Bantus and Pygmies
The earliest inhabitants of the region comprising present-day Congo were the Bambuti people. The Bambuti were linked to Pygmy tribes whose Stone Age culture was slowly replaced by Bantu tribes coming from regions north of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo about 2,000 years ago, introducing Iron Age culture to the region.
Congo Pygmies (also known as Bambenga or Bayaka) live in several ethnic groups in Rwanda,Burundi, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Cameroon,Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia.[1]
Most Pygmy communities are partially hunter-gatherers, living partially but not exclusively on the wild products of their environment. They trade with neighbouring farmers to acquire cultivated foods and other material items; no group lives deep in the forest without access to agricultural products.[1]
It is estimated that there are between 250,000 and 600,000 Pygmies living in the Congo rainforest.[2] However, although Pygmies are thought of as forest people, the groups called Twa may live in open swamp or desert.
There are at least a dozen Pygmy groups, sometimes unrelated to each other, the best known being the Mbenga (Aka and Baka) of the western Congo basin, which speak Bantu and Ubangian languages; the Mbuti (Efe etc.) of the Ituri Rainforest, which speak Bantu and Central Sudanic languages, and the Twa of the Great Lakes, which speak Bantu Rundi and Kiga.
Categorization
The Congo Pygmy groups were regarded as a sub-race of the Negroid race by European anthropologists in the late 19th through to the first half of the 20th century.[5] The Congo Pygmy speak languages of the Niger–Congo and Central Sudanic language families. There has been significant intermixing between the Bantu and Pygmies.
The current racial or ethnic designation was conceived by European anthropologists to describe the various small-framed groups of the Congo rain forests that appeared to be related.
Early history and origins
Ancestral relationship with other Africans
A commonly held belief is that African Pygmies are the direct descendants of the Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer peoples of the central African rainforest, who were partially absorbed or displaced by later immigration of agricultural peoples, and adopted their Central Sudanic,Ubangian, and Bantu languages. This view has no archaeological support, and ambiguous support from genetics and linguistics.[6][7][8]
The main Bantu tribe living in the region were the Kongo, also known as Bakongo, who established mostly weak and unstable kingdoms along the mouth, north and south of the Congo River. The capital of this Kongolese kingdom,Mbanza Kongo, later baptized as São Salvador by the Portuguese, is a town in northern Angola near the border with the DRC.
From the capital they ruled over an empire encompassing large parts of present-day Angola, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They ruled over nearby tributary states, often by appointing sons of the Kongo kings to head these states. It had six so-called provinces called Mbemba, Soyo, Mbamba, Mbata, Nsundi and Mpangu. With the Kingdom of Loango in the north and the Kingdom of Mbundu in the south being tributary states. In the East it bordered on the Kwango river, a tributary of the Congo River. In total the kingdom is said to have had 3 to 4 million inhabitants and a surface of about 300,000 km². According to oral traditions it was established in around 1400 when King Lukeni lua Nimi conquered the kingdom of Kabunga and established Mbanza Kongo as its capital.
Portuguese exploration
This African Iron Age culture came under great pressure with the arrival of the first Europeans, in this case Portuguese explorers. King John II of Portugal sought, in order to break Venetian and Ottoman control over trade with the East, to organize a series of expeditions south along the African coast with the goal of establishing direct contact with Asia. In 1482–1483, Captain Diogo Cão, sailing southwards on the uncharted Congo River, discovered the mouth of the river, and became the first European to encounter the Kingdom of Kongo.[1][2]
Initially relations were limited and considered beneficial to both sides. With Christianity easily accepted by the local nobility, leading on 3 May 1491 to the baptism of king Nzinga a Nkuwu as the first Christian Kongolese king João I. He was succeeded after his death in 1506 by his son Nzinga Mbemba, who ruled as King Afonso I until 1543. Under his reign Christianity gained a strong foothold in the country. Many churches were built in Mbanza, of which the Kulumbimbi Cathedral (erected between 1491 and 1534) was the most impressive. In theory the kings of Portugal and Kongo were equals and they exchanged letters as such. Kongo at some point even established diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and the Pope appointed a local priest as bishop for the region.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_the_Congo
Zaire (/zɑːˈɪər/), officially the Republic of Zaire (French: République du Zaïre; French pronunciation: [za.iʁ]), was the name for the Democratic Republic of the Congo that existed between 1971 and 1997 in Central Africa. The country was a one-party totalitarian dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko and his ruling Popular Movement of the Revolution party. Zaire was established following Mobutu’s seizure of power in a military coup in 1965, following five years of political upheaval following independence known as the Congo Crisis. Zaire had a stronglycentralist constitution and foreign assets were nationalised. The period is sometimes referred to as the Second Congolese Republic.
The state’s name, Zaire was derived from the name of the Congo River, sometimes called Zaire in Portuguese, adapted from the Kongo word nzere or nzadi (“river that swallows all rivers”).[6] Congo seems to have replaced Zaire gradually in English usage during the 18th century, and Congo is the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to Zahir or Zaire as the name used by the natives (i.e. derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.[7]
Semliki harpoon
It seemed to substantiate that fishing and an “aquatic civilization” was likely in the region across eastern and northern Africa during the wetter climatic conditions of the early to mid-Holocene, as shown by other evidence at the lakeshore site of Ishango.[3]
The site is littered with catfish bones and the harpoons are the size to catch adult catfish, so investigators suspect the fisherman came to the site every year “to catch giant catfish.” [4]
It is unlikely that the harpoons are much different from those used today (see reference for photos).[5] [6]
The archaeologic site coincides with the range of the Efé Pygmies, which have been shown bymitochondrial DNA analyses to be of extremely ancient and distinct lineage.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semliki_harpoon
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga[a] (/məˈbuːtuː ˈsɛseɪ ˈsɛkoʊ/; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was the military dictator and President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which Mobutu renamed Zaire in 1971) from 1965 to 1997. He also served as Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity in 1967–1968. Mobutu formed atotalitarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of allcolonial cultural influence, while enjoying considerable support from the West and China due to his strong anti-Soviet stance.
Embarking on a campaign of pro-Africa cultural awareness, or authenticité, Mobutu began renaming the cities of the Congo starting on 1 June 1966; Leopoldville became Kinshasa, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, and Stanleyville became Kisangani. In October 1971, he renamed the country the Republic of Zaire. He ordered the people to drop their European names for African ones, and priests were warned that they would face five years’ imprisonment if they were caught baptizing a Zairean child with a European name. Western attire and ties were banned, and men were forced to wear a Mao-style tunic known as an abacost (shorthand for à bas le costume–“down with the suit”).[21]
In 1972, Mobutu renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (“The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”)[22][23], Mobutu Sese Seko for short. It was also around this time that he assumed his classic image—abacost, thick-framed glasses, walking stick and leopard-skin toque.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko
See the below map of Congo DR Congo and Central African Republic
which borders South Sudan Uganda Tanzania and Luanda and Gabon
The Republic of Congo, also known as Middle Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, and Congo (but not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, which was also at one time known as the Republic of the Congo), is a former French colony of west-central Africa. It shares common borders with Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Gulf of Guinea. Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. A quarter century of experimentation with Marxism was abandoned in 1990 and a democratically elected government installed in 1992. A brief civil war in 1997 restored former Marxist President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. The capital is Brazzaville. The Republic of Congo is one of Africa’s oil rich states, however its economic potential is hampered by the current ongoing civil war.
In 1876 a vast zone in central Africa was ‘allocated’ to the ‘International African Association’. With this act, the kingdom of the Kongo and other central African territory effectively became the private estate of the Belgian King, Leopold II. So began the oppressive colonial history of corruption, bribery and theft on a scale unprecedented in Africa. Reports by missionaries there on Belgian rubber planters’ treatment of labourers were initially not believed. The Belgian Foreign Office eventually sent Roger Casement to investigate the situation. He discovered that workers were treated like wild animals. Most of them were not paid, and if they did not meet their production quotas they would be either tortured or killed. Soldiers would collect baskets of hands to prove that they were carrying out their instructions, and not wasting ammunition. Ears, too were often cut off. There were also huge sums of money that went unaccounted. It was not until 1908 that the Belgian government took over the colony in an attempt to stop this kind of abuse. However, although the administration did improve, wages remained very low, even after the discovery of copper, gold, diamonds and cobalt. The Belgian plunder continued. Some road, rail and town development occurred, but the Congolese themselves were hardly better off than when colonized by Leopold II.
Independence and Lumumba
From the 50s when the a critical mass toward independence developed across Africa (as epitomized in Nkrumah’s speech) the Belgians initially decided it would be best to follow a slow road to independence – it was thought a period of about thirty years should be allowed. The Congo experienced a very stable period from 1945 to 1957, and for this reason leaders were unaware of the problems developing under the surface. The publication of the 30-year independence plan, which stated that the development of a ruling elite in the Congo was a generation behind that of the British and French colonies, made the situation worse. In 1959 there were riots in Leopoldville (later to become Kinshasa), and the Belgians panicked and withdrew from the Congo in less than eighteen months. By 1960 the area was already independent, with very few educated or trained people.
The freedom movement in the Congo was initially led by Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba attended Nkrumah’s All African Peoples’ Conference in Accra in December 1958, which encouraged his becoming radical. Nkrumah assured Lumumba that he had the support of the rest of Africa in his fight for independence, and Lumumba returned to the Congo with confidence and new methods (bit vague) learnt from Nkrumah. He gave moving speeches, got the support of the masses and during the unrest called for strikes. He was very successful as a result of the poverty and living and working conditions of those living in the Congo. During 1959 the situation in the Congo changed, and the Belgians realized that they would not be able to maintain indefinitely. The United Nations also put pressure on them to reconsider their position in Africa.
The situation in the Congo became increasing unstable as conflict developed in Rwanda- Burundi, as the Batutsi tried to keep the social position they had been given over the Bahutu under Belgian and German rule. The Belgians switched their support to the Bahutu, which resulted in the murder of many Batutsi as the Belgians lost further control. During the crisis Congolese leaders were called to discussions in Ostend, Belgium where it was promised that no more foreign soldiers would be sent to the Congo, and that it would become independent under a central government.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/place/republic-congo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo and Ndundu peoples living in the tropical forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from the region and sold as slaves in the Americas. For this reason, while Kongo still is spoken in the above-mentioned countries, creolized forms of the language are found in ritual speech of Afro-American religions, especially in Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti. It is also one of the sources of the Gullah language[6] and the Palenquero creole in Colombia. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo, with perhaps two million more who use it as a second language.
Kikongo is the base for a creole used throughout the region:Kituba, also calledKikongo de L’étatorKikongo ya Leta(“Kongo of the state” inFrenchor Kongo),KitubaandMonokituba(alsoMunukituba). The constitution of the Republic of the Congo uses the nameKitubà, and the one of the Democratic Republic of the Congo uses the termKikongo, even if Kituba is used in the administration.
The Bantu languages (/ˈbæntuː/)[2] (technically the Narrow Bantu languages, as opposed to “Wide Bantu”, a loosely defined categorization which includes other Bantoid languages) constitute a traditional branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility,[3] though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages.[4][not in citation given] Bantu languages are largely spoken east and south of present-day Cameroon, that is, in the regions commonly known as Central Africa, Southeast Africa and Southern Africa. Parts of the Bantu area include languages from other language families
Writing
At present there is no standard orthography of Kikongo, with a variety in use in written literature, mostly newspapers, pamphlets and a few books.
Kongo was the earliest Bantu language which was committed to writing in Latin characters and had the earliest dictionary of any Bantu language. A catechism was produced under the authority of Diogo Gomes, a Jesuit born in Kongo of Portuguese parents in 1557, but no version of it exists today.
In 1624, Mateus Cardoso, another Portuguese Jesuit, edited and published a Kongo translation of the Portuguese catechism of Marcos Jorge. The preface informs us that the translation was done by Kongo teachers from São Salvador(modern Mbanza Kongo) and was probably partially the work of Félix do Espírito Santo (also a Kongo).[7]
The dictionary was written in about 1648 for the use of Capuchin missionaries and the principal author was Manuel Robredo, a secular priest from Kongo (who became a Capuchin as Francisco de São Salvador). In the back of this dictionary is found a sermon of two pages written only in Kongo. The dictionary has some 10,000 words.
Additional dictionaries were created by French missionaries to the Loango coast in the 1780s, and a word list was published by Bernardo da Canecattim in 1805.
Baptist missionaries who arrived in Kongo in 1879 developed a modern orthography of the language.
W. Holman Bentley’s Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language was published in 1887. In the preface, Bentley gave credit to Nlemvo, an African, for his assistance, and described “the methods he used to compile the dictionary, which included sorting and correcting 25,000 slips of paper containing words and their definitions.”[8] Eventually W. Holman Bentley with the special assistance of João Lemvo produced a complete Christian Bible in 1905.
Linguistic classification
Kikongo belongs to the Bantu language family.
According to Malcolm Guthrie, Kikongo is in the language group H10, the Kongo languages. Other languages in the same group include Bembe (H11). Ethnologue 16 counts Ndingi (H14) and Mboka (H15) as dialects of Kongo, though it acknowledges they may be distinct languages.
According to Bastin, Coupez and Man’s classification (Tervuren) which is more recent and precise than that of Guthrie on Kikongo, the language has the following dialects:
- Kikongo group H16
- Southern Kikongo H16a
- Central Kikongo H16b
- Yombe H16c
- Fiote H16d
- Western Kikongo H16d
- Bwende H16e
- Lari H16f
- Eastern Kikongo H16g
- Southeastern Kikongo H16h
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongo_language
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been known in the past as, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, the Republic of Congo-Léopoldville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zaire, before returning to its current name the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1]
At the time of independence from Belgium, the country was named the Republic of Congo-Léopoldville to distinguish it from its neighbour the Republic of the Congo-Brazzaville. With the promulgation of the Luluabourg Constitution on 1 August 1964, the country became the DRC, but was renamed to Zaire (a past name for the Congo River) on 27 October 1971 by President Mobutu Sese Seko as part of his Authenticité initiative.[17]
The word Zaire is from a Portuguese adaptation of a Kikongo word nzere (“river”), a truncation ofnzadi o nzere (“river swallowing rivers”).[18] The river was known as Zaire during the 16th and 17th centuries; Congo seems to have replaced Zaire gradually in English usage during the 18th century, and Congo is the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to Zaire as the name used by the natives (i.e. derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.[19]
In 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the “Democratic Republic of the Congo”, but the change was not put into practice.[20] The country’s name was restored by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila following the fall of Mobutu in 1997.[21]
The area now known as the DRC was populated as early as 90,000 years ago, as shown by the 1988 discovery of the Semliki harpoon at Katanda, one of the oldest barbed harpoons ever found, believed to have been used to catch giant river catfish.[22][23]
Some historians believe Bantu peoples began settling in the extreme northwest of Central Africa at the beginning of the 5th century and then gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques. The people living in the south and southwest were mostly San Bushmen and hunter-gatherer groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of metal tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture and animal husbandry. This led to the displacement of the hunter-gatherer groups in the east and southeast. The 10th century marked the final expansion of the Bantu in West-Central Africa. Rising populations soon made possible intricate local, regional and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in salt, iron and copper.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo
There are some similarities between the people of Congo, South African Bantu regions and Egypt.
And also
Let’s take a look at where civilisation started according to researchers
In the below maps we can see how humans evolved. DNA and archaeological evidence suggest civilisation started in the Uganda Tanzania Rwanda Ethiopia and South Sudan area. This is right next door to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We are part of the nile valley civilisations. The people in Weat Africa migrated from the East populating the world. Earlier we read that in the Congo area they were fishing with tools 90,000 years ago. Haplogroup J is an Eastern European Caucasian gene that was only developed around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Africans left Africa 50,000 to 60,000 years ago they were African at this time. There is a very large time frame between Africans first civilisation and their journey out of Africa and into Europe to create the different ethnicities. To put it boldly Africans were civilised even before the genetic mutation that created the Europeans had happened. In other words when there were no white people Africans were already thriving. These first Africans were great craftsmen, the original hunter gatherers. These people were sustaining a society fishing creating boats and buildings languages and other things essential to the human survival even before man’s migration out of Africa.
The figures are estimates and scholars work with a time frame sometimes there are periods given such as between 20,000 to 30,000 BCE. As archaeologists discover more things our ideas about the past change. The reality of getting the exact date of modern man or the earth I believe would be impossible.
The Nile Valley
The air travel (bird fly) shortest distance between Republic of the Congo and Tanzania is 2,224 km= 1,382 miles.
If you travel with an airplane (which has average speed of 560 miles) from Republic of the Congo to Tanzania, It takes 2.47 hours to arrive.
Lake Victoria is in Tanzania. Ancient Africans were pastoral nomads who moved around searching for food and water for themselves and their animals. Some broke off into branches and chose areas to settle whilst others moved with their herd. Civilization is said to have started in these areas where lakes and the Nile are found. The lakes and Nile would have provided a source of clean fresh water and fish.
Lake Victoria in Tanzania below
Tanzania is home to some of the oldest hominid settlements unearthed by archaeologists. Prehistoric stone tools and fossils have been found in and around Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, an area often referred to as “The Cradle of Mankind”.
[1] The first hominid skull in Olduvai Gorge was discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959, and named Zinj or Nutcracker Man, the first example ofParanthropus boisei, and is thought to be over 1.8 million years old. Other finds including Homo habilis fossils were subsequently made. At nearby Laetoli the oldest known hominid footprints, the Laetoli footprints, were discovered by Mary Leakey in 1978, and estimated to be about 3.6 million years old and probably made by Australopithecus afarensis.[2] The oldest hominid fossils ever discovered in Tanzania also come from Laetoli and are the 3.6 to 3.8 million year old remains of Australopithecus afarensis—Louis Leakey had found what he thought was a baboon tooth at Laetoli in 1935 (which was not identified as afarensis until 1979), a fragment of hominid jaw with three teeth was found there by Kohl-Larsen in 1938–39, and in 1974–75 Mary Leakey recovered 42 teeth and several jawbones from the site.[3]
Reaching back about 10,000 years, Tanzania is believed to have been populated by hunter-gatherer communities, probably Khoisan-speaking people. Between three and six thousand years ago, they were joined by Cushitic-speaking people who came from the north, into whom the Khoisan peoples were slowly absorbed. Cushitic peoples introduced basic techniques of agriculture, food production, and later, cattle farming.[4]
About 2000 years ago, Bantu-speaking people began to arrive from western Africa in a series of migrations. These groups brought and developed ironworking skills and new ideas of social and political organization. They absorbed many of the Cushitic peoples who had preceded them, as well as most of the remaining Khoisan-speaking inhabitants. Later, Nilotic pastoralists arrived, and continued to immigrate into the area through to the 18th century.[4][5]
One of Tanzania’s most important archeological sites is Engaruka in the Great Rift Valley, which includes an irrigation and cultivation system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tanzania
The Telegraph newspaper posted the below article
Homo sapiens, known casually as “modern humans”, are thought to have first evolved around 195,000 years ago in east Africa – the earliest remains from that time were uncovered near the Omo River in Ethiopia.
It is thought that by 150,000 years ago these early modern humans had managed to spread to other parts of Africa and fossilised remains have been found on the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
The earliest homo sapien remains found outside of Africa were discovered in Israel and are thought to be around 100,000 years old. They are remains of a group that left Africa through what is now the Sahara desert during a brief period when the climate grew wetter, turning the desert green with vegetation. This excursion, however, failed and the population died out when the climate started to dry out again.
While there are 14 ancestral populations in Africa itself, just one seems to have survived outside of the continent.
The latest genetic research has shown that it was not until around 70,000 years ago that humans were able to take advantage of falling sea levels to cross into Arabia at the mouth of the Red Sea, which is now known as the Gate of Grief.
At the time the 18 mile gap between the continents would have dropped to just 8 miles. It is not clear how they might have made such a journey but once a cross, the humans were able to spread along the Arabian coast where fresh water springs helped support them.
It has long been assumed that humans success in spreading around the world was due to their adaptability and hunting skills. The latest research, however, suggests that the very early human pioneers who ventured out of Africa owe far more of their success to luck and favourable changes in climate change than had previously been realised.
Dr Stephen Oppenheimer, a geneticist at the school of anthropology at Oxford University who has also led research on the genetic origins of humans outside Africa, said: “What you can see from the DNA of all non Africans is that they all belong to one tiny African branch that came across the Red Sea.
“If it was easy to get out of Africa we would have seen multiple African lineages in the DNA of non-Africans but that there was only one successful exit suggests it must have been very tough to get out. It was much drier and colder then.”
Within around 5,000 years some of these early human pioneers had managed to spread along the edge of the Indian Ocean and down through south east Asia and arriving in Australia around 65,000 years ago.
Others made their way north through the Middle East and Pakistan to reach central Asia.
Around 50,000 years ago they also began spreading into Europe via the Bosporus at the Istanbul Strait. Again low sea levels allowed them to almost walk into Europe.
Once there they will have encountered Neanderthals, who, with bigger bodies were more adapted to the cold weather at the time, had been living in Europe for nearly a quarter of a million years but are thought to have died out due to changes in the climate.
By 25,000 years ago humans had spread into northern Europe and Siberia and then walked across the Bering land bridge into Alaska around 20,000 years ago.
The peak of the last ice age, which was reached around 19,000 years ago, saw human populations pushed south by the extreme cold and it was about 15,000 years ago that South America became the last continent on the planet to be colonised.
Britain and northern Scandinavia is thought to have been recolonised by modern humans after the last ice age between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.
End
See also this article from
Africa has long been called the “cradle of humanity,” from which our earliest human ancestors spread across the rest of the world some 50,000 years ago. Africa is also where people—ancient and modern—are most genetically diverse. But how such groups, from the Hadza of East Africa to the Khoe-San of Southern Africa, came to be is a mystery. That’s in part because some 2000 years ago, early adopters of agriculture known as the Bantu spread across the continent, erasing the genetic footprint of other Africans. The one ancient African genome that has been sequenced—an Ethiopian who lived some 4500 years ago—has shed little light on this mystery.
Pontus Skoglund knew there had to be more to the story. So the Harvard University evolutionary geneticist and his colleagues obtained DNA from 15 ancient Africans from between 500 and 6000 years ago, some before the Bantu expansion. In addition, Skoglund’s team got DNA data from 19 modern populations across Africa for comparison, including from large groups like the Bantu and smaller ones like the Khoe-San and the Hadza.
For the most part, the ancient DNA was most similar to that of people living in the same places where the bones were found, Skoglund reported. But some interesting exceptions showed intermingling among various groups. “It’s really exciting to see in Africa that there was already this ancient admixture,” says Simon Aeschbacher, a population geneticist from the University of Bern who was not involved with the work. “There must have been population movements in early Africa.”
The ancient genomes indicate that Southern Africans split off from Western Africans several thousand years ago, and subsequently evolved key adaptations that honed their taste buds and protected them from the sun. Around 3000 years ago, herders—possibly from today’s Tanzania—spread far and wide, reaching Southern Africa centuries before the first farmers. But modern Malawians, who live just south of Tanzania, are likely descended from West African farmers rather than local hunter-gatherers, Skoglund says. Indeed, the analysis suggests that West Africans were early contributors to the DNA of sub-Saharan Africans. But even these DNA donors were a hodgepodge of what are now two modern groups—the Mende and the Yoruba. And one ancient African herder showed influence from even farther abroad, with 38% of their DNA coming from outside Africa.
Another study focused on Southern Africa, where some researchers think modern Homo sapiens evolved. Evolutionary geneticist Carina Schlebusch and her colleagues at Uppsala University in Sweden partially sequenced seven ancient genomes: three from 2000-year-old hunter-gatherers and four from 300- to 500-year-old farmers. They also included modern DNA in their analyses.
The more modern farmers did have Bantu DNA in their genomes, but the ancient hunter-gatherers predated the spread of the Bantu, she and her colleagues reported last month on the preprint server bioRxiv. Their other findings parallel Skoglund’s discoveries: Nine percent to 22% of the DNA of these farmers’ modern descendants—including the southern Khoe-San—comes from East Africans and Eurasian herders.
Schlebusch’s analysis reaches even deeper into human history than does Skoglund’s, as her team used the ancient and modern genomes to estimate that the hunter-gatherers she studied split off from other groups some 260,000 years ago, about the age of the oldest H. sapiens fossil. Having that date “lets us start to think about questions like where, and how, anatomically and behaviorally modern humans evolved,” says Iain Mathieson, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard. Whether this date survives peer review after publication is yet to be seen.
End
Let’s change our focus for a short while. We will now look at the Jesuits who travelled the world evangelising/Christianizing people.
We read earlier “Kongo was the earliest Bantu language which was committed to writing in Latin characters and had the earliest dictionary of any Bantu language. A catechism was produced under the authority of Diogo Gomes, a Jesuit born in Kongo of Portuguese parents in 1557,”
Jesuit history in Africa can be easily divided into three main periods. The first period goes back to the earliest Jesuit missions in Africa, which began in the former Kingdom of the Kongo (1390–1857) and in Morocco in 1548 and lasted until the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portuguese dominions in 1759. Although this period encompasses minor missions like that in Cape Verde, which lasted from 1604 to 1642,1 I shall focus only on the major ones in the Kingdom of the Kongo, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, which have been studied by several historians. The second period extends from the first return to Africa after the 1814 restoration of the order to the end of World War II in 1945. After the restoration, Jesuits entered Madagascar as early as in 1832. However, since no lasting ministry was established on the island before 1861, the inaugural mission of the second period is appropriately that of French Jesuits in Algeria, which began in 1840. The period’s large missions are those in Madagascar, Southern Africa, and the Congo region, whose historiography will be considered at length below. Its smaller missions in Fernando Pó (now Bioko, part of Equatorial Guinea) and Egypt will not be discussed. Although they are a part of the second-period history, Jesuit presence in Fernando Pó between 1845 and 1859 is just being discovered,2 whereas Jesuit presence in Egypt has always been studied in the context of the Middle East.3 The closing date for the second period—the end of World War II—is based purely on the enormous increase of Jesuit activity on the continent after the war. Although other authors have considered the decade of political independence in Africa (1960s) to be the tail end of the second period,4 we observe significant increase of Jesuit activity in Africa even earlier. The third period extends from World War II to the present and is marked by the multiplication and spread of Jesuit works beyond the three major missions of the second period—Madagascar, the Zambezi region,5 and the Congo region—to other parts of the continent.
Also
Unlike the first Zambezi Mission, pre-suppression Jesuit work in the present-day Congo–Angola region received greater attention after the restoration. In his history of the Society in the Portuguese Assistancy, Rodrigues included an extensive chapter on the missions in Angola and Mazagão (now El Jadida, Morocco).17 The chapter is essentially an account of Jesuit involvement in the evangelization and civilization of the inhabitants of an inhospitable area, which fits well into standard European narratives about Africa before World War II. However, the chapter stands out as a good narrative of the mission’s basic events and more prominent personalities and, as such, serves as a primary source material or at least a pointer to the existence of such material. Another useful summary of the same events and of the role played by the Jesuits in the primary evangelization of Angola is found in Manuel Nunes Gabriel’s (1912–96) Os jesuítas.18 In this little book, as in several other places,19 much is appreciated about the extent and depth of Jesuit work in this part of Africa. The book shows, for example, that, unlike in Mozambique, the Jesuits in Angola made an effort to translate the faith into a cultural language that would be understood by their indigenous hearers. Himself a former archbishop of Luanda, Manuel Gabriel remains faithful to harmless ecclesiastical history and, as one reviewer of another work of his puts it, provides “a conventional narrative to show how, if not why, Angola has become one of the most Christianized countries in Africa.”20
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/jesuit-historiography-online/*-COM_192529
The Society of Jesus (S.J. – from Latin: Societas Iesu) is a scholarly religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in sixteenth-century Spain. The members are called Jesuits.[2]The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents. Jesuits work in education (founding schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries), intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social ministries, and promote ecumenical dialogue.
Foundation
On 15 August 1534, Ignatius of Loyola (born Íñigo López de Loyola), a Spaniard from the Basque city of Loyola, and six others mostly of Castilian origin, all students at the University of Paris,[24] met in Montmartre outside Paris, in a crypt beneath the church of Saint Denis, now Saint Pierre de Montmartre, to pronounce the religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.[25] Ignatius’ six companions were:Francisco Xavier from Navarre (modern Spain), Alfonso Salmeron, Diego Laínez, Nicolás Bobadilla from Castile (modern Spain), Peter Faber from Savoy, and Simão Rodrigues from Portugal.[26] The meeting has been commemorated in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre. They called themselves theCompañía de Jesús, and also Amigos en El Señoror “Friends in the Lord”, because they felt “they were placed together by Christ.” The name “company” had echoes of the military (reflecting perhaps Ignatius’ background as Captain in the Spanish army) as well as of discipleship (the “companions” of Jesus). The Spanish “company” would be translated into Latin as societas like in socius, a partner or comrade. From this came “Society of Jesus” (SJ) by which they would be known more widely.[27]
Religious orders established in the medieval era were named after particular men: Francis of Assisi (Franciscans), Domingo de Guzmán, later canonized as St Dominic (Dominicans); and Augustine of Hippo (Augustinians). Ignatius of Loyola and his followers appropriated the name of Jesus for their new order, provoking resentment by other religious who considered it presumptuous. The resentment was recorded by Jesuit José de Acosta of a conversation with the Archbishop of Santo Domingo.[28] In the words of one historian: “The use of the name Jesus gave great offense. Both on the Continent and in England, it was denounced as blasphemous; petitions were sent to kings and to civil and ecclesiastical tribunals to have it changed; and even Pope Sixtus V had signed a Brief to do away with it.” But nothing came of all the opposition; there were already congregations named after the Trinity and as “God’s daughters”.[29]
In 1537, the seven travelled to Italy to seek papal approval for their order. Pope Paul III gave them a commendation, and permitted them to be ordained priests. These initial steps led to the official founding in 1540.
They were ordained in Venice by the bishop of Arbe (24 June). They devoted themselves to preaching and charitable work in Italy. The Italian War of 1535-1538 renewed between Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Venice, the Pope, and the Ottoman Empire, had rendered any journey toJerusalem impossible.
Again in 1540, they presented the project to Paul III. After months of dispute, a congregation ofcardinals reported favourably upon the Constitution presented, and Paul III confirmed the order through the bull Regimini militantis ecclesiae (“To the Government of the Church Militant”), on 27 September 1540. This is the founding document of the Society of Jesus as an official Catholic religious order. Ignatius was chosen as the first Superior General. Paul III’s bull had limited the number of its members to sixty. This limitation was removed through the bull Exposcit debitum of Julius III in 1550.[30]
The Spanish king Charles III (1759–88) expelled the Jesuits in 1767 from Spain and its territories. Within a few decades of the expulsion, most of what the Jesuits had accomplished was lost. The missions were mismanaged and abandoned by the Guaraní. Today, these ruins of a 160-year experiment have become a tourist attraction.[83][86]
Jesuits in colonial Brazil
Tomé de Sousa, first Governor General of Brazil, brought the first group of Jesuits to the colony. The Jesuits were officially supported by the King, who instructed Tomé de Sousa to give them all the support needed to Christianize the indigenous peoples.
The first Jesuits, guided by Manuel da Nóbrega, Juan de Azpilcueta Navarro, Leonardo Nunes, and later José de Anchieta, established the first Jesuit missions in Salvador and in São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, the settlement that gave rise to the city of São Paulo. Nóbrega and Anchieta were instrumental in the defeat of the French colonists of France Antarctique by managing to pacify the Tamoio natives, who had previously fought the Portuguese. The Jesuits took part in the foundation of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1565.
The success of the Jesuits in converting the indigenous peoples is linked to their efforts to understand the native cultures, especially their languages. The first grammar of the Tupi language was compiled by José de Anchieta and printed in Coimbra in 1595. The Jesuits often gathered the aborigines in communities (the Jesuit Reductions) where the natives worked for the community and were evangelised.
The Jesuits had frequent disputes with other colonists who wanted to enslave the natives. The action of the Jesuits saved many natives from being enslaved by Europeans, but also disturbed their ancestral way of life and inadvertently helped spread infectious diseases against which the aborigines had no natural defenses. Slave labor and trade were essential for the economy of Brazil and other American colonies, and the Jesuits usually did not object to the enslavement of African peoples, but rather critiqued the conditions of slavery.[87]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Jesus
My ancestry DNA shows I am 22% Cameroon Congo 10% Bantu 2% Iberian Pennisula. I am related to some Perez & Fernandez just to add some reality to this history. It was these same Spanish & Portuguese “Jews ” (Europeans) and missionary slave masters that fled into Africa and then Jamaica and America first fleeing persecution from the Spanish King at the hand of his Queen then many more expulsions over time. The queen demanded the expulsion of all jews (who were mainly black at the time) from Spain. Some of these people were forced to covert to Catholism by the Vaitican Roman church/empire or face death.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF KONGO
The Kingdom of Kongo was composed of 6 provinces: Mpemba, Mbata, Nsundi, Mpangu, Mbemba and Soyo, plus 4 vassal Kingdoms: Loango, Cacongo and Ngoye, at the North of the N’Zari river, and Ndongo, at the South of the Congo river.
To the below post I would add the African history is a history told through stories dance art and tribal ceremonys not in the same way that history is told in Western society. African history is passed down from generation to generation orally and does not fit the stereotypical way of recording history.
The Kongo Nation and Kingdom
By John Henrik Clarke link to full post
The people and nations of Central Africa have no records of their ancient and medieval history like the “Tarikh es Sudan” or the “Tarikh el Fettach” of the Western Sudan (West Africa). The early travelers to these areas are mostly unknown. In spite of the forest as an obstacle to the formation of empires comparable to those of the Western Sudan, notable kingdoms did rise in this part of Africa and some of them did achieve a high degree of civilization.
The Kongo Valley became the gathering place of various branches of the people we now know as Bantu. When the history of Central Africa is finally written, it will be a history of invasions and migrations. According to one account, between two and three thousand years ago a group of tribes began to move out of the region south or southwest of Lake Chad.
Sometime during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the center of Africa became crowded with pastoral tribes who needed more land for their larger flocks and herds. This condition started another migration that lasted for more than a hundred years. Tribes with the prefix Ba to their names spread far to the west into the Congo basin and southward through the central plains. The Nechuana and Basuto were among these tribes. Tribes with the prefix Ama—great warriors like the Ama-Xosa and Ama-Zulu—passed down the eastern side.
In the meantime some of the more stable tribes in the Congo region were bringing notable kingdoms into being. The Kingdom of Loango extended from Cape Lopez (Libreville) to near the Kongo; and the Kongo Empire was mentioned by Europeans historians as early as the fourteenth century. The Chief of Loango, Mani-Kongo, extended his Kingdom as far as the Kasai and Upper Zambesi Rivers. This Kingdom had been in existence for centuries when the Portuguese arrived in the fifteenth century. They spoke admiringly of its capital, Sette-Camo, which they called San Salvador. The Kingdom of Kongo dates back to the fourteenth century. At the height of its power it extended over modern Angola, as far east as the Kasai and Upper Zambesi Rivers.
Further inland the Kingdom of Ansika was comprised of the people of the Bateke and Bayoka, whose artistic talents were very remarkable. Near the center of the Kongo was the Bakuba Kingdom (or Bushongo), still noted for its unity, the excellence of its administration, its art, its craftsmanship and the beauty of its fabrics.
South of the Congo basin the whole Bechuana territory formed a vast state which actually ruled for a long time over the Basutos, the Zulus, the Hottentots and the Bushmen, including in a single empire the greater part of the black population of Southern and Central Africa. This was the era of Bushongo grandeur; the people we now know as Balubas.
Only the Bushongo culture kept its records and transmitted them almost intact to modern research. The Bakubas are an ancient people whose power and influence once extended over most of the Kongo. Their history can be traced to the fifth century. For many centuries the Bakubas have had a highly organized social system, an impressive artistic tradition and a secular form of government that expressed the will of the people through a democratic political system. Today, as for many generations in the past, the court of a Bakuba Chief is ruled by a protocol as rigid and complicated as that of Versailles under Louis XIV.
At the top of the Bakuba hierarchy is the royal court composed of six dignitaries responsible for cabinet-like matters such as military affairs, justice and administration. At one time there were in the royal entourage 143 other functionaries, including a master of the hunt, a master storyteller and a keeper of oral traditions. In the sixteenth century the Bakubas ruled over a great African empire. The memory of their glorious past is recalled in the tribe with historical exactitude. They can name the reigns of their kings for the past 235 years. The loyalty of the people to these rulers is expressed in a series of royal portrait-statues dating from the reign of Shamba Bolongongo, the greatest and best known of the Bakuba kings.
In the Bakuba system of government the king was above all a symbol, rather like the Mikado in the eyes of the Japanese. His ministers, the Kolomos, paid him great respect in public, even if they were his known enemies. In private they made no pretense of subservience. If the king wanted to see his ministers he had to go to their houses or meet them on neutral ground. The ordinary members of the tribe had representatives at the court on a political and professional basis. Some of these officials represented geographical areas, trades and professions. The weavers, the blacksmiths, the boat-builders, the net-makers, the musicians and the dancers all had their representatives at court. There was even a special representative of the fathers of twins. The representative of the sculptors was held in highest esteem. The Bakuba sculptors are considered to be the finest in Africa.
Shamba Bolongongo was a peaceful sovereign. He prohibited the use of the shongo, a throwing knife, the traditional weapon of the Bushongo. This wise African king used to say: “Kill neither man, woman nor child. Are they not the children of Chembe (God), and have they not the right to live?” Shamba likewise brought to his people some of the agreeable pastimes that alleviate the tediousness of life. The reign of Shamba Bolongongo was really the “Golden Age” of the Bushongo people of the Southern Kongo. After abolishing the cruder aspects of African warfare, Shamba Bolongongo introduced raffia weaving and other arts of peace. According to the legends of the Bushongo people, their history as a state goes back fifteen centuries. Legends notwithstanding, their magnificent sculpture and other artistic accomplishments are unmistakable, the embodiment of a long and fruitful social experience reflecting the life of a people who have been associated with a higher form of culture for more than a thousand years.
Early in the twentieth century when the European writer, Emil Torday, was traveling through the Kongo collecting material for his book On the Trail of the Bushongo, he found the Bakuba elders still singing the praises of Shamba Bolongonog. They also repeated the list of their kings, a list of one hundred twenty names, going back to the godlike King who founded their nation. From these Bakuba elders, Emil Torday learned of Bo Kama Bomanchala, the great King who reigned after Shamba Bolongongo. The elders recalled the most memorable event that had occurred during his reign. On March 30, 1680, there was a total eclipse of the sun, passing exactly over Bushongo.
Jose Fernandez, one of the first European explorers to visit Central Africa, went there in 1445. Any number of subsequent expeditions were carried out by such men as Diego Borges, Vincente Annes, Rebello de Araca, Francisco Baretto and Dom Christovao da Gama. The parts of Africa visited, explored and discovered by these men included the Kingdom of the Kongo, Timbuktu, the East Coast of Africa, Nubia, the Kingdom of N’Gola (Angola), Abyssinia and the Lake Tsana region.
Much of the history and civilization of Central Africa and East Africa was revealed by the study made by the Portuguese African explorer Duarte Lopez in his book History of the Kingdom of Kongo. Duarte Lopez went to the Congo in 1578 and stayed for many years.
According to Lopez, the Kingdom of the Kongo at the time measured 1,685 miles. The King, still reliving his past glory, styled himself Dom Alvarez, King of Kongo, and of Abundo, and of Natama, and of Quizama, and of N’Gola, and of Angri, and of Cacongo, and of the seven Kingdoms of Congere Amolza, and of the Pangelungos, and the Lord of the River Zaire (Kongo) and of the Anzigiros, and of Anziqvara, and of Doanga, etc. He also tells us that the Kingdom of N’Gola (Angola) was at one time a vassal state of the Kongo.
At the time of Lopez’s twelve years stay in the country, the Kingdom of the Congo was divided into six provinces. The province of Bamba was the military stronghold of the kingdom, and was capable of putting 400,000 well-disciplined men in the field.
The rich gold mines at Sofala (now a port of Mozambique) attracted the Portuguese to the East Coast of Africa. They used intermarriage with the Africans as a means of gaining favor and pushing into the interior of Africa. In turn, the Africans gradually lost their anti-Christian hostilities and gave in to being converted to Christianity. And thus Christianity was introduced into the Kongo before 1491. The Mani Sogno was the first Kongo nobleman to embrace the Christian faith. The Moslems, coming into the Congo from the East Coast, prevailed upon the Africans to resist being converted to Christianity, telling them that Christianity was a subtle method used by the Portuguese to take over their country. This warning notwithstanding, Christianity continued to spread in the Kongo.
In 1513, Henrique, son of Dom Affonso, then King of the Congo, was sent to Lisbon and to Rome to study theology. In 1520, Pope Leo X appointed Henrique Bishop of Utica and Vicar-apostolic of the Congo. Unfortunately, Henrique died before he could return to the Congo. He was Rome’s first Central African bishop. The royal archives of Portugal still hold the records reflecting the ceremonial respect that was paid to this Christian son of an African king and queen.
In the years that followed, Portuguese evangelization of the Congo continued. The Holy See received ambassadors from and sent legates to the Congo. In 1561, Father Dom Goncalo da Silvera baptized the Emperor of the Court of Monomotapa.
The peaceful relations between the Africans and the Portuguese were eventually disrupted by the rising European lust for slaves and gold. It was from N’Gola (Angola) and the Kongo that the Portuguese New World was to derive its greatest source of slaves. In 1647, Salvador Correia of Brazil organized an expedition of fifteen ships for the purpose of reconquering Angola, which had been under Dutch rule for eight years. This event might be considered go be one of the earliest political interventions of the New World in the Affairs of the Old.
Portuguese domination founded on the dire necessities of the slave trade persisted in Angola. After a period of relative splendor, the Christian Kingdom of the Congo began to weaken and was practically destroyed by European fortune hunters, pseudo-missionaries and other kinds of free-booters. By 1688, the entire Congo region was in chaos. By the end of the seventeenth century European priests had declared open war on the non-Christian population of the Kongo. They were attempting to dominate Congolese courts and had ordered the execution of Congolese ancestral priests and indigenous doctors. Now the Congolese Christians were pathetic pawns of the hands of unscrupulous European priests, soldiers, merchants and other renegade pretenders, mere parish priests from Europe were ordering Congolese kings from their thrones.
Soon treachery, robbery and executions compounded the chaos in the Kongo. Violence became the order of the day as various assortments of European mercenaries vied for control of this rich area of Africa. In the ensuing struggle many of the Christian churches built by the Portuguese were destroyed. The Dutch, still feeling the humiliation of the decline of their influence in N’Gola (Angola), came into the Congo and systematically removed all traces of the once prevailing Portuguese power.
By 1820 Arab slave traders had penetrated the Kongo from Zanzibar and through Tanganyika. Soon after their arrival their slave raids were decimating the population. The European rediscovery of the Kongo and neighboring territories began in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1858, two Englishmen, Burton and Spoke, discovered Lakes Tanganyka and Victoria, approaching them from the shores of the Indian Ocean. The Scotch Protestant missionary, Livingstone, explored the regions of the big lakes and in 1871, Livingstone and Stanley met on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. From 1874 to 1877, Henry Morton Stanley crossed Africa from east to west and discovered the Kongo River.
In the meantime, King Leopold II of Belgium focused his attention on Central Africa and in 1876 founded the Association International Africaine. In 1878, King Leopold commissioned Stanley to establish connection between the Congo River and the ocean in the non-navigable part of the river. From 1879 to 1885, a handful of Belgian officers sent by the King set up posts along the Kongo River. They were followed by Catholic and Protestant missionaries.
King Leopold’s undertakings gave rise to competition and greed. Other European nations had designs on the Kongo. The King’s diplomatic successes at the Berlin Conference of 1884 settled this matter. The members of the Conference marked out spheres of influence in Africa and determined boundaries that are still in existence. The Kongo Free State came into being. The Belgian parliament agreed that Leopold should have “exclusive” personal ownership of the Kongo. The United States was the first power to ratify the arrangement, largely through the efforts of General Henry S. Stanford, who was American minister to Brussels at the time.
And thus began the tragedy of Belgian rule in the Kongo.
