Understanding the Luba: A Major Bantu Tribe of Africa

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The Luba or Baluba African tribe settled throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were the largest ethnic group in that area with around thirteen million people. In this tribe, they used Christianity and African Traditional Religion as their religion base. The Luba tribe was one of the groups of the Bantu peoples. To start off, the Bantu people were just a group of roughly 300-600 ethnic African tribes that spoke Bantu languages. The word “Bantu” means, “people” if you were wondering. These groups lie from south Central Africa, across the African Great Lakes region, and down to Southern Africa. The tribes in this group all speak one of the 650 languages there are in the Bantu group. Going back to the Luba tribe, this group was probably inhabited in the 5th century and became an empire in 14th century. There were a lot of small chiefdoms in …show more content…

For example, when the Songye reached the peak of the Swahili, ivory and slave traders came inland from Zanzibar. The Songye and the Luba tribes liked to entertain themslves toward the other Luba groups. All of the Luba people believe almost common origin, more for the respect than on the past. The Luba people were very warlike. Over time they became very diverse by color. They put that diversity in there artwork. There are two types of Luba masks. The more popular kind of mask was called the kifewebe. The Luba people made them but the Songeye used it too. This mask had black and white stripes. These masks were made for and danced by the kifewebe unknowns. The kifewebe mask is identified with the three spirits form the lake. There were two male and one female spirits. The female chose to live in the village while the male chose to stay in a bush. The male spirits would visit the village sometimes and preform a dance until they could initiate. The black and white colors as well as the geometric shapes show that male and females can link and be

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