Word: lunda
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...week, a middle-aged potentate stared dully as a dance troupe of local girls frantically undulated their hips before him to the rhythm of pounding drums. Slouched on a throne consisting of a grey army blanket thrown over a schoolroom chair, his feet resting on a leopard skin, the Lunda tribe's newly installed 25th Mwata Yambo (Great Chief) received the adulation of his people. His ascension is an interesting case history of the tribalism that is still deeply rooted in the Congo; for on a continent where firebrand leaders talk constantly of forging ahead, Mwata Yambo...
Snakes & Sinews. It is no small honor to be Mwata Yambo of all the Lunda. With a history dating back at least four centuries, and boasting a population of 1,000,000, the tribe spreads from the Congo's Katanga province into both Portuguese Angola and Northern Rhodesia. The Lunda's most illustrious son is Katanga's secessionist leader Moise Tshombe, who married a daughter of Mwata Yambo XXIV. When his father-in-law died last June of a burst bladder, Tshombe for a time was considered as successor. But the tribal elders, suspecting that Moise might...
...accord with early tribal belief that a serpent, the Lunda's most sacred creature, had a head at each end and was both male and female, the new Mwata Yambo's final approval came from the senior chief, Kanampumbe, and the senior chieftainess, known as the Ruwej. Then the chosen one was dragged to a hut and surrounded by villagers spitting filthy insults at him-to point up the fact that he was not yet divine. At last, on a sacred mountain 150 miles from Musongo, the Mwata Yambo was installed. From the gnarled hands of the Ruwej...
...XXIV had been a progressive sort who encouraged tribal children to attend school and urged males to work instead of loafing while wives labored. He spoke French, got along well with Europeans. His successor displays no such interest in 20th century manners. He is suspicious of whites, speaks only Lunda and a little Swahili...
...would think that such autocratic and slothful leadership might trigger revolt. After all, economic conditions are also pretty pitiful. Because their manioc crops have been repeatedly plundred by Congolese soldiers and Katangese ex-gendarmes, many Lunda have stopped planting, and more than one village suffers near starvation...