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Angola Nganguela
Nganguela (also spelled Ganguela) is a term, pejorative
in
connotation, applied by the Ovimbundu to the peoples
living east
and southeast of them. The essentially independent groups
constituting what was no more than a Portuguese census
category was
split by southward penetration of the Chokwe in the late
nineteenth
century and early twentieth century. Only two groups in
the western
section of the territory accepted the name Nganguela; the
others
carried names such as Lwena (or Lovale), Mbunda, and
Luchazi--all
in the eastern division. The Lwena and Luchazi, roughly
equal in
number, constituted about a third of the census category
of
Nganguela, which in 1988 accounted for an estimated 6
percent of
the Angolan population.
Unlike the farming peoples who numerically dominated
the larger
ethnolinguistic categories, the groups in the western
division of
the Nganguela were cattle raisers as well as cultivators.
Those in
the eastern division near the headwaters of the Zambezi
River and
its tributaries also relied on fishing.
All the groups included in the Nganguela
ethnolinguistic
category spoke languages apparently related to those
spoken by the
Ruund, Southern Lunda, and Chokwe. Lwena and Chokwe,
although not
mutually intelligible, were probably more closely related
than
Chokwe was to Ruund or Lunda. Except for sections of the
Lwena,
during the time of kingdoms most of these peoples were
outside the
periphery of Lunda influence, and some (in the western
division)
were affected by Ovimbundu activity, including slave
raiding.
Of the ethnolinguistic categories treated thus far, the
Nganguela have had the least social or political
significance in
the past or in modern times. For the most part thinly
scattered in
an inhospitable territory, split by the southern expansion
of the
Chokwe, and lacking the conditions for even partial
political
centralization, let alone unification, the groups
constituting the
category went different ways when nationalist activity
gave rise to
political movements based in part on regional and ethnic
considerations. The western division, adjacent to the
Ovimbundu,
was most heavily represented in the Ovimbundu-dominated
UNITA. Some
of the groups in the eastern divisions were represented in
the
MPLA-PTA, which Mbundu and mestiços dominated,
although the
Lwena, neighbors of and related to the Chokwe, tended to
support
UNITA.
In the 1980s, the spread of the UNITA insurgency into
the
Nganuela-inhabited area adjacent to the Zambian border led
to the
flight of many Nganguela families into Zambia. The extent
of this
flight and its effects on the ethnolinguistic integrity of
the
Nganguela were unknown.
Data as of February 1989
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