Zaire BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMY
Early Economic Activity
Open-pit mining of copper and cobalt at the Gécamines
Musonoi Mine near Kolwezi
Steam shovel loading copper and cobalt ore to be
processed at Musonoi Mine
Courtesy Gécamines
In the precolonial era, economic activity in most
communities
in Zaire was largely subsistence in nature, characterized
by a
varying combination of shifting cultivation, hunting,
fishing, and
collecting. The agricultural technology of most groups was
comparatively simple. Livestock was limited to chickens
and
sometimes a few goats or sheep. In most
communities--particularly
those in and on the fringes of the forest--the men valued
hunting
far above agriculture and devoted not only time but much
ritual
activity to it. This pattern was consistent with the
division of
labor: at best men played a small part in cultivation,
usually that
of cutting and burning forest or bush before planting. The
high
esteem of hunting persisted even where the declining
availability
of game made it economically less important.
Along the Congo River and its many tributaries,
thriving
riverine economies developed. The men of some groups
devoted
themselves wholly to fishing and the women to pottery,
exchanging
these items for food and other goods produced by their
neighbors.
These fishermen were also active traders along the
navigable
waters.
Other groups devoted themselves entirely to hunting and
collecting. Occasionally these groups lived in villages
with
settled agricultural communities. More often they lived in
physically separated hamlets but in symbiosis with
specific
cultivating communities, exchanging the products of the
hunt for
bananas and other crops.
Various groups in precolonial Zaire also played a
substantial
role in the trade of such commodities as ivory, rubber,
copper, and
slaves. To meet the demand for such goods, sustained
caravan trade
involving Arab and mixed Arab-African traders occurred
throughout
the interior of Central Africa, including territory in
what is now
Zaire. Although never great traders themselves, the Lunda
apparently profited handsomely from controlling and
supervising the
caravan trade of others. And both the Kazembe Kingdom and
later the
Luba Empire prospered as a result of their control of the
ivory
trade
(see Early
Historical Perspectives
, ch. 1).
Data as of December 1993
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