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Zaire Peoples Between the Kwango and the Kasai
Four clusters have been distinguished among the mixture
of
peoples in this area: the Yaka cluster includes, among
others, the
Suku. The Mbala cluster also includes several groups and
is perhaps
the most fragmented of the lot. The Pende cluster includes
the
Kwese; the Lunda cluster includes the Soonde and the
Chokwe. The
Lunda, closely related to the peoples of western Shaba,
are
included here by Vansina because they are separated from
their core
area and have had a longtime relationship with the other
peoples in
the area.
Mixture and mutual influence have characterized these
peoples,
often in less than peaceful ways. In general, Lunda
expansion led
to the formation of Lunda-ruled states, a process that
continued
through the first half of the nineteenth century. The
Chokwe, who
became such a powerful presence in the core Lunda area in
western
Shaba in the second half of the nineteenth century, also
drove
north here in the same period, fragmenting local groups
but also
incorporating many of them. They were stopped only in 1885
by a
coalition of Mbun, Njembe, and Pende, the first two being
peoples
of the lower Kasai.
Except for the members of the Lunda cluster, most of
the
peoples in the area originally spoke a dialect of Kikongo
or a
language related to it. Over a period beginning in the
seventeenth
century, a good deal of movement was set in train by the
expansion
of the Lunda Empire. The result was the establishment of
Lundainfluenced political patterns of Kongo peoples in the
area.
Data as of December 1993
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