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Zaire Rulers and Ruled
Unlike the societies of the rain-forest zone, where
power was
diffused among a group of elders or else centered upon a
clan head
or a village chief, the kingdoms of the southern savanna
developed
elaborate political structures, buttressed by the symbolic
force of
monarchy as well as by military force. Despite significant
variations in the extent to which kings could be said to
exercise
an effective monopoly of power, relations between rulers
and ruled
were structured along hierarchical lines. Typically, power
emanated
from the central seat of authority to the outer provinces
through
the intermediation of appointed chiefs or local clan
heads.
Relations between center and periphery, however, were by
no means
free of ambiguity. Ensuring the loyalty of subordinate
chiefs was
the critical problem faced by African rulers throughout
the
southern savanna zone.
Although the origins of these kingdoms are shrouded in
myths,
their capacity to expand and conquer was directly related
to their
internal political structure. Thus, the expansion of the
Lunda
Kingdom, which probably began in the late sixteenth
century and
resulted in the so-called Lunda Empire that flourished in
the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was critically
related to
what historian Jan Vansina calls "the twin mechanisms of
perpetual
succession and positional kinship." That is, each
succeeding
officeholder, monarch or otherwise, assumed the name,
title, and
personal identity of the original occupant (founder) of
the office
(perpetual succession). At the same time, the new
officeholder
adopted all kin relationships of the founder of the office
as his
own (positional kinship). In this manner, the personalized
identity
and kin ties of each founding official were perpetuated
over time.
These mechanisms were extremely useful in that they
divorced the
political structure from the actual descent structure. In
so doing,
they freed the processes of political recruitment from the
constraints of kinship and facilitated the recruitment of
new
officials from within Lunda society and from the ranks of
recently
conquered peoples.
By the same token, the Lunda governed through a
hierarchy of
subordinate chiefs, a form of indirect rule, in newly
occupied
lands, a practice that facilitated the adaptation of the
political
kingdom beyond its original homeland. This custom shows
how the
Lunda Kingdom differed in some fundamental ways from the
Luba
kingdoms (fifteenth to nineteenth centuries) from which it
split
off, probably in the fifteenth century. Although both
evolved out
of preexisting chiefdoms and shared many of the same
political
symbols, including the notion of divine kingship, only the
Lunda
were able to expand substantially beyond their core area.
During
the seventeenth century, the Lunda expanded toward the
west and
northwest into present-day Angola, initially to escape
Luba
domination, and to the south and east, initially in search
of
copper and salt and control of the trade associated with
these
desirable commodities, and later in pursuit of ivory. In
the course
of that expansion, the Lunda established a number of
subsidiary
states, including an eastern branch known as the Kazembe
Kingdom of
the Luapula Valley in the mid-eighteenth century. That
kingdom
successfully controlled the ivory trade in the area and
set up a
tributary organization of subordinate chiefs.
The absence among the Luba of anything like positional
succession or perpetual kinship proved a major handicap.
The rise
and fall of at least three different Luba dynasties in the
seventeenth century testifies to the relative weakness of
the Luba
monarchy. Competition for control of the throne led to
incessant
civil wars, and by the late nineteenth century, the
kingdom had
become easy prey for the Chokwe (often spelled Cokwe)
people.
The Chokwe were originally a seminomadic,
Bantu-speaking people
living near the headwaters of the Kwango and Kasai rivers.
They
were primarily hunters, although their movements permitted
them to
trade successfully in such commodities as wax. By the
start of the
nineteenth century, the Chokwe were still largely unknown.
They
expanded dramatically in the second half of the century,
however,
largely at the expense of the Lunda, whose territories
they invaded
and occupied. Chokwe warriors, armed with rifles, wreaked
havoc
among the Lunda, looting and burning villages and either
absorbing
the local population or selling captives into slavery.
After about
1885, the Chokwe began to attack the Luba as well, but by
the end
of the century, the Lunda had managed to defeat the Chokwe
and to
drive them back southward.
Chokwe political structure was similar to that of the
Lunda,
under whose chiefs they had originally lived. This
structure
enabled the Chokwe to absorb human resources from small
lineages
over a wide area and to gain military superiority over the
indigenous population of the lands into which they moved.
Once they
conquered a people, the Chokwe rapidly assimilated them
into their
own social structure. The reason for their expansion seems
to have
been the rich trade in wax, ivory, slaves and, later,
rubber; the
avenues of Chokwe expansion were along the lines of
preexisting
trade routes.
Data as of December 1993
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