Kingdom of Luba
The Kingdom of Luba, or the Luba Empire, was a kingdom in central Africa, one of the most important kingdoms in African history, existing in the pre-colonial history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the Ubemba depression in present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Archaeological evidence shows that since the 5th century, the Ubemba Depression has been occupied by different ethnic groups many times; By the 6th century, the lakeside was already subsisted by fishing, making iron, palm oil, and trading with the inhabitants of the surrounding forests from sun-dried fish; By the 10th century, local economic activities were more complex, including agriculture, fishing, and iron smelting. They traded with the surrounding population, exporting salt and iron products, importing ornaments such as snails and glass beads, as well as coal and copper for iron making. It trades as far as the Indian Ocean.
The actual year of the founding of the Kingdom of Luba is not clear, but in the 16th century, a king named Nkongolo Mwamba established the Kingdom of Luba, which was later overthrown by his nephew Kalala Ilunga, who during his reign expanded the territory of the Kingdom of Luba to the left bank of the upper Lualaba River, and at its peak it had about 1 million people, known as "Peace under Luba" （Pax Luba）。
1. The Congolo period
The Kingdom of Luba was located in the province of Sabah in the southern part of the Republic of the Congo. According to oral tradition of the Luba people, their ancestors originally lived in the Manima (northwest of Abbotliver) area. In the first half of the 16th century, they moved south between the upper Lomami and Lualaba rivers, near Lakes Kisale and Upemba, led by a semi-mythical hero Congolo. It is a tropical savannah area with rivers and lakes and fertile soil. The Luba either made a living from agriculture, fished, herded cattle and used iron tools. Under Kongolo's leadership, the Kingdom of Luba was established.
The life of Kongolo is unknown, he is said to have been the leader of a Luba tribe, and after moving to the new land, he gradually took control of the local population and established his dominance by means of peaceful infiltration and military conquest. He sentenced some of his unruly subjects to death, often having their noses, ears or breasts cut off. Therefore, in the legend of the Lubas, Kongolo is a cruel and arrogant man, a giant red serpent that descends on Ganlin, appearing in the form of a rainbow; He also asked people to build towers in the hope of regaining their reach to heaven. The snake and the rainbow thus became the symbols of the Luba royal family.
The Kingdom of Luba still retains some vestiges of matrilineal clan societies. The Queen Mother played a major role in the selection of a new king and his accession to the throne, and the queen's mother shared religious power with the king. According to the Luba tradition, the king could not eat and drink from being seen by others, and had to hide other natural physiological functions, and was considered to exist like a god. When a new king or chief is born, they light a fire in the public square and burn it until they die; The chieftains and people of their subjects lit their own fires from this fire to show their allegiance to the ruler. The subordination of the Luba kingdom was also manifested in the fact that the local people regularly paid tribute to their tribal chiefs, and then gathered in the capital Kitten Tower to pay tribute to the king.
2. Mbiliden period
Around 1585, Kongolo was killed by his nephew Ilunga Mbili. After his accession to the throne, Mbili continued to carry out conquests in the surrounding areas, extending the territory of the Luba kingdom to the Bushimei River (upper Sankuru River) in the west, Damanima in the north, and the Lufwa River in the east. He became another founder of the legendary kingdom of Luba (2). However, after Mbili's death, the struggle for the throne in the kingdom of Luba intensified, and by the late 18th century, seven kings had ruled successively: Ilenga Liu, Kasonron, Kalumburu, Guwa Sanza, Mwangne Kumbe, Deikakria and Ilenga Songu.
3. The Ngongbe period
In 1785, he was succeeded by Kumbu Ngongbe, the tenth king of Luba. During his reign (1785-1805), Luba flourished again, and the kingdom's boundaries extended eastward to the west coast of Lake Tanganyika. He divided the territory of the country into several provinces, which he ruled directly or appointed governors to govern, strengthening centralization. The province was divided into districts or villages, headed by "kilolo", held by nobles and chieftains, who held hereditary positions and were responsible for collecting tribute for the king. In addition, a special official, Mwinentanda, was set up to take charge of the country's land, including the distribution of land, regular fallow and the organization of people to clear wasteland. In the central court, he also added a number of official positions, usually held by members of the royal family, the higher positions being "Sanga" (chief counselor), "tvite" (chancellor of the exchequer), "munonda" (responsible for maintaining harmony within the court), and "mfumu" (court counselor). In order to prevent foreign invasions, Ngongmbe established a defensive force on the border and used fiefdoms to make the subordinate tribes loyal to him. Kuwabu Ngongmbe had no successor, and after his death, wars for the throne resumed within the kingdom, and the kingdom declined again. By the end of the 19th century, the Kingdom of Luba had split into several small emirates.
4. Politics
The political system of the Kingdom of Luba is quite flexible. Its pattern of rule was later adopted by the Lunda Kingdom and influenced the neighboring regions of what is now Angola and Zambia.
The king of the kingdom of Luba was called Mulopwe, and under him a group of nobles called Bamfumus assisted in his rule. The king indirectly ruled over the subjects of the kingdom through Balopwe, the leader of the various clans within the territory. The country has many ethnic groups, and the religion known as "Bambudye" is spread throughout the territory and is important for cohesion of its rule. Tortoises are sacred animals in this religion, and even the settlements of people within the kingdom have the image of tortoises.
The Lubas believed that monarchs would be deified after death, and "mwadi" was the embodiment of the dead king and was crucial to the royal power of the king of Luba and the nobility, and the Luba believed that after the king's death, his soul would be possessed by a woman of his tribe, called mwadi. Mwadi thus inherited the property and authority of that king. The new king had to choose a new place as his residence and pay tribute to MWADI throughout his reign. When Mwadi dies, she is replaced by another woman from the tribe. The Lubas believed that only a woman's body was strong enough to support the soul of a dead king. Therefore, there are many female figures in Luba art, and kings' scepters, headrests and thrones often have these images to show their royal power.
The monarchs of the Kingdom of Luba were subject to many checks and balances, the most important of which was the organization called "Mbudye", which was responsible for documenting the history of the kingdom, and their interpretation of history also influenced the actions of the kings at that time.
The Kingdom of Luba often engaged in disputes over succession to the throne, which led to civil war, in which the two sides of the conflict cooperated with rival Angolan regional powers and attracted foreign aid.
5. Social nature
Slavery is almost certain. In the palace of Luba there were many slaves and evacuators known as "inferiors", who were protected by the king, but many of them were used as human sacrifices after the king's death. There were also slaves in ordinary villages, whose situation may have been more miserable, and there is a ballad in Luba's oral legend that reflects their situation: "They insulted me, and I swallowed my breath; Although I was angry and wanted to escape, I could not find a way back to my hometown and to my loved ones. "After entering the 18th century, with the frequent occurrence of external expansion and civil strife, the number of prisoners of war soared, and Luba slavery developed in a new way, and the king began to concentrate prisoner of war slaves near the capital, establish slave villages and slave lineages, and undertake the tasks of farming and guarding. Around this time, Luba participated in the Atlantic slave trade system, providing slaves to slave traders in Portugal and other countries. Later, Luba, along with Ronda and Kazenbe, became an important source of slaves. The expansion of the slave trade undermined the development of local production and exacerbated social unrest. This was an important reason for the decline of the Kingdom of Luba.
6. Economy
The Kingdom of Luba connected the Congolese rainforests in the north with the Copperbelt in present-day Zambia in the south, with trade routes in between, which also extended to the Atlantic and Indian Ocean coasts. Its internal economy is tribal, with tribes exchanging agricultural products, game, and minerals. Minerals such as salt, copper, and iron ore had a great influence on the establishment of kingdoms, and these resources were often monopolized by the nobility and were an important basis for their rule.
7. Culture
Although the unified kingdom of Luba has disappeared, the language of the Luba people and the culture they created have had an important impact on the Congo River Valley. Luba language art is based on the tradition of the hymn "kasala", and the narrative poem about Ilunga Carrara has become an important work of art. After centuries of tempering and artistic processing, the Luba language has been continuously enriched and developed, and is widely spoken among many ethnic groups in Central Africa, and is one of the four major languages spoken in the Republic of the Congo today, and is also used in primary education in the provinces of Sabah and Kasai. Luba sculpture is also famous for its variety and variety, with a soft naturalistic style in the east of Humbar and a completely different solemn style in the north of Songi, with the finest pieces of sculpture being mboko, a female figurine holding a bowl, a royal bench and other symbolic objects. The Lubardo note music is also an important cultural achievement.
8. Recession
Because of its landlocked location, the Kingdom of Luba was late under the influence of Western colonists, but in the late nineteenth century, the long trading routes that sustained its economy were unsustainable. In the 1850s, Arab-Swahili merchants from the East African coast invaded the kingdom, plundering ivory and slaves. In 1889, the kingdom was split in half by a dispute over succession, and when Western colonists, led by Belgium, entered the area in 1891 to plunder slaves, the Kingdom of Luba had lost all its vassal states and quickly collapsed. Both were soon annexed by the Congo Free State, the private domain of the King of Belgium.
9. Impact
The religious monarchy system of the Kingdom of Luba has a great influence on the surrounding tribes, and many rulers of these tribes hope to join the inheritance system of the Kingdom of Luba, they pay tribute to the kingdom with offerings and manpower, can obtain the approval of the Kingdom of Luba through specific ceremonies, integrate into the royal system of the Kingdom, the rulers of these tribes may establish a symbolic father-son relationship with King Luba, and obtain symbolic accessories such as necklaces, scepters, belts or weapons from the king of Luba, as well as accessories such as mediums, The wizard obtains white soil. They would store the clay in intricately carved, well-guarded vessels (usually bowls held up by kneeling female statues) and distribute them to their chiefs as a demonstration of their authority. Political tokens obtained from the Luba kingdom were of great significance to these surrounding tribes, and those who sought to seize power would also try to compete for them for legitimacy. As a result, the culture and art of the Luba kingdom were introduced to these surrounding vassal states.
10. List of kings
The following is a documented list of monarchs of the Kingdom of Luba.
| king | Tribe | remark |
| Nkongolo Mwamba | Kimonos | Not to be deified and recognized by posterity |
| Kalala Ilunga | Makwidi | |
| Kill the Beast | Kalongo | |
| Kasongo Mwine Kibanza | Myumbu | |
| Kasongo Bonswe | Kabanda(Nyembo) | |
| Kasongo Kabundulu | ||
| Ngoye Sanza | Katumpa | |
| Kumwimbe Mputu | Djingile | |
| Ndaye Mwine Nkombe | Kita (Cup) | |
| Frankincense | Katunda | |
| Kekenya | Catala | |
| Ilunga Sungu | Gonzo(Kabondo)(Sungu-Katende) | |
| Kumwimbe Ngombe | Kitenta kya Kumwimbe | |
| Ilunga Kabale | The Curse of the Beast |
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