StapleDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Fufu
Cassava and maize flour beaten into a firm dough, the daily food of most of the Congo. Rolled in the fingers, dented with the thumb, and used to scoop.
Serves 6 · 30 minutes
Lulua (Bena Lulua)
People of the Lulua river in Kasai, carvers of figures covered in raised scarification so fine that collectors mistook it for lace, and whose nineteenth-century hemp-smoking reform movement tried to abolish war, and whose 1959 conflict with Luba neighbours foreshadowed the Congo's independence crisis.
Identity
Population: Estimated 500,000 to 900,000
Location: Kasaï-Central province, DR Congo, around Kananga and along the Lulua river
Language: Tshiluba (the same language as the Luba-Kasai speak, with local variation)
Language family: Niger-Congo → Bantu (L31)
Traditional governance: Chiefdoms of moderate scale with lineage heads; Congolese provincial and territorial administration today.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Bena Lulua of Kananga
The communities around the provincial capital.
Bena Konji and Bena Moyo
Named groupings with their own chiefly lines.
Southern Lulua
Communities toward the Angolan border.
Culture
Clothing: Contemporary dress; raffia cloth historically; the scarification that the sculptures record has ended; chiefly regalia of skins, beads and staffs.
Food: Cassava bread and leaf, maize, groundnuts, palm oil, river fish, caterpillars in season, and palm wine.
Ceremonies: Chiefly installations; ancestral offerings before the carved figures; funerals; the bwanga healing and fertility cults; harvest rites.
Marriage customs: Patrilineal and clan-exogamous; bridewealth in goods and, formerly, in cowries and iron.
Initiation rites: Boys' circumcision with instruction; entry into the bwanga cults, which are the community's characteristic religious institution, is by need and payment rather than by age.
Food & Recipes
Every dish the Atlas publishes for Democratic Republic of the Congo, at national rather than community level — 12 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
StapleDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Madesu
also Congolese beans, Haricots
Red beans stewed with onion, tomato and palm oil until thick, the cheapest and most eaten dish in Kinshasa. Served with fufu or rice and a spoon of chilli.
Serves 6 · 2 hours, plus overnight soaking
National dishDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Poulet à la Moambé
also Moambe chicken, Nsusu na mwambe
Chicken cooked in palm nut pulp with chilli and garlic, the national dish of both Congos. The palm oil rising orange to the surface is the sign it is ready.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
National dishDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Ntaba
also Grilled goat, Chèvre braisée
Goat marinated in mustard, garlic and lemon then grilled slowly over charcoal, the Kinshasa nganda dish, eaten late with plantain and beer.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating
Street foodDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Mikate
also Beignets
Fried dough balls sold from basins by women at every Kinshasa junction, eaten hot at breakfast or as a snack with sweet coffee.
Serves Makes 24 · 2 hours 15 minutes
Street foodDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Makemba
also Grilled plantain, Banane braisée
Plantain grilled over charcoal until blistered and served with a fierce pili-pili, sold outside every Kinshasa bar and bus stop.
Serves 4 · 25 minutes
Festival & feastDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Liboke ya Mbisi
Fish steamed in a banana leaf parcel with onion, chilli and lime, the Congo river's signature method. Opened at the table so the steam and smell arrive together.
Serves 4 · 1 hour
Festival & feastDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Mbika
also Egusi in leaves, Pumpkin seed parcels
Ground melon seed mixed with fish or meat, wrapped in leaves and steamed until it sets into a savoury cake. A Congolese celebration dish and a market food.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Regional specialityDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Pondu
also Saka saka
Pounded cassava leaves cooked long with palm oil, smoked fish and aubergine. Eaten across the Congo basin and cooked for hours, since cassava leaves demand it.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes
Regional specialityDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Sombe ya Kivu
also Kivu cassava leaves, Sombe
Cassava leaves pounded and cooked long with palm oil and smoked fish, the daily dish of the Kivu hills. Bitter, dark and cooked until it no longer is.
Serves 6 · 2 hours
Drink & sweetDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Malafu ya Ngasi
also Palm wine
Palm wine tapped from the oil palm and drunk the same day, sweet in the morning and sharp by evening. Poured for the ancestors before anyone else drinks.
Serves Varies · Tapped daily
Drink & sweetDemocratic Republic of the Congo
Lotoko
also Congolese maize spirit
Distilled maize or cassava spirit, made in the villages and drunk everywhere. Clear, strong and entirely unregulated — this is a description of a tradition rather than a recommendation.
Serves Varies · 5 to 7 days fermenting, plus distilling
Stories & Oral Literature
Figures Covered in MarksArt history
Lulua figures are carved with raised keloid scarification covering the body in spirals, lozenges and chevrons, reproducing a body-marking tradition whose fineness astonished nineteenth-century observers. The figures were made for the bwanga cults: a figure for a woman who had lost children, a figure for a hunter, a figure for a chief. Each was fed, rubbed with oil and addressed. The scarification ended in the colonial period; the sculptures are its most complete record.
The Reform of KalambaReligious and political history
In the 1870s the chief Kalamba Mukenge, with his sister Sangula Meta, promoted a movement centred on the smoking of hemp — riamba — as a sacrament, which required the abolition of the older cults, the burning of the figures, an end to war and to the death penalty, and the making of peace with neighbours. Wissmann and other Europeans recorded it as they passed. The movement lasted a generation and left behind, among other things, the destruction of much of the sculpture that would now be studied.
Kasai, 1959Political history
In 1959, on the eve of independence, conflict broke out in Kasai between Lulua and Luba communities, largely over land and over the colonial-era preferment of Luba in schooling and employment in Kananga. Hundreds of thousands of Luba fled east to Mbuji-Mayi, which became the base of Albert Kalonji's secessionist South Kasai. The episode was one of the first ethnic conflicts of the decolonisation period and it prefigured the Congo Crisis that followed within a year.
Proverbs
“The mark on the skin is read before the mouth opens.”
On scarification as statement.
“The one who burns the old figures should have a new one ready.”
A wry judgement on Kalamba's reform.
“Brothers who share a language quarrel in it.”
On the Lulua-Luba conflict, both speaking Tshiluba.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Maweja Nangila as the high god; ancestral spirits present in the carved figures; the bwanga cults as the working religious institutions, each with its own object, prohibition and purpose.
Beliefs: Bwanga cults for fertility, hunting, protection and healing; ancestral offerings; divination; Catholic and Protestant Christianity now dominant, with Kasai a major mission field.
Ancestors: Ancestors are addressed before the figures and at lineage sites; the destruction of figures in the 1870s reform severed many of those connections deliberately.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Maweja Nangila
The high god of the Luba-Lulua world
Ancestral spirits
Present in the carved figures and addressed before them
Bwanga powers
The agencies of the specific cults, each with its object and prohibitions
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Villages of rectangular houses along a cleared street in the savannah and gallery forest, with the chief's compound at the centre.
Building techniques: Pole and mud with thatch and iron sheet; wood carving in the scarified-figure idiom; raffia weaving; pipe and drum making.
Village layout: Two lines of houses along a swept street with the chief's compound at the centre and gardens beyond; the bwanga shrines kept within compounds.
Artifacts
Scarified figures
Sculpture
Carved figures covered in raised keloid patterns, made for the bwanga cults.
Riamba pipes
Craft
Large gourd and calabash pipes of Kalamba's hemp-smoking movement.
Bwanga cult objects
Ritual object
Figures, bundles and vessels of the specific healing and fertility cults.
Raffia cloth
Textile
Woven and embroidered raffia of the Kasai tradition.
Historical Timeline
Pre-1800
Lulua communities settle the Lulua river basin in Kasai, sharing language with Luba neighbours.
1870s–1880s
Kalamba Mukenge's riamba movement abolishes the older cults and burns the figures; European travellers record it.
1890s–1950s
Free State and Belgian administration; Luba are preferred in schooling and employment in Kananga.
1959–1962
Lulua-Luba conflict drives mass Luba flight to Mbuji-Mayi; South Kasai secedes.
1960s–present
Kananga develops as a provincial capital; Kasai suffers severely in the 2016–2017 Kamuina Nsapu conflict.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale — Lulua collectionsRoyal Museum for Central Africa
- Petridis, Luluwa: Central African Art between Heaven and EarthWorldCat
Premium & scholarly sources
- Ethnologue: Luba-KasaiSIL International