The Boshongo, also known as the Bushong, are a subgroup of the Kuba people of Democratic Republic of ther Congo.
The Boshongos live in the Kasai region near Dekese and north of Ilebo. Until the seventeenth century, the Boshongos were primarily fishermen, but, beginning in the 1700s, they began making the transition to farming, learning to raise maize, manioc, and tobacco. With the wealth that came from agriculture, they became somewhat expansionist and conquered their neighbors, the Luluas and the Mongos.
Today, most Boshongos are small farmers.
The population of Bushongo are 325,000 (Peoplegroups.org, 2024)
The Bushongo, or more correctly the Bashi-Bushongo (meaning “people of the country of the throwing knife”) inhabit the district of the Belgian Congo bounded on the north and east by the Sankurn river, on the west by the Kasai. The name by which they are generally known to Europeans is Bakuba. This, however, is a foreign, Luba, term and is never applied by the Bushongo themselves; it means “people of the thunderbolt.”
The Bushongo nation is composed of seventeen sub-tribes. Besides these there arc three independent Bushongo nations
Bushoong are part of the larger Kuba ethnic group and as such have a shared history. While their ancestors migrated into their current location from opposite directions, they have together carved out a unified kingdom that recognizes as the rulers of the land those descended from the 16th century Bushoong leader, King Shyaam.
Bushoong migrated from the north and are closely related to the southern Mongo peoples. Upon arrival in their current location they found Twa and Kete peoples, both of whom have been absorbed into the larger Kuba Kingdom.
The rivers which bound the Kuba territory provide fish, which is normally consumed in the region where it is caught. They also farm maize and cassava, both of which were imported from the new world. The Kuba weave beautiful raffia cloth which is embroidered by the women and traded to surrounding areas.
The leader of the Kuba peoples is always Bushoong and rules from the Kuba capital, Nsheng. The Nyim (king) is assisted in his duties by over a hundred advisors who are representative of the people of the kingdom. Individual villages each have a leader who must answer to the Nyim and is responsible for instituting his rulings. The king's position of power is considered supreme, as he is a direct descendant of the mythical unifier of the Kuba, King Shyaam. There have been twenty-one successive rulers since Shyaam, and the kingdom has been relatively stable throughout the 400 years of its history.
The creator god (or chembe) in Bushongo religion is called Bumba. Other names for him include M'Bombo and M'Bomba. He is said to have originally existed alone in darkness, in a universe consisting of nothing but primordial water. M'Bombo was said to appear like a gigantic man in form and white in colour. The creation took place when he vomited the sun, moon, animals and then humanity.
Thus Bushongo religion has been heavily influenced by modern cultures. However, as traditional African mythology and the bulk of indigenous civilizations worldwide do not associate the colour white with any particular race, it is definitely untouched by Europeans or the "white" race. The idea that white symbolises Europeans is a relatively recent development in Europe.
According to the Bushongo creation myth, the only thing that existed in the world originally was a god named M'Bombo. Having become ill, M'Bombo vomited: out the sun, the moon, the stars, various animals and Tsetse the lightning. Finally, M'Bombo vomited out humans. The animals that M'Bombo had vomited out earlier created other animals.
The three sons of M'Bombo attempted to finish the creation of the world. The first, Nyonye Ngana, made white ants but was not equal to the task and died as a result. The ants, however, thankful for life, went searching for black earth and covered the barren sands to bury and honour their creator. Chonganda, the second son, brought forth a plant from which all other plants in the world are descended. The third son, Chedi Bumba, only succeeded in creating the bird called the kite.
Tsetse the lightning, proved to be a trouble-maker. Consequently, M'Bombo chased her into the sky, leaving mankind without fire until he later showed people how to draw fire out of trees.
When the work of creation was completed, M'Bombo walked through the villages and said to the people, "Behold these wonders, they belong to you"
The Bushongo are among the most skillful carvers of Africa. Speaking generally, the forms adopted by them are remarkable for the sense of proportion which they exhibit; hardly a single example can be found, especially among the older specimens, which is not graceful and harmonious in outline. A striking illustration of this statement may be seen in the drinking cups shown and in the beautiful pigment boxes.
The same sense of proportion is found in their metal work. Next in interest comes ornamentation and this opens a subject which could he treated at almost any length owing to the variety of patterns and the universality of their application. The very skin of the female population does not escape what they consider embellishment. The horror vacui is a marked characteristic of the Bushongo and consequently all their utensils are covered with graceful designs. But though in some cases every square inch of an object is covered with ornamentation, it very rarely appears overloaded; the keen sense of proportion possessed by these Africans extends also to the covering of a definite space with appropriate ornamentation. The outlines are bold and certain and there is rarely any trace of weakness in them.
The ornamental designs of the Bushongo are borrowed from the natural world or from designs derived from textile art ; the prevalence of textile patterns in their wood carving is remarkable and renders any separate classification of carved and woven designs impossible. Some decorations are taken directly from nature; chief among these is a representation of the human face. The most frequent however are the varieties of the design called Bambi (antelope). In one form it consists of an entire head and is constantly found as a detail on pipe-stems. Other forms of this pattern consist in the horn or the horns of the antelope, depicted singly, in pairs, or in groups of any number. Two reptiles are constantly appearing in Bushongo art, the tortoise and the iguana. The former is called Mayulu, and is sometimes found as an ornamental knob, or, more frequently, as a hexagonal design derived from the scales of the carapace of the tortoise. The iguana, Lebene, is usually found carved on drinking horns; sometimes the complete animal is shown, but mostly the spurred forefeet, or even one foot alone, in a highly conventionalized form. The carving of horn with the soft iron tools at the disposal of the Bushongo is a remarkable achievement; these drinking horns are reserved for successful warriors; no one who has not slain an enemy in battle or a leopard is allowed to drink from them.
So far the question of Bushongo art has been fairly straightforward, but the task of dealing with the patterns derived form weaving and kindred crafts is far otherwise. Not that it is not easy to refer these designs at once to their origin, as a glance at the illustrations will show, but it is difficult to understand the native system of nomenclature and any attempt at explanation must be somewhat complicated. The reason for this difficulty lies in the fact that the Bush-ongo do not look at a pattern from the same point of view as we do; they do not regard the design as a whole, hut reduce, as it were, each pattern to its lowest elements, and pick out one of these as the essential feature; the name of this they then give to the whole pattern. Now patterns, like many of these, obtained by breaking various designs of weft at regular intervals, and built up of small details, which occur in various combinations in a number of different patterns, are quite dissimilar in general effect, so that two natives may give different names to the same design, owing to the fact that a different element appealed to the eye of each as the leading characteristic of the pattern. This occurs if the two natives are of different sex: the man sees the design of the wood carver’s, the woman of the embroiderer’s point of view.
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