African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 247
usually several ceremonial events, some involving ritual activities that characterize each
Mutomboko festival. The gathering is marked by a high level of celebratory license, knit
together by the music, dance, and song of Lunda and visiting performers.
One of the objects of the festival is to celebrate the position of “perpetual” kingship
among the Lunda, and there is an emphasis on retellings and celebrations of seminal
events in Lunda history. These include accounts of the original migrations of Lunda
royalty and their soldiers into the area from the west, from what is now called the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is a much larger group of people who call
themselves Lunda, with links to the larger Luba group in the Congo. In fact, several
migrations have led to at least one more group of Lunda people settling in the
northwestern Province of Zambia. This latter group is closely associated with the
Ndembu and speak a language different from that spoken by the Luapula Lunda.
Nevertheless, both groups recognize their common ancestral ties by maintaining formal
cordial relationships, with their chiefs often attending each other’s festivals and
installments. They also readily acknowledge the Lunda king in the Congo, Mwata
Yamvwa, as their progenitor and traditional overlord.
The Mutomboko usually takes place on the last weekend in July, the date roughly
corresponding to the installment of Mwata Kazembe XVII, Paul Kanyembo Lutaba, in
1961. This Kazembe is credited with reviving and formalizing a set of older rites and
activities that have become the current festival. In its current form, the Mutomboko
ceremonies are preceded by a day or two of celebration and the bringing of gifts to
Mwansabombwe, the home or palace of Mwata Kazembe. The gifts come from all parts
of the Lunda area, consisting mostly of foodstuffs and locally brewed beer (made of
maize or finger-millet) and, occasionally, cash. Formal activities begin in the afternoon of
the day before the major rites and ceremonies. On this afternoon, there is a gathering of
elders and notables to conduct important business and the performance of dances meant
to celebrate the occasion and honor Kazembe. The elders and officials sit in a large
section just outside the wall of the palace, facing a small courtyard, ringed and partly
shaded by miyombo trees. A large crowd attends the ceremony, celebrating the events,
applauding the skills of the dancers and musicians, and praising the Mwata himself. This
ceremony is called the Mutentamo, and its specific purposes, as noted by several Lunda
scholars, are the:
1. Investiture of Lundahood on a non-Lunda citizen for gallantry or other achievements.
2. Installation of a member of the royal family, or an important councillor, to a hereditary
office, umwanso.
3. Removal of insignia of office from the holder for disloyalty to the Mwata and gross
misconduct.
4. Welcoming of an important visiting chief or dignitary from outside the Mwata’s
jurisdiction. (Chinyanta and Chiwale 1989, 35)
After the various ceremonies and addresses, mostly conducted by the Mwata’s
spokesman, Kazembe closes the ceremony by dancing an abbreviated version of the
Mutomboko, translated as “the dance of conquest,” to the cheers of the gathered crowd.
On the morning of the second and final day, Mwata Kazembe, dressed in a plain,
white, short-sleeved shirt, a white head scarf, and white pajama-like trousers, moves from
his home to a small shrine within the palace compound called the nakabutula. There, the