TThhee BBaannttuu
To the south of the line described at the end of the preceding
chapter, a line which runs in general a little to the north of the
Equator but bending to the south at the point of reaching the Indian
Ocean, extends the domain of the Negroes of the Bantu group.
Except for the Negrillos, disseminated in the equatorial zone or
grouped into more important masses in the southwest of the
continent and the populations of European origin which have
colonised the extreme south of the continent, these Negroes
occupy the country to themselves.
The Bantu have been at all times, and are still today, divided
into numberless groups having nothing in common except ethnic
and linguistic ties. They have never constituted among
themselves vast states comparable to those of the Sudanese
zone, not that the Bantu are less gifted than the other Negroes
from the social and political point of view or that the passion
for lucre and the thirst for power, which engenders great
conquerors and founders of empires, was less developed
among them than among the Sudanese, but simply because
their country, covered in great part by thick forests and cut up
by innumerable water courses whose annual overflow trans-
forms them into serious obstacles for communication, is less
favourable than the Sudanese steppes for great military excur-
sions and for commercial and political relations of region with
region and of people with people.
However, since the time that this part of Africa has been
revealed to Europe by the first navigators, the existence of a
certain number of kingdoms has been noted in this region
which, although never having had the extent or the influence
at long distance of the empire of Ghana or that of Manding,
were not without possession of some power supported by a
rudimentary organisation.
TThhee CCoonnggoo
Such was the case of the States which in the 16thcentury, and
undoubtedly for a long time previously, were scattered along
the shores of the Atlantic from the Fernando-Po to the Cape of
Good Hope. Among the most renowned, the first was the
kingdom of Loango or of the Brama, lying between Cape
Lopez and the mouth of the Congo or Zaire River. Then
followed the one that the Europeans called “the empire” of the
Congo, the foundation of which goes back to the 14thcentury.
In the following century, its sovereign, the mani-congo,
exercised his authority as far as Setti-Camma in the north and
Benguella to the south and, to the east, as far as the Kasai and
the upper Zambezi; but its boundaries shrank, towards the
beginning of the 16thcentury, to Cabinda in the north, Loanda
in the south and to Kuango in the east. The capital of the State
was in the interior of the country, at Banza, today Mbanza
Koongo in Angola.TThhee AAnnssiikkaa
To the east of the Loango and at the northeast of the Congo,
astride the river, is the kingdom of the Ansika or Anikana, whose
inhabitants were, for the most part, the Bateke and the Bayaka.
The latter are today scattered principally to the west of the
Bateke; formerly they probably occupied the region to the north
and the east of Stanley Pool and likely gained their present
habitat as the result of migrations of a warlike character; they
were cannibalistic in the 16thcentury and very much feared by
the populations along the coast.^18 The king of the Ansika bore
the title of makoko and resided not far from the place where
Brazzaville now stands.South Africa
Statue (Luba).
Wood, height: 46 cm.
Private collection.This statue, an exqusite example of Luba sculptures, expresses the amazing
sensibility exhibited by Luba sculptors when carving their female figures. At least
two centuries of libations have resulted in its black finish.