Socio-Political Review of the Department of Pool
By
Dieudonné Antoine-Ganga

SOCIOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

1) From Kongo Dia Ntotila to Pool:

The Pool region that takes its name from the Stanley Pool, the large stretch of water between the two closest capital cities in the world, i.e. Brazzaville and Kinshasa, was administratively created in November 1910. In this respect, the Official Journal of The French Equatorial Africa in its issue of November 1910 states: The territory situated between the limits to the south and east of the confluence of rivers Louna and Léfini is the constituency of the Pool” which has an extremely diverse content extending sometimes from areas neighboring the urban perimeter of Brazzaville to the Plateaux Batékés and from the Plateaux to the Niari Valley.

The current Pool, existing since the creation Of the Republic of Congo on 28 November 1958, has been modified several times. To date, The Pool is limited in the north by the Plateaux Department, in the east by the Congo River, in the south and west by The Departments of Bouenza and Lékoumou. It is divided into 13 districts: Boko, Ignié, Kimba, Kindamba, Kinkala, Louingui, Loumo, Mayama, Mbandza-Ndounga, Mindouli, Ngoma Tsé-Tsé and Vinza.

Currently, the Department is inhabited, on the one hand, by the Tékés people, The “Ngantsiés”, i.e. natives, the former land owners, the real “masters” of the land, and on the other hand the Balaris, Bassoundis, Bahangalas, Badondos, Bakambas, Mikengués, and the Bakongos-Bokos, all of Kongo people descent and the Babis (pygmies) who live in Mpangala lands.

The Bakongos and Batékés lived together smoothly. However, confronted with the Bakongos’ peaceful but insistent expansion, the Batékés generally chose to move away towards Léfini, a sandy high plateau region deemed too bleak by the Bakongos, rather than engage in any form of resistance. Immediately, the Bakongos took over the vacated land while adopting many Teké customs in order to be accepted. The Bassoundis, for instance, excelled in this transformation to such an extent that they even adopted their hosts’ facial tattoos. The Bakongos thoroughly learned the Teké wisdom of speech. The Teké stylistic expressions were translated word for word for use by the Bakongos in running their dealings. This “tekéization” was sometimes strategic, sometimes superficial.

For instance, Mayama, a chief of a Kongo clan imposed his name onto the Téké province newly occupied by the Kongos. The Ndamba clan further imposed its own – Kindamba – onto the center of the great Téké kingdom. Further northwards, they built Mpangala, in remembrance of their original Mpangala, a suburb of Kongo dia Ntotila, the land of Mabombolo Ma Mpangala, the Mani Kambunga who although defeated during the conquest war, was admired by the Bakongos for his courage and thereafter lifted up as spiritual leader. However, exchanges between both communities, i.e. Bakongo and Téké remained limited; each one emphasizing its differences without ignoring the other as a witness of their recent bilingualism.

The Kongo people are reportedly of Berber descent and seem to have originated from the south-east of Chad around the fifth century AD. After a slow migration of several centuries through the Kassaï, the Kongo people established themselves south of the River Kongo, where, around the 14th century, they created a vast empire called the Kingdom of Kongo, expanding on both sides of River Congo between the Kwango, a tributary on the right bank of River Congo and the Atlantic Ocean. The capital city of the empire is San Salvador (Mbanza Kongo), in the north of the current Angola.

The Kingdom of Kongo was then divided into several provinces which corresponded to the various ethnical groups assembled under the Kongo denomination and among which, the Sundi clan that gathered the Basundi, Balali, Bakongo, Bakamba, Babembé, Badondo, Bahangala, Minkengué tribes as known todate. From the 15th century, the kingdom started to progressively disintegrate, which resulted in the exodus of the Sundi northward, early in the 16th century, from the north of the current Angola (Kongo dia Ntotila) to the right bank of River Congo, the Téké land, the Kingdom of Anziki. The Batékés gradually left their villages as the Bakongos settled in. Toward the end of the 16th century, the Téké kingdom, whose capital is Mbé at the north of Brazzaville, shrank.

2) Traditional Social Structures to the Bakongos

In social unity among the Bakongos, the basic family cell is not the conjugal entity restricted to the parents and their children, as seen presently. The centerpiece of the social system remains the Kanda, i.e. the clan which is “the community of all uterine descendants in direct line of the same great grandparent and who respond to the name of the community. It consists of men and women, the living and the dead. The clan chief is the “Mfumu kanda”, a real pundit between the living and the dead in the Kanda. In addition, he is the trustee of the land. He alone assumes the responsibility to grant the right to use the land (for a plantation, the construction of a house, the burial of the dead); and finally, the “Mfumu Kanda” acts as judge between contending members of the clan.

The Luvila of the clan is sacred. It is to be used with deep respect and only in exceptional circumstances such as:

a. when a marriage is concluded, in order to make sure that the engaged couple do not belong to the same clan (for, the Bakongos culture in addition to being matriarchal, have a cardinal law of exogamy that prohibits sexual relations between a man and a woman who belong to the same clan denomination. Whatever the degree of their relationship, such a marriage is incestuous, which is a crime as abominable as witchcraft.

b. when an oath is taken in the name of the ancestors;

c. when a mother pleads her child to have a respectable behavior.

It must also be noted that marriage among the Kongos has both social and conjugal functions and the latter is the essential factor. Marriage is not only the union of two individuals, but it also initiates the union of two families, e.g. the maternal and paternal families of the man and equally of the woman. These families will help and assist each other in happiness or in adversity. They make up a larger family. However, the limits of this family do not stop here. They extend further to another circle of distant relatives that gather a total of eight families comprising relatives of the man’s paternal and maternal grand parents and similarly of the woman’s side.

This “megalofamilia” truth is the cohesion foundation of the Kongo society.

Finally, the Kongo people are specifically monotheistic, like the jews. The Kongos believe in a unique God, Nzambi a Mpungu, God Almighty, creator of the visible and invisible universe.