APPENDIX II.
A Sketch of the History of Kongo
To The
end of the seventeenth century.
The Early History of Kongo.
IF traditions may be accepted where written history fails us, the foundation of the Empire of Kongo lies back no further than the middle of the fifteenth century.
The founder of the dynasty and first King of Kongo—Ntotela ntinu nekongo—was Nimi a Lukeni, the son of Nimi a nzima and of Lukeni lua nsanzi, the daughter of Nsa ku ki-lau. His father appears to have been a mere village chief in Kurimba (Corimba),293 a district of the kingdom of Kwangu. He had established himself at a ferry on a great river (nzari), now known to us as the Kwangu, and levied a toll upon all travellers who crossed the stream. One day the young man’s aunt came that way, and claimed exemption on the ground of being the old chief’s sister. Her brother was absent, and not only was the claim denied, but young Nimi a Lukeni, notwithstanding that she was with child, caused her to be disembowelled. The younger members of his clan looked upon this act of brutality as one of bravery, and shielded him against his father’s just wrath. He then placed himself at their head, assumed the title of ntinu (king), and started westward upon a career of conquest.
The country he was about to invade was inhabited by a people kindred to those of Angola and of the country to the north of the Zaire, split up into numerous small clans294 ruled by independent kinglets. This, no doubt, would account for the rapidity and the extent of his conquests, which have been matched however, in our own days, by the Makololo.
Having defeated Mbumbulu mwana Mpangala of Mpemba-kasi, he founded his capital—Mbazi a nkanu—295 upon a rock within that chief’s territory. By degrees he extended his conquests southward to the Kwanza and even beyond, installed his uncle Nsa ku ki-lau as ruler of the important province of Mbata, bestowed large territories upon others of his adherents, and even restored some of their father’s territories to the children of the Mwana Mpangala. His “sons,” attended by the great Nganga Ngoyo, he sent across the Zaire, and they became the founders of the “kingdoms” of Kakongo and Luangu; whilst a third son, by a slave woman, is supposed to be the ancestor of the “counts” of Sonyo or Soyo.296 Anciently the King of Kakongo, before he assumed his kingship, was bound to marry a princess of the blood royal of Kongo, whilst he of Luangu married a princess of Kakongo; yet the ruler of Luangu was highest in rank, for he enjoyed the title of nunu (“aged person”), whilst his brother of Kakongo had to be contented with the inferior title of nkaji (“spouse”). The Kings were elected by the feudal princes, but their choice was limited to the sons of princesses, as in a great part of negro Africa.297
Of the early institutions of Kongo we know next to nothing, though we may presume that the law of succession was originally the same there as in the sister-states to the north, for the first Ntotela was succeeded by two nephews (Nanga kia ntinu and another, whose name has not reached us). But even thus early, and anterior to the introduction of Christianity, the old law of succession was broken through, for Nkuwu a ntinu, the fourth Ntotela, was a son of Ntinu Nimi a Lukeni, and was succeeded by a son of his own, Nzinga a Nkuwa, the first Christian Ntotela, better known in history as John I.
If Dapper may be believed, it was the custom to bury twelve virgins with the earlier kings—a distinction much sought after, as in other parts of Africa; but the people of Kongo have never been charged with cannibalism, nor its rulers with the bloody rites practised by the Jaga.