#tchokwe

History Luba origin has two school of thoughts, one from historical and archaeological points of view and the other from oral traditions of Luba people. Historically, the larger Luba people of Africa including Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia (Lunda and Tchokwe people) were part of Bantu people that migrated out of West Africa in the Great Bantu migration. They are regarded as one of the earliest peoples to practice Ironworking in Central Africa. Their ancestors were farmers who, as early as 400 CE, inhabited the Lake Kisale region of Katanga.

According to the oral traditions of the Baluba, the genesis of the tradition of the kingdom, an aristocratic hunter hero coming from the East (Mbidi Kiluwe) met an aboriginal ruler (Nkongolo); unaware of the demanding customs of sacred kingship, notably of the meal rituals, he married the two sisters of this ruler and went back alone to his country. One of the sisters gave birth to a son (Kalala Ilunga) who eventually became a mighty warrior whom the ruler planned to kill. The young man had to flee to his father's country. Later, he came back, beheaded his maternal uncle, and became the first king of the Luba. These traditions gave rise to a controversy between, on the one hand, structuralists, who argue that the epic is representative of mythic ground shared by many Bantu-speaking peoples, and on the other hand, Africanist historians, who consider either that the epic contains traces of ancient historical facts or that it is a political charter legitimizing the prerogatives of the dynasty. However that may be, the Luba Kingdom was founded in the eighteenth century or before, in the vicinity of the present town of Kabongo. It exerted a strong political influence on its neighbors and was the main reference point for many rulers' genealogies and many religious institutions of the Eastern Savanna peoples.

Around 1500, possibly earlier, the Luba began to coalesce into a single, unified state, under the leadership of kings ruling by divine sanction. The mulopwe, or king, was drawn from the balopwe, a group who acted as intermediaries between the world of mankind and the world of spirits and ancestors. The mulopwe had three sources of power: *He headed a secular hierarchy of governors and under-governors, running down to local village headmen. *He collected tribute from local chiefs, which was then redistributed in the form of gifts to loyal followers. In practice this tribute system amounted to a network of state controlled trade.

Máscara Tchokwe

Angola