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Angola Lunda-Chokwe
The hyphenated category Lunda-Chokwe constituted an
estimated
8 percent of the Angolan population in 1988. As the
hyphenation
implies, the category comprises at least two subsets, the
origins
of which are known to be different and the events leading
to their
inclusion in a single set are recent. The Lunda alone were
a
congeries of peoples brought together in the far-flung
Lunda Empire
(seventeenth century to nineteenth century) under the
hegemony of
a people calling themselves Ruund, its capital in the
eastern
section of Zaire's Katanga Province (present-day Shaba
Province).
Lunda is the form of the name used for the Ruund and for
themselves
by adjacent peoples to the south who came under Ruund
domination.
In some sources, the Ruund are called Northern Lunda, and
their
neighbors are called Southern Lunda. The most significant
element
of the latter, called Ndembu (or Ndembo), lived in Zaire
and
Zambia. In Angola the people with whom the
northward-expanding
Chokwe came into contact were chiefly Ruund speakers. The
economic
and political decline of the empire by the second half of
the
nineteenth century and the demarcation of colonial
boundaries ended
Ruund political domination over those elements beyond the
Zairian
borders.
The Chokwe, until the latter half of the nineteenth
century a
small group of hunters and traders living near the
headwaters of
the Cuango and Cassai rivers, were at the southern
periphery of the
Lunda Empire and paid tribute to its head. In the latter
half of
the nineteenth century, the Chokwe became increasingly
involved in
trading and raiding, and they expanded in all directions,
but
chiefly to the north, in part absorbing the Ruund and
other
peoples. In the late nineteenth century, the Chokwe went
so far as
to invade the capital of the much-weakened empire in
Katanga. As a
consequence of this Chokwe activity, a mixed population
emerged in
parts of Zaire as well as in Angola, although there were
virtually
homogenous communities in both countries consisting of
Chokwe,
Ruund, or Southern Lunda.
The intermingling of Lunda (Ruund and Southern Lunda)
and
Chokwe, in which other smaller groups were presumably also
caught
up, continued until about 1920. It was only after that
time that
the mixture acquired the hyphenated label and its members
began to
think of themselves (in some contexts) as one people.
The languages spoken by the various elements of the
so-called
Lunda-Chokwe were more closely related to each other than
to other
Bantu languages in the Zairian-Angolan savanna but were by
no means
mutually intelligible. The three major tongues (Ruund,
Lunda, and
Chokwe) had long been distinct from each other, although
some
borrowing of words, particularly of Ruund political titles
by the
others, had occurred.
Portuguese anthropologists and some others accepting
their work
have placed some of the peoples (Minungu and Shinji) in
this area
with the Mbundu, and the Minungu language is sometimes
considered
a transitional one between Kimbundu and Chokwe. There may
in fact
have been important Mbundu influence on these two peoples,
but the
work of a number of linguists places their languages
firmly with
the set that includes Ruund, Lunda, and Chokwe.
Economic and political developments in the 1970s
affected
various sections of the Lunda-Chokwe differently.
Substantial
numbers of them live in or near Lunda Norte Province,
which
contains the principal diamond mines of Angola. Diamond
mining had
been significant since 1920, and preindependence data show
that the
industry employed about 18,000 persons. Moreover, the
mining
company provided medical and educational facilities for
its
employees and their dependents, thereby affecting even
greater
numbers. How many of those employed were Lunda-Chokwe is
not clear,
although neighboring villages would have been affected by
the
presence of the mining complex in any case
(see Extractive Industries
, ch. 3). In the intra-Angolan political
conflict
preceding and immediately following independence, there
apparently
was some division between the northern Lunda-Chokwe,
especially
those with some urban experience, who tended to support
the MPLA,
and the rural Chokwe, particularly those farther south,
who tended
to support UNITA. In the 1980s, as the UNITA insurgency
intensified
in the border areas of eastern and northern Angola,
Lunda-Chokwe
families were forced to flee into Zaire's Shaba Province,
where
many remained in 1988, living in three sites along the
Benguela
Railway. The impact of this move on the ethnolinguistic
integrity
of these people was not known.
A somewhat different kind of political impact began in
the late
1960s, when refugees from Katanga in Zaire, speakers of
Lunda or a
related language, crossed the border into what are now
Lunda Sul
and northern Moxico provinces. In 1977 and 1978, these
refugees and
others whom they had recruited formed the National Front
for the
Liberation of the Congo (Front National pour la Libération
du
Congo--FNLC) and used the area as a base from which they
launched
their invasions of Shaba Province
(see National Security Environment
, ch. 5). In the 1980s, these rebels and
perhaps still
other refugees remained in Angola, many in Lunda Sul
Province,
although the Angolan government as part of its
rapprochement with
Zaire was encouraging them to return to their traditional
homes.
The Zairian government offered amnesty to political exiles
on
several occasions in the late 1980s and conferred with the
Angolan
government on the issue of refugees. In 1988, however, a
significant number of Zairian refugees continued to
inhabit LundaChokwe territory. The significance for local Lunda-Chokwe
of the
presence and activities of these Zairians was not known.
Data as of February 1989
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