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Angola Ovimbundu
The largest ethnolinguistic category, the Ovimbundu,
were
located in west-central Angola, south of Mbundu-inhabited
regions
(see
fig. 5). In 1988 the United States Department of
State
estimated that they constituted 37 percent of the
population. The
language of the Ovimbundu was Umbundu.
The core area of the Ovimbundu kingdoms was that part
of the
Benguela Plateau north of the town of Huambo. Expansion
continuing
into the twentieth century enlarged their territory
considerably,
although most Ovimbundu remained in that part of the
plateau above
1,200 meters in elevation.
Like most African groups of any size, the Ovimbundu
were formed
by the mixture of groups of diverse origin (and varying
size).
Little is known of developments before the seventeenth
century, but
there is some evidence of additions to the people who
occupied the
Benguela Plateau at that time. Over time, a number of
political
entities, usually referred to as kingdoms, were formed
(see Ovimbundu and Kwanhama Kingdoms
, ch. 1). By the eighteenth
century,
there were twenty-two kingdoms. Thirteen were fully
independent;
the other nine were largely autonomous but owed tribute to
one of
the more powerful entities, usually the kingdom of
Bailundu, but in
some cases Wambu or Ciyaka. By the beginning of the second
decade
of the twentieth century, effective occupation by the
Portuguese
had caused a fairly rapid decline in the power of the
heads of
these kingdoms, but Ovimbundu continued to think of
themselves as
members of one or another of the groups based on these
political
units after World War II.
In addition to the groups that clearly spoke dialects
of
Umbundu, there were two on the periphery of Ovimbundu
distribution:
the Mbui, who seemed to straddle the linguistic boundary
between
the Ovimbundu and the Mbundu; and the Dombe living to the
west near
the coast, whose language was closely related to Umbundu,
although
not a dialect of it. The Dombe and several other groups,
including
the Nganda and the Hanya (who, according to one account,
spoke
Umbundu dialects) relied on cattle raising, as did their
southern
neighbors, the Herero and the Ovambo. Still others,
typically the
old tributary kingdoms, came to speak Umbundu relatively
recently.
Until the Portuguese established firm control over
their
territory, the Ovimbundu--particularly those of the major
kingdoms
of Bailundu (to the northwest), Bihe (to the northeast),
and Wambu
(in the center)--played important roles as intermediaries
in the
slave, ivory, and beeswax trades, acting as carriers,
entrepreneurs, and raiders. With the decline of the slave
trade in
the last decades of the nineteenth century, the
entrepreneurs among
the Ovimbundu turned to the rubber trade, abandoning the
warfare
and raiding that had hitherto been integrally related to
their
economic activities. The rubber slump at the beginning of
the
twentieth century, the end of the de facto autonomy of
their
kingdoms not long after, and the displacement of Ovimbundu
traders
by the Portuguese forced these people to turn to cash-crop
agriculture. (The men had hitherto had little involvement
with
cultivation; in fact, the women continued to be
responsible for the
cultivation of subsistence crops.)
The introduction of cash crops, particularly coffee,
led to a
series of changes in settlement patterns and social
arrangements
(see Structure of Society
, this ch.). But after a time,
soil
exhaustion, lack of support of African agriculture by the
colonial
authorities, incursions of Portuguese settlers who took
over
valuable property in the highlands, and a number of other
factors
contributed to a decline in the success of Ovimbundu
cash-crop
agriculture. By the early 1960s, up to 100,000 Ovimbundu,
estimated
at one-quarter of the group's able-bodied adult males,
were
migrating on one-year and two-year labor contracts to the
coffee
plantations of Uíge and Cuanza Norte provinces; another
15,000 to
20,000 sought work in Luanda and Lobito; and roughly the
same
number worked in the industrial plants of Huambo or for
European
farmers in the Benguela Plateau. In most cases,
remuneration was
low, but these migrant workers had little alternative.
This pattern
continued through the remainder of the colonial period,
except for
those males who were involved in nationalist activity
(usually with
UNITA).
In the 1940s, the Ovimbundu organized what was probably
the
most closely knit Angolan community of the colonial era.
With the
financial and ideological aid of North American Christian
missionaries, they established a network of Christian
villages,
each with its own leadership, schools, churches, and
clinics. They
were thus able to maintain the Ovimbundu culture while
providing
educational and social amenities for their children. The
generation
that emerged out of this structure became the disciples of
Jonas
Savimbi and the basis for UNITA, which in the 1980s used
the same
concepts to maintain Ovimbundu cohesiveness within
UNITA-controlled
areas.
Given the degree of change in Ovimbundu society and the
involvement of the Ovimbundu with UNITA, it was difficult
to
determine their long-range role in Angolan politics. Just
how long
Ovimbundu solidarity would persist under changing
circumstances
could not be predicted.
Data as of February 1989
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