The Bangala People are a Bantu tribe from the ventral Bantu branch native to the Democratic Republic of Congo but are also found in some parts of Angola.
The Bangala (Bamangala, Bangalla, Mangala, Mangali, Mangara, Mongalla, Ngala, Ngalla, Ngola, Wangala, Wangalla), less commonly known as the Boloki (Baloki, Boluki), are a Bantu tribe near the junction of the Ubangi and Congo Rivers.
With them are included the Lobala (Lubala) to their west, on whom no data are available. The "water people" mapped by one source are probably the same as the Bangala. Another source reports that the Bangala resemble the "Bajanzi or Babangi" in culture but differ in language.
The Gombe (Ngorabe), mapped by several authors to the north of the Bangala and west of the Doko, are grouped by some with the Bangala on the basis of the striking similarity in kin terms. The Bangala numbered 110,000 in 1907. One source suggests the presence of Pygmies dombe or "men of the forest" who hunt and trade with the Bangala.
The Bangala People are one of Congos known tribe and are widely found in Kinshasa the capital city of the DRC, Eastern and Southern Congo.
Primarily agricultural, with manioc the staple crop, followed by bananas. Of relatively little importance are maize, peanuts, yams, sweet potatoes, and tare. Fishing — with traps, nets, spears, poison, and hook and line — is extremely important. Some of the riverain tribes subsist almost exclusively by trading fish for agricultural products of inland people. Hunting, collecting, and trade are relatively insignificant. Goats, sheep, dogs (eaten), cats, and chickens are raised, but no cattle or pigeons. Dugout canoes are used.
Men clear land (with some help from the women), hunt, and gather palm nuts. Women do all the cultivation. Both sexes fish.
Native money consists of iron hoes, knives, spearheads, and copper bars (later replaced by brass rods). Slaves and goats also are important objects of property. Land is the communal property of the village; individuals have usufruct in what they clear and cultivate. Palm trees and certain fishing rights are individually owned.
Inheritance is patrilineal. The eldest son inherits his father's title and a larger share of his property than do his younger brothers. A son often inherits his father's wives.
Social classes include notables (district chiefs and wealthy men), ordinary freemen, and slaves. Slaves are acquired by capture in war or through settlement of debt, and the children of two slaves are slaves. The children of a freeman and a slave woman are half-slaves (mbotela), as are those of a slave man and a freewoman.. but the status of the latter is lower.
The account of one source strongly suggests a patrilocal family, but the polygynous family is by no means excluded.
Unpalisaded villages of 25 to 100 huts, probably arranged in extended family compounds of 5 to 20 buildings each. Away from the rivers, these compounds are grouped along both sides of a village street; along the rivers, they are in four or five rows paralleling the bank. Huts are rectangular with walls of plaited palm ribs or fronds and thatched gable roofs, which on one side extend out to form a veranda supported by external posts. Pile dwellings are reported in some places.
Villages are divided into "quarters," which may be clan-- barrios. Both circumcision and clitoridectomy (female circumcision) are practiced.
Each village has a headman, whose authority is limited by an assembly of the adult males.
There are no true paramount chiefs, but several villages commonly unite to form a district under a district chief who acts as judge. He is normally the wealthiest or most respected of the village headmen.
The tribe was warlike and cannibalistic. Heads are taken as trophies.
Bangala or Mɔnɔkɔ na bangála is a Bantu language spoken in the northeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is also spoken in parts of South Sudan and some speakers are still found in the extreme western part of Uganda (e.g., Arua, Koboko). A sister language of Lingala, it is used as a lingua franca by people with different languages and rarely as a first language. In 1991 there were an estimated 3.5 million second-language speakers. bIt is spoken to the east and northeast of the area where Lingala is spoken. In Lingala, Bangala translates to "People of Mongala". This means people living along the Mongala River. Across Bas-Uele Province, Bangala speakers have to a great extent adopted Lingala.
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