The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

20 SOTTTIT AXD EAST AFRICA.TjikBlnuas.Soutli of the tribes eonstitiitlug the Congo groui5, and as far as the pro^'inceof ^Mofsamcdes, stretches the linguistic domain of the Bundas (Bundo, Bonde),(ailed also " Angola " like the whole land itself. According to one rather farfetchedetj'mologj', the term Biinda is explained to mean "Strikers," or "Conquerors,"recalling in fact the successive invasions of the race and its victoriesover the aboriginal populations. But the name seems rather to denote "family,"" descent," thus implying a consciousness of their common kinship on the partof those speaking the lingua cjcral or " general language " of Angola. ThisBunda si^eech is one of the most widely diffused in Africa, and one of thosewhich have been longest known to students, without however having yet beenthoroughly studied. To\^-ards the end of the seventeenth century an Angolangrammar was published in Lisbon, and devotional works had already been composedin this language. For over two centuries Eiu'opeans have been familiarwith Am-Bimda (Hem-Bunda or Kin-Bunda), whose domain, according toMonteiro, begins immediately below the river Dand^, and stretches thence farbeyond the frontiers of Angola proper. If not spoken, it is at least understoodby numerous tribes of the interior, who maintain uninterrupted commercialrelations with Bunda caravan people. Thus it was not as " Strikers," but astraders, that the inhabitants of Angola propagated the use of their "linguafranca," from the Atlantic seaboard as far as the Congo, Ku-Bango, and Zambesebasins. In the Portuguese possessions it is spoken in two dialects, distinctenough to have been classed as separate languages. These are the Angolan, orBunda, j)roperly so called, which is current north of the Cuanza, and the southernBunda, which prevails throughout the whole region comprised between Benguellaand the Bihe territory. Portuguese terms have penetrated into both varieties,and in fact into all the inland dialects as far as and beyond the Kassai.The Bundas (A-Bundo, Bin-Bundo) are thus divided into two main divisions,a northern and a southern. But the latter, so far from forming compact nationalgroups, are in their turn siibdivided into a large number of tribes, which havereached very different degrees of civilisation.Some, who have been brought withinthe influence of Europeans either on the seaboard or on. the plantations of theinterior, are comparatively cultured, while others dwelling on the plateaux, or inthe more remote upland villages, have remained in the savage state. Of allthe Bundas, the Ba-Xano or " Highlanders," so named in contradistinction tothe Ba-Bwero or " Lowlanders," have best preserved the racial purity and theprimitive usages. The term Ba-iPfano (Nanno) is, however, extended by somewriters in a collective sense to the whole nation.Eeferring to the traditions of the Bundas who occupy the hilly region lyingsouth of the Cuanza, Magyar states that these tribes came from the north-eastabout the middle of the sixteenth century. Their ancestors, who were fiercecannibals, were constantly waging war against all the surrounding tribes in orderto procure human prey, and when they had no longer any enemies to fall upon