Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T09:12:53.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Family and Kinship among the Kongo South of the Zaïre River from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Anne Hilton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The article considers the changing pattern of kinship relations amongst the Kongo south of the Zaïre river and west of the plateau in the region once dominated by the nuclear Kongo kingdom. It argues that the normative pattern of kinship and family relationship was probably established in the early years of agricultural settlement by the ideology of the kanda, the exogamous matrilineal descent groups which controlled access to land. This ideology dominated family and kinship relationships as long as agricultural production was the dominant economic factor. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the evolution of the trade-based kingdom of Kongo modified the normative pattern established by the kanda, and in the late sixteenth century the acquisition of large numbers of slaves and the use of Christianity as a legitimating ideology effected more profound change. In particular, the elite developed a system of patrilineal descent categories which were used to control trade-based wealth and to organize political relationships. Freedom came to be related more to patrilineal descent category membership and less to kanda membership, whilst the economic and political position of all but the most eminent women deteriorated. When, in the late seventeenth century, changing patterns of trade caused the kingdom of Kongo to disintegrate, the Mwissikongo of the centre adopted a cognatic mode of descent which enabled them to control both agricultural and trade-based wealth. Certain eminent women seized the political opportunities afforded by the crumbling of male-dominated centres of power whilst the definition of slave and free became increasingly problematic. In the north-western province of Sonyo, increased trade-based wealth enabled the dominant patrilineal category to establish itself as a corporate group and to monopolize all positions of power. In the eighteenth century power disintegrated throughout the region and land again became the primary economic asset. The ruling elite sought legitimation in terms of the ideology and descent system of the kanda. The former slave groups sought to establish rights in the same way. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries all groups legitimized their holding of land, primarily in terms of the ideology of the kanda and secondarily in terms of the concept of Mbanza Kongo.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 189 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 I use the term Kongo to refer only to the people of the area once controlled by the nuclear Kongo kingdom, a region roughly bounded by the rivers Zaïre, Nkisi and Dande and by the Atlantic Ocean. The term Mwissikongo is used to designate the ruling elite of the Kongo kingdom.

3 Today, as in the nineteenth century, individuals and groups scattered through Kongo who have the same categorical name but no corporate status are believed to be descended from the same mother, and the category is called mvila or kanda. The term mvila does not appear in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources, although the concept does. I have followed MacGaffey, , Custom and GovernmentGoogle Scholar, in using the term kanda to designate the corporate groups, including within that term both the large matriclans which could still be mobilized in the sixteenth century and the smaller matrilineages which approximate to the contemporary kanda.

4 Wilson, Anne, ‘The kingdom of Kongo to the mid-seventeenth century’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1978).Google Scholar

5 I am influenced in this reflexion by McCaskie, T. C., ‘State and society, marriage and adultery: some considerations towards a social history of pre-colonial Asante’, J. Afr. Hist. XXII, iv (1981), 477–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Smith, M. G., ‘A structural approach to comparative politics’ in Varieties of Political Theory, ed. David, Easton (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1966), 117Google Scholar; Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, 22–4.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. Appendix 4; MacGaffey, Wyatt, Custom and Government, Part IGoogle Scholar; Da Vetralla, Giacinto Brugiotti (trans. Guinness, H. Gratton), Grammar of the Congo Languages as Spoken Two Hundred Years Ago (London, 1882), 108–12Google Scholar; Van Wing, J. and Penders, C., Le Plus Ancien Dictionnaire Bantou (Brussels, 1928), 23, 198, 230, 240, 254, 256.Google Scholar

8 MacGaffey, , Custom and Government, 99, 215–22Google Scholar; Macgaffey, Wyatt, ‘Economic and social dimensions of Kongo slavery’ in Suzanne, Miers and Igor, Kopytoff (eds.), Slavery in Africa (Madison, Wis., 1977), 235–60.Google Scholar

9 Wing, Van and Penders, , Le Plus Ancien Dictionnaire, 203, 234, 236, 348.Google Scholar

10 I, Afonso to Kongo, João III, 3 October 1526 in Brásio, António, Monumenta Missionária Africana (Africa Occidental), Series I (Lisbon, 1952–1965), I, 489, 490.Google Scholar

11 Interpretation based upon: Report of the Bishop of Kongo, Manuel Baptista, 7 September 1619 in Brásio, , Monumenta, VI, 375Google Scholar; da Alessano, P. Bonaventura to Fide, Propaganda, Salvador, São, 14 January 1647 in Brásio, Monumenta, X, 7.Google Scholar See Wilson, 66.

12 Doutreloux, E.g. A., L'Ombre des fétiches: sociéte et culture Yombe (Leopoldville and Louvain, 1967), 143Google Scholar; Van Wing, J., Études Bakongo I. Histoire et Sociologie (Brussels, 1921), 192Google Scholar; De Souseberghe, L., ‘Cousins Croisés et descendants. Les Systèmes du Ruanda et du Burundi comparés à ceux du Bas Congo’, Africa, XXV, iv (1964), 420.Google Scholar

13 De Teruel, P. Antonio, ‘Descripcion narrativa del mission de los Capuchinos’ (mid-seventeenth century: Biblioteca nacional, Madrid), 80, 190, 193Google Scholar; De Tovar, Joseph Pellicer, Mision Evangelica al Reyno de Congo (Madrid, 1649), 65, 65vGoogle Scholar; Cuvelier, J., Relations sur le Congo du Père Laurent de Lucques (1700–1717) (Brussels, 1953)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Laurent de Lucques), 89, 137–8. Cf. MacGaffey, , Custom and Government.Google Scholar

14 See below.

15 See footnote 7.

16 Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, 65Google Scholar; Doutreloux, , L'Ombre des Fétiches, 98Google Scholar; also below.

17 The region was more heavily wooded in the seventeenth century than today. Anon, , ‘História do Reino do Congo’ (ed. Brásio, A.), Studia (Lisbon, 1969), 27–8 (hereafter cited as ‘História’), 425–509Google Scholar; De Santiago, P. Juan, ‘Breve Relacion’ (mid-seventeenth century), (Bibliotheca del Palacio Nacional, Madrid, Ms. 772), 81Google Scholar; Laurent de Lucques, 74.

18 Anon, E.g.., ‘History of Kongo’ (late sixteenth century) in Cuvelier, J. and Jadin, L., L'Ancien Congo d'après les Archives Romaines (Brussels, 1954), 117, 119, 121.Google Scholar See generally Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, 30–1, 252, 257.Google Scholar

19 In the mid-seventeenth century Garcia II's aunt Dona Leonor was mani Nlaza – Teruel, ‘Descripcion’, 49. In the later seventeenth century his sister, Dona Anna, then an old lady, was mani Nlaza; De Cadornega, António Oliveira, História Geral das Guerras Angolanas (1680–1681) (ed. José, Matias Delgado and Manuel, Alves da Cunha) (Lisbon, 1940–1942), III, 277, 304.Google Scholar See also mani Lukeni, Official Enquiry of Diogo I, Kongo, 10 April 1550, in Brásio, , Monumenta, II, 262.Google Scholar

20 Da Carli, Dionige and Guattini, Michel Angelo, ‘Viaggio del…nel Regno del Congo’ in John, Churchill (ed.), A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1704), 629.Google Scholar

21 For this and much of the discussion in the following section see Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’.Google Scholar

22 Anon, , ‘Report on Kongo’, June 1622, in Jadin, L., ‘Relations sur le Congo tirées des Archives de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1621–1631’, Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome, XXXIX (Brussels, 1968), 379–80.Google Scholar

23 I, Afonso to Paulo, III Kongo, 21 February 1535 in Brásio, , Monumenta, II, 39Google Scholar; Afonso I to João III Kongo, 25 March 1539, Ibid. 73; Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 184.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.; João, III to Lisbon, Afonso I (late 1529) in Brásio, , Monumenta, I, 535.Google Scholar

25 Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 124–5.Google Scholar

26 E.g. Dona Cristina Afonso, former Duchess of Mbamba, , ‘the oldest of the fidalga and the one who had the most rents [governorships] and authority in this country’.Google Scholar Report of Cardoso, P. Mateus, 14 September 1625 in Jadin, , ‘Relations sur le Congo’, 426.Google Scholar

27 Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 199Google Scholar; ‘História’ (cited in n. 17), 459–63.

28 Report of the Carmelite Mission (1584) in Brásio, , Monumenta, IV, 407.Google ScholarAnon, ., ‘History of Kongo’ (late sixteenth century) in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 18, 123.Google Scholar

29 Amongst the considerable evidence from the mid-seventeenth century see Memorial of P. Bonaventura da Alessano to the Propaganda Fide, August 1649, in Archivio della Sacra Congregazione de Propaganda Fide, Rome Scritture Ricevute nelle Congregazioni Generali (hereafter cited as A.P.F., S.R.C.G.), 249, pp. 39–44.

30 Da Caltanisetta, Fra Luca, Diaire Congolais (1690–1701), ed. Bontinck, François (Louvain and Paris, 1970), 102.Google Scholar Cf. Van Reeth, P. P., De Rol van den Moederlijken Oom in de lulandische Familie (Brussels, 1935), 27.Google Scholar

31 Anon, ., Report on Kongo, Lisbon, 25 November 1595, in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 201.Google Scholar

32 Estimates around this proportion: Cavazzi, Giovanni Antonio, Descripção do Congo, Matamba et Angola, ed. and trans. Graciano, P.Maria De Leguzzano, O. M. (Lisbon, 1965), I, 160Google Scholar; Report of P. Giacinto da Vetralla, A.P.F., S.R.C.G., 250, p. 76.

33 Anon, E.G.., ‘History of Kongo’ (late sixteenth century) in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 117–21.Google Scholar For direct reference to slave settlements in the mid-seventeenth century see Cadornega, , História Geral, II, 133.Google Scholar

34 Anon, ., Report on Lisbon, Kongo, 25 November 1595, Brásio, Monumenta, III, 505–10Google Scholar; Bal, W. (ed.), Description du Royaume de Congo et des Contrées Environnantes par Filippo Pigafetta et Duarte Lopes (Louvain and Paris, 1963), 120.Google Scholar

35 ‘History of Kongo’ (late sixteenth century) in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 131.Google ScholarReport on Kongo (Cordeiro, P. André), 24 January 1622, in Jadin, , ‘Relations sur le Congo’, 361–70.Google Scholar

36 Anon, ., ‘Report on Kongo, Lisbon, 25 November 1595’, in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 201Google Scholar; ‘Report of the Bishop of Kongo Manuel Baptista, 7 September 1619’ in Brásio, , Monumenta, VI, 375Google Scholar; Cavazzi, , Descripção, I, 159.Google Scholar

37 E.g. João, III to Afonso, I (1529) in Brásio, , Monumenta, I, 529Google Scholar; Cavazzi, , Descripção, I, 158.Google Scholar

38 ‘História’ (cited in n. 17), 496.

39 André Cordeiro, P. to Rodriques, P. Manuel, May 1622-June 1624, in Jadin, , ‘Relations sur le Congo’, 389.Google Scholar

40 I follow the definition in Smith, M. G., ‘A structural approach to comparative politics’ (cited in n. 6).Google Scholar

41 Anon, ., ‘Report on Kongo, Lisbon, 25 November 1595’, in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 194–207.Google Scholar

42 A priest to Father Provincial of Portugal, Luanda, , in Brásio, , Monumenta, III, 350Google Scholar; III, Álvaro to V, Paulo, Salvador, São, 25 October 1617, in Brásio, , Monumenta VI, 289Google Scholar; Pigafetta, (ed. Bal), Description, 110Google Scholar; Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, 79–80.Google Scholar

43 ‘Report on Kongo, Lisbon, 25 November 1595’, in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 194–207Google Scholar; Pigafetta, (ed. Bal), Description, 120Google Scholar; Report of De Sousa, Fernão to the King, Lisbon, 23 February 1632, in Brásio, , Monumenta, VIII, 133.Google Scholar

44 E.g. early seventeenth-century appointments in the eastern province of Nsundi and Mpangu, ‘Report on Kongo (P. André Cordeiro) June 1622’ in Jadin, , ‘Relations sur le Congo’, 371–2, 382Google Scholar; Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, 166–8.Google Scholar

45 Luanda, E.G., De Abreu E Brito, Domingos, ‘Summary and Description of the Kingdom of Angola (1591)’ in Brásio, , Monumenta, I, 539.Google Scholar

46 Anon, ., ‘Report on Kongo, Lisbon, 25 November 1595’, in Cuvelier, and Jadin, , L'Ancien Congo, 201.Google Scholar

47 Bouveignes, O. and Cuvelier, J. (ed. and trans.), Jerome de Montesarchio Apôtre du Vieux Congo (Namur, 1951)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Montesarchio), 158–9. Sometimes the governors acted as both plaintiff and judge. Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 119Google Scholar; Garcia Mateo de Anguiano, Juan, Misiones Capuchinas en Africa: I. La Misión del Congo (Madrid, 1950), 353.Google Scholar

48 Cavazzi, E.G., Description du Royaume de Congo, I, 41, p. 289Google Scholar; IV, 132, p. 419 Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 49.Google Scholar

49 ‘The most common custom amongst them is that the husband gives the marriage payment to his wife and not to her father or her mother’, De Tovar, Pellicer, Mision Evangelica, 65Google Scholar; Eruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 190.Google Scholar

50 Anguiano, , Misiones Capuchinas, 135–6Google Scholar; Teruel, , ‘Description’, 49, 79Google Scholar; Giuseppe Monari da Modena, incorporating Da Vetralla, Bruggioti (mid-seventeenth century), ‘Viaggio al Congo’ (hereafter cited as ‘Monari’), Biblioteca d'Este, Modena, Manoscritti Italiani (1380) Alfa N, 9–7, 461–2.Google Scholar

51 There is considerable material concerning the Jesuit mission of the second quarter of the seventeenth century in Jadin, ‘Relations sur le Congo’Google Scholar, and Brásio, , Monumenta, VIII,Google Scholar and on the Capucin mission of the mid-seventeenth century in e.g. A.P.F., S.R.C.G. 250. See Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, chs. 6 and 7.Google Scholar

52 Cavazzi, E.g., Descripção, IV, 50, p. 378Google Scholar; Carli in Churchill, , A Collection of Voyages, I, 628.Google Scholar

53 Cavazzi, , Descripção, III, 73, p. 222.Google Scholar Example of Matari in the mid-seventeenth century in Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 84.Google Scholar

54 Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 191.Google Scholar

55 Montesarchio, 53, III.

56 Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 80.Google Scholar

57 For a general discussion of the Kongo in the later seventeenth century see Thornton, John Kelly, ‘The kingdom of Kongo in the era of the civil wars, 1641–1718’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, 1979).Google Scholar

58 This is discussed in Wilson, , ‘The Kingdom of Kongo’, 154–7.Google Scholar

59 De Bologne, Hyacinthe, La Pratique Missionaire des PP. Capucino Italiens dans le Royaume de Congo…(1747), ed. Nothomb, J. S.J. (Louvain, 1931), 54.Google Scholar

60 Report of P. Bernardino da Gallo to Cardinal Giuseppe Sacripanti, Rome, 12 December 1710, in Jadin, L., ‘Le Congo et la Secte des Antoniens. Restauration du Royaume sous Pedro IV et la “Sainte-Antoine Congolais” (1694–1718)’ in Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome, XXXIII (Brussels, 1961), 66, 70.Google Scholar

61 Simonetti, Giuseppe, ‘P. Giacinto da Vetralla et la sua Missione al Congo (1651–1657)’ in Bollettino della Società Geographica Italiana IV, viii, 5 (Rome, 1907) 370.Google Scholar (Quoted from the lost manuscript of Giacinto da Vetralla, ‘Infelicita felice o vero Mondo’.)

62 Romano, Giovanni Francesco, Brève Relation de la Fondation de la Mission des Frères Mineurs Capucins…au Royaume de Congo… ed. and trans. François, Bontinck (Louvain and Paris, 1964), 115Google Scholar; Teruel, , ‘Descripcion’, 101Google Scholar; Cavazzi, , Descripção, I, 160–1;IV, 359, 373, 392.Google Scholar

63 Cadornega, , História Geral, 277, 304Google Scholar; Laurent de Lucques, 216.

64 See especially Jadin, , ‘Le Congo et la Secte des Antoniens’.Google Scholar

65 The principal sources for this period are: ‘Aperçu de la situation et rite d'election des rois en 1775 d'après le P. Cherubino da Savona, missionaire au Congo de 1759 a 1774’, Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome, XXXV (Brussels, 1963) 343–419Google Scholar; ‘Relations sur le Royaume du Congo du P. Raimondo da Dicomano, missionaire de 1791 à 1798’, Bulletin des Séances de l'Académie Royale des Sciences Coloniales, III, 2 (Brussels, 1957), 307–37.Google Scholar For a full discussion of economic developments on the Kongo coast in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Broadhead, Susan, ‘Trade and politics on the Congo coast 1770–1870’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Boston, 1971).Google Scholar

66 The principal sources for this period are: Bastian, Adolph, Ein Besuch in San Salvador der Haupstadt des Königreichs Congo (Bremen, 1859)Google Scholar; Bentley, W. Holman, Pioneering on the Congo (London, 1900)Google Scholar; Jeannest, Charles, Quatre Années au Congo (Paris, 1883)Google Scholar; Weeks, John, ‘Notes on some Customs of the Lower Kongo People’, Folklore, XIX, 4 (1908), 409–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weeks, John, Among the Primitive Bakongo (London, 1914).Google Scholar

67 For examples of these traditions see Van Wing, J., Etudes Bakongo, 2 vols. (Brussels 1922, 1938).Google Scholar The traditions are discussed in MacGaffey, , Custom and Government, 17–35Google Scholar, on which the following statement is largely based.