Congo Culture Area

The Congo Culture area is situated in the heart of the Africa continent, embracing the entire basin of congo river,and stretches from the Nile -Congo divide to the Atlantic.It includes the people of northern Angola,or Congo republic and the Gabon and the Eastern portion of the southern Cameroon as well as parts of the southern stripof the Sudanese Republic and of the Central African Republic.It extends South eastward through the Katanga into northern Rhodesia,now Zimbabwe.Most of it's peoples speak bantu language.culturally, linguistically and physically,the mass of its inhabitants are to be differentiated from the pygmies who are located in the northern and east-central parts of the area. The economies of the Congo area not only to be distinguished from those of east Africa by the fact that they are essentially agricultural,but also because of the absence of any of the the larger domesticated animals.Hunting is an important complementary pursuit to agriculture,with fishing as the the principal source of protein. shifting cultivation has been the with fertilizer rarely used.The hoe is the primary agricultural implement .Congo cultures are charaterized by numerous craft specialties.Basketry is developed to a high point,weaving espectually with the fibre of the raffia palm produces the priced raffia cloths of the Kassai people.The degree of specialization is moat marked in the southern part of the area,which has been described as the most striking characteristic of Ba-Kuba civilization.Thus becomes apparent as the role of the specialists like sculptors in wood,weavers,cloth sewers,rope markers,blacksmith,fishermen,hunters,canoe builders,leader workers,markers of marts of nets, of singer,dancers,musicians becomes more explicit.All these were organized in guilds,which were represented in the council of chiefs.Economic value was set on time and manual work; there was labour for hire,and well-developed commercial organization. Political authority varied from stable,populous kingdom to restricted groupings,with controls vested in the the hands of kindhip units having a minimum of formal organization.Kingdom such as Kong o in the west, Shongo in the south,Lunda in the southeast ,or Zande in the north existed in the midst of smaller political units, out of which indeed, they seemed to have developed through a process of conquest and accretion.The basic unit is the village.The village was ruled by the chief and his council of old men.Most of its inhabitants belong to the same kinship group except,the women who married into it and retained their own kin-group affiliation and in earlier time the slaves.