Zaire State Systems Versus Segmentary Societies
Figure 2. Major Kingdoms in Central Africa, Sixteenth
Century
Source: Based on information from Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of
the Savanna, Madison, 1968; and Jan Vansina, Paths in the
Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial
Africa, Madison, 1990.
Figure 3. Major States in the Southern Savanna, Mid-Nineteenth
Century
Source: Based on information from Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of
the Savanna, Madison, 1968.
The first and most obvious distinction to be made
between the
various peoples who first populated the area of Zaire is
between
the small-scale, segmentary societies of the rain-forest
zone and
the state systems of the savanna. Segmentary societies,
which may
be defined as societies that are divided into a number of
units,
such as
lineage (see
Glossary) or
clan (see Glossary)
groups, which
are structurally similar and functionally equivalent, were
widely
distributed across the interior north and south of the
great bend
of the Congo River. Most of the peoples of the rain-forest
area
were organized into village communities, under the
leadership of
chiefs or of dominant clans or lineages. Some of these
communities
were able to absorb or conquer neighboring villages and
thus
develop into sizable chiefdoms. In specific instances, as
among the
Mangbetu, these expanding societies provided the basis for
a common
sense of identity among otherwise unrelated peoples.
Elsewhere,
however, social fragmentation remained one of the most
salient
characteristics of the rain-forest peoples.
A classic example of such fragmentation is offered by
the
various communities loosely referred to as the Mongo
people, who
occupied most of the central basin. Divided as they were
into
congeries of smaller communities (Ntomba, Mbole, Kutu,
etc.), they
had nothing resembling a unifying political focus. Their
social
boundaries were generally coterminous with village groups.
The same
applies to the so-called gens d'eau (water people),
a
generic term coined to designate the Bobangi, Lobala,
Ngiri, and
neighboring groups who lived along water courses to the
north of
the Congo River. Most of the peoples between the Congo and
Ubangi,
however, such as the Ngbandi, Ngbaka, Banda, and Ngombe,
possessed
lineage-based systems that were more hierarchical than
those found
farther south. Finally, to emphasize the great diversity
among the
peoples and their social organization in this region, the
Zande and
the Mangbetu, who lived in the far northeast, were
organized into
states.
A different picture emerges from the history of the
southern
savanna, the traditional habitat of several large-scale
societies
with centralized political systems, variously described as
kingdoms, empires, and chiefdoms, that emerged between
1200 and
1500 A.D.
(see
fig. 2;
fig. 3). These include the Kongo,
Lunda,
Luba, and Kuba state systems, all of which shared certain
common
features, such as a centralized structure of authority
identified
with a single ruler, more often than not enjoying the
attributes of
divine kingship; a corpus of oral traditions tracing the
birth of
the state to a mythical figure; and a tendency to
incorporate and
assimilate smaller neighboring societies. Cultural
assimilation
went hand in hand with political conquest. As recent
historical
research suggests, territorial expansion of the original
nuclear
kingdom involved various methods, ranging from armed raids
and
military occupation to more peaceful forms of interaction.
Yet in
each case, the end result was the creation of large-scale
political
entities that were far more capable of concerted action
than the
segmentary societies of the rain-forest zone.
Data as of December 1993
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