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Zaire Peoples of the Lower Kasai and Its Tributaries
This heterogeneous group of peoples distributed north
and south
of the lower Kasai River, its tributaries, and the lower
Congo
River as far as Kinshasa all speak Bantu languages more
closely
related to each other than to those of adjacent peoples.
Many of
these groups, particularly those at the periphery, have
been
influenced by adjacent peoples--the Mongo in the north and
peoples
of the Kwango River in the southwest.
Vansina has distinguished several clusters, each
including the
group giving its name to the cluster and others. The Tio
cluster
includes the core peoples of the Tio Kingdom and several
others,
some of them never incorporated into the kingdom. The
Boma-Sakata
cluster includes the Nku and several smaller groups. The
Yans-Mbun
cluster includes a number of smaller entities. The Kuba
cluster
includes the Leele, the Njembe, and a number of groups
governed by
a ruling group called the Bushong, together called Kuba.
The Tio Kingdom was established along both sides of the
Congo
River north and south of Stanley Pool (now Pool de Malebo)
at least
as early as the fifteenth century and influenced the
development of
smaller kingdoms and chiefdoms along the lower Kasai
thereafter. At
the eastern end of the region, the kingdom of the Kuba,
already in
existence but not well developed, was reorganized in the
midseventeenth century and exercised considerable influence
in the
region west of the Tshiluba-speaking peoples. Between the
Tio in
the west and the Kuba, most of the peoples in the region
were
organized into small kingdoms or chieftainships that
extended
beyond the level of the village or local community. The
only
important exception was the Leele. There were Leele
chiefdoms, but
the chiefs had no real significance, and the villages were
essentially autonomous and often in conflict.
Local communities were governed by local chiefs in
almost all
cases. There were superior chiefs nearly everywhere and,
in three
cases at least, kings, but their powers were often
limited. In the
cases of kingdoms, one task of the superior chief was to
collect
tribute.
The Tio Kingdom was large but decentralized. One of the
segments in what is now Zaire was essentially autonomous,
paying
tribute to the king irregularly. The other was more
closely
controlled, and in certain legal cases, appeals to the
king from
the judgments of the local chief were possible. The Kuba
Kingdom
was much more tightly organized. In Vansina's view, this
was
perhaps the most complex state organization in Zaire with
the
exception of the Lunda Empire.
Data as of December 1993
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