The Imbangala and the Chronology of Early Central African History

Abstract

Articles by Vansina and Birmingham in the J.A.H. have explored the possibility of deriving the chronology of state-formation in central Africa from the date when warrior armies known as Imbangala (also, erroneously, as ‘Jaga’) appeared in Angola. This article, drawing on new traditions collected in Angola during 1969, shows that the figures described by the oral histories are permanent named titles in systems of positional succession and perpetual kinship; they therefore contain no implicit chronology based on assumed human life spans. The new evidence suggests that many years elapsed between the origin of one Imbangala title in the nascent Lunda empire and its successors' appearance on the coast. Although documents establish the Imbangala presence in Angola as early as 1563, this date reveals little about preceding events in Katanga, which may have taken place many decades, or even centuries, earlier. Finally, by extending the methodological techniques developed for the Imbangala traditions to published Lunda histories, it is suggested that the Luba and Lunda kingdoms may have passed through several periods before the stage previously assumed to have initiated the development of states in central Africa. The article concludes by suggesting that formation of (probably very small-scale) states began much earlier than previous analyses have demonstrated.