Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Great Mother and the God of the Lake: Royal and Priestly Power in Ulungu
Author:Willis, RoyISNI
Year:1991
Periodical:Zambia Journal of History
Issue:4
Pages:21-29
Language:English
Notes:biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:Tanzania
Zambia
Africa
Subjects:Lungu
chieftaincy
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Religion and Witchcraft
Anthropology, Folklore, Culture
folklore
Lungu (African people)
Mythology
Abstract:The historical traditions of the Lungu of northeast Zambia and southwest Tanzania appear to reflect an ancient encounter between an established, priestly authority based on territorial shrines, and incomers bearing a statist ideology and possibly of Luba origin. Lungu social organization and traditional culture are based on an uneasy accommodation between two major symbolic figures: the lake god Kapembwa, whose cult has become predominant in the southern Lake Tanganyika region, and the 'Great Mother' of Lungu chiefship, Mwenya Mukulu. The mixture of reciprocity and antagonism between the two primal forms of power and authority, priestly and royal, is reenacted in periodic ritual dramas, most notably in the ritual called 'Amapepo', 'prayers', an annual pilgrimage to the Kapembwa shrine in which royal and priestly representatives jointly participate. Notes, ref.
Views