Baluba

Historical Background

The Luba empire is one of the most renowned African states, along with the Mali empire, Songhai empire, the kingdom of Asante, Zulu empire, Kongo kingdom, Mongo kingdom, Lunda empire, the kingdom of Buganda, the kingdom of the Mwami of Kivu or Rwanda, or the empire of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Archaeologists have shown that the origins of the Luba state goes back to the 5th century AD and spanned almost 1,500 years.

After flourishing from 500 AD to 1900 AD, it was fragmented by Belgian colonization between 1880 and 1960. However, it survives today in a variety of polities. Today, Lubaland is divided into the kingdoms of Kabongo, Kasong'wa Nyembo, Kinkondja, Kabondo-Dianda, Malemba-Nkulu, and Mwanza, among the most prominent. Although these administrative entities are integrated in the modern Republic, traditional “Chiefs” are recognized by the government. They administer their territories with a standing police force and levy taxes.

The Baluba, 1 of the 200 ethnic groups of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo), are a branch of the Bantu people and thus share a common worldview with many other people from the Equator to South Africa. They live principally in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the Katanga province. But the Luba empire included a large number of people living in various countries, including Zambia and Angola.

The original location of the Baluba is the region between Lualaba (or the Congo River) and Lake Tanganika. This location in the Great Lakes region provided the Baluba with sufficient means of subsistence necessary for the development of a powerful civilization: water, abundant food, fish, and raw material necessary for a technology needed for protection and agriculture. Some scholars think that the Baluba are one of the pro-tobantu groups and that their territory constitutes one of the main centers from which the Bantu spread across Central and Southern Africa.

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