The Mamvu are a major ethnic group in D.R. Congo and Mozambique.
The Momvu (Mamvu, Momfou, Momfu, Momvou, Monfu, Mumvu), with the kindred Mangutu (Mangbutu, Momboutou, Mombutu), belong to the Central Sudanic linguistic stock and are especially close to the Balesa. Among the tribes of the Momvu group live Efe Pygmies.
There are scattered Mamvus living in Uganda and Sudan. Most D.R. Congo Mamvus live in Haut-Zaire between Isiro and the border with Sudan and Uganda. The Mamvu of D.R. Congo (Kinshasa) are numbering 159,000 (Peoplesgroup.org, 2023)
The Mamvus in Mozambique live in the lower Zambezi River Valley.
Their primary language is Mamvu, a Sudanic language which they call "Tengo". It is related to Lese and Mangbetu. They use Bangala to talk to outsiders.
The primary religion practiced by the Mamvu is ethnoreligion.
The Mamvu are subsistence farmers, who live on a diet of rice, plantain, manioc, and millet. There are also coffee plantations and gold mines in the area. Many of the miners and plantation workers however, have come from outside. In some places the Mamvu are a minority in their own traditional area. Most Mamvu reside in small villages and homesteads. Their shelters are made of mud-wattle walls with thatched roof.
Sex Division of Labor. Men clear land, but women do all other agricultural work.
Property. Native iron money is used as currency.
Social Stratification. Slavery formerly prevailed in some districts.
Family. A polygynous family apparently is the normal residential unit.
Settlement Pattern. The typical settlement consists of a double row of huts along a broad street, on one side of which stands a men's clubhouse. Some Momvu settlements, especially those of chiefs, consist of a circle of huts around a plaza with a men's house. An average settlement has 10 to 12 huts and 100 inhabitants. Dwellings are round -and have cylindrical walls of leaves and conical thatched roofs.
Community Organization. A settlement is a patrilocal clan-community, or else a cluster of hamlets forms a clan. Circumcision is practiced (only since the end of the 19th century by the MomVu). A source reports that the Momvu (or some of them^) knock out the two upper median incisors.
Local Government. Each village has a headman.
State. There is no indigenous political organization above the local level, but in many parts of their country the Momvu have been subject to other tribes, especially the Mangbetu and Azande
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