and their religious ideas into their legends about morality and people with power. For example, one legend relates to two kings, one called the red king ''Nkongolo Mwamba'' and other called the black king ''Ilunga Mbidi Kiluwe''. According to the Luba people's oral history, The Luba people were a part of a large state in the 16th and 17th centuries, ruled by a ''Balopwe'' through delegation to regional chiefs. According to the oral tradition by ''inabanza Kataba'', the empire expanded over time, with a major consolidation in the 18th century, partly triggered by the desire by rivals to control the salt and iron mines in the south. The Luba Empire was shielded from Portuguese and other colonial interests by the
Lunda Empire The Nation of Lunda (c. 1665 – c. 1887) was a confederation of states in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, north-eastern Angola, and north-western Zambia, its central state was in Katanga. Origin Initially, the core of what would ...
, which lay to their southeast. This shielding was noted by
David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...
in his travel memoirs, and likely blocked the Angolan traders from regular contact with the Luba people. Around the start of the 19th-century, the oral traditions of both the Luba and Kanyok people suggest a major conflict, led by mutual raids. This conflict helped the Luba Empire grow, as its king Ilunga Sungu entered into new territories and formed marriage alliances. By 1810 when he died, his fame and reverence among the Luba people had peaked and the site of his royal court had become ''Kitenta'' (royal sacred village) where his spirit was venerated. After the death of Ilunga Sungu, Kumwimbe Ngombe came to power leading his warriors to expand southeast with contacts with traders from East Africa. After his victory, in accordance with Luba traditions, the conquered chiefs and rulers had to marry sisters or daughters from the Luba ruling family in order to tie them into a relationship and loyalty with the Luba Empire capital. The ivory and slave trade had grown to the east of Luba Empire by mid 19th-century, the natural supplies of ivory exhausted while the international demand for it was increasing. The region under Luba people then had abundantly preserved herds of elephants with their tusk. Kanyembo region, states Thomas Reefe, for example had no ivory to sell. In 1840, after Kumwimbe Ngombe died of old age, king Ilunga Kabale succeeded to rule the Luba people. He expanded the empire further, till 1870 when he died. By then, the region of Luba people and their Empire covered much of what is now southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, extending for hundreds of kilometers from their early 19th-century heartland.


Guns, trade and colonial era

The success and wealth of Luba people grew in relative isolation because they were far from the eastern and western coasts of Africa, living in difficult to reach terrain. The forests and mountains protected them, as did their neighbors who blocked traders from direct and regular contact with distant international traders, in order to monopolize the gains from trade with international operators. This originally shielded the Luba from the ill effects of the earlier slave trade. Later, however, the Luba people became victims of the slave demand and trading, in some cases selling people from their own lands as slaves. But, by the 1850s, the slavers began intruding into the Luba people lands. Despite a ban on slave trading in the Western world, the eastern and northern parts of Africa, led by Arab-Swahili slave and ivory traders entered into the eastern and northeastern regions of the Luba Empire. These intruders came with guns, experience of running caravans, other tools of raids and wars. Although the weapons of the Luba people were not primitive (they had weapons such as bows and arrows, swords, axes, poison), the intruders had much more advanced weapons. David Livingstone, in his memoir, wrote how amazed the Luba people were with the guns, as they thought they were tobacco pipes, while the gun was the weapon that mowed down large populations of the Luba. The notorious slave and ivory trader,
Tippu Tip Tippu Tip, or Tippu Tib (1832 – June 14, 1905), real name Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī ( ar, حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), ...
for example wrote, translates Thomas Reefe, "Luba had no guns, their weapons were bows and arrows; guns they did not know. The guns we have with us, they asked us, "Are they pestles?" The conquest of the Luba people was swift. Msiri, a Tanzanian operator supplying ivory and slaves to the Sultan of Zanzibar, raided and took over the southeastern Shaba region of Luba people. Its other side, the southwestern borders were breached by the Ovimbundu ivory and slave hunters for the Portuguese interests. While slaves could no longer be exported to the Americas, they were used for work and caravan operations within Africa. Breaches from all sides, by better equipped armies, weakened the Luba Empire rapidly between 1860 and 1880s, and accelerated its demise. In parallel, the news of disarray and confusion from many corners of the Luba Empire, led to internal disputes on succession and strategy when the Luba king Ilunga Kabale died in 1870. By 1868, Said bin Habib el-Afifi had raided Luba operations and with force taken 10,500 pounds of copper. By 1874, another Arab-Swahili trader Juma bin Salum wad Rakad, and a friend of Tippu Tip, had entered into an agreement with one of the Ilunga Kabale's son and established the base of his elephant hunting and ivory trade operations in the heart of the Luba people's lands. The Arab-Swahili raids, such as those by Tippu Tip, into Luba people's lands were organized with Nyamwezi subordinates and slave armies. These raids and attacks by the outsiders also introduced smallpox into the Luba population. In 1885 Leopold II, king of
Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, secured European recognition of his right over the territories that became what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The first Belgian expedition into the Luba people's region arrived in 1891. The king of Belgium, impressed with the accomplishments of Tippu Tip in getting resources from central Africa, appointed him the governor of the region that included the Luba people's territory. The Luba people were forced to work in the copper mines of the Katanga province during the Belgian rule, causing numerous mining-related deaths. They rebelled in 1895, then again from 1905 to 1917, and these insurrections were crushed militarily.


Post-colonial era

In 1960 the Belgians, faced with rising demand for independence and an end to colonial rule, granted independence to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That same year
Katanga Province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika Province, Tanganyika, Hau ...
, which was home to a considerable number of Luba, attempted to
secede Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics l ...
under
Moise Tshombe Moise is a given name and surname, with differing spellings in its French and Romanian origins, both of which originate from the name Moses: Moïse is the French spelling of Moses, while Moise is the Romanian spelling. As a surname, Moisè and Mo ...
as the
State of Katanga The State of Katanga; sw, Inchi Ya Katanga) also sometimes denoted as the Republic of Katanga, was a breakaway state that proclaimed its independence from Congo-Léopoldville on 11 July 1960 under Moise Tshombe, leader of the local ''Co ...
. The Luba were divided, with one faction under Ndaye Emanuel supporting the secession, and another under Kisula Ngoye supporting the central government. When Tshombe's breakaway regime collapsed in 1965, Kisula Ngoye became the liaison between the Luba people and the central government.


Religion


Traditional

The traditional religious beliefs of the Luba people included the concept of a ''Shakapanga'' or a Universal Creator, a ''Leza'' or the Supreme Being, a natural world and a supernatural world. The supernatural world was where ''Bankambo'' (ancestral spirits) and ''Bavidye'' (other spirits) lived, and what one joined the afterlife if one lived an ''Mwikadilo Muyampe'' (ethical life). The Luba religions accepts the possibility of communion between the living and the dead. The religious life included prayers, community singing, dances, offerings, rites of passage rituals and invocations. These rituals and services had intermediaries for rites such as ''Nsengha'' or ''Kitobo'' (priests). In addition, for anxiety and ailments, a ''Nganga'' or ''Mfwintshi'' (healer) were in service who would perform ''Lubuko'' (divination). The religious thought did not limit itself to rituals, but included ideas of a good personhood, good heart, dignity for others and self-respect. The religious code of civil life and goodness affected the Luba social life.


Christianity

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
was introduced to the Luba people by colonizers who came with the Belgium colonial rule. Some of these missionaries, such as William Burton, performed ethnographic research, starting with an aggressive projective research and teaching the Luba people. Luba Catholics would later produce the famed ''Missa Luba'', a form of the Latin Mass inculturated in the Luba arts and expression. This would lay the groundwork for the
Zaire Use The Zaire Use (), officially the Roman Missal for the Dioceses of Zaire, is a Congolese-based variant use of the Roman Rite within the Catholic Church. Approved by the Vatican in 1988, it contains many elements from the Ordinary Form of the Roman ...
, a full-on
rite Rite may refer to: * Ritual, an established ceremonious act * Rite of passage, a ceremonious act associated with social transition Religion * Rite (Christianity), a sacred ritual or liturgical tradition in various Christian denominations * Cath ...
of the
Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
based on (and used primarily in) the Congo.


Culture

The Luba people tended to cluster in single street villages, with homes with rectangular thatched roofs on both sides of the street whose lineage is usually related. The homes were in the
savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
and forests. They hunted, fished in abundant waters near them, gathered food such as fruits from the wild and had mastered agriculture. In contemporary era, they grow
cassava ''Manihot esculenta'', common name, commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively ...
, corn, raise livestock. Some Luba carve wood and produce artist handicrafts.


Art

Art was well developed in the Luba culture. Pottery, articles crafted from iron (such as axes, bows and spears), wooden staff and carvings and parts clad in sheets of copper were routinely produced. A notable artform of the Luba people was the ''Mwadi'', where the male ancestors were represent in their female incarnations of the ancestral kings. According to scholars such as Daniel Kabozi, some of the intricate art works of the Luba people were mnemonic devices, a form of symbolic coded script to aid preserving information and recalling the history and knowledge of the Luba. The Luba people, states Mary Roberts, developed "one fthe most complex and brilliant mnemonic systems in Africa for recording royal history, king lists, migrations, initiation esoterica and family genealogies", such as the '' Lukasa memory board''. These artworks are now found in numerous museums of the world.


Notable Luba people

*
Albert Kalonji Albert Kalonji Ditunga (6 June 1929 – 20 April 2015) was a Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congolese politician best known as the leader of the short-lived secessionist state of South Kasai (''Sud-Kasaï'') during the Congo Crisis. Ear ...
*
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, musician *
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*
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* Dikembe Mutombo, basketball player *
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*
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*
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, 5th president of DRC * Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza *
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, musician * Herita Ilunga *
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* Jean Kalala N'Tumba, football player *
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*
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*
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, 4th president of DRC *
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* Laurent Desire Kabila, 3rd president of DRC *
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, football player *
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, musician * Oscar Kashala, politician *
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, musician *
Tshala Muana Élisabeth Tshala Muana Muidikay (13 March 1958 – 10 December 2022), known professionally as Tshala Muana, was a singer and dancer from Congo-Kinshasa. Considered the "Queen of Mutuashi", a traditional dance music from her native Kasai region ...
, musician


References


Further reading

*Davidson, Basil: ''Africa in History: Themes and Outlines, Revised & Expanded Edition''. Simon & Schuster, NY (1991). *Fage, J.D. and Oliver, Roland, general editors: ''The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol V'' and ''VI''., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1976). *Kabongo, Kanundowi and Bilolo, Mubabinge, ''Conception Bantu de l'Autorité. Suivie de Baluba: Bumfumu ne Bulongolodi", African University Studies, Munich - Kinshasa (1994).


External links

* Omotola Akindipe, Veronica Tshiama & Francisco Yamba
Largest online resource to learn Tshiluba (Mofeko)
* Professor James Giblin, Department of History, The University of Iowa

in Arts & Life at Africa Online. * Lucian Young

at Minnesota State University, Mankato * The Maurer Collection, Amherst University

{{Authority control People from Katanga Province Bantu peoples Ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo