Luba Empire

The Luba Empire was a kingdom in the grasslands, lakes and wetlands of the Upemba depression, in what is now the south-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From around the sixteenth century to the late nineteenth, it was one of the great states of central Africa, and its ideas of sacred kingship spread to many neighbouring peoples, including the Lunda.

The Upemba depression, along the upper Lualaba river, with its lakes and fertile soils, was settled by farming, fishing and iron-working communities for over a thousand years. Excavations at sites such as Sanga and Katoto have found rich burials from the eighth century onward, with copper crosses, used as currency, iron tools, ivory and pottery, showing growing wealth and social differences. Copper came from the Copperbelt to the south.

Luba oral tradition tells of Nkongolo Mwamba, the "Rainbow King", a cruel and uncivilised ruler who founded the first kingdom. A refined stranger, the hunter Mbidi Kiluwe, came from the east and married Nkongolo's sisters. Their son, Kalala Ilunga, a great warrior, overthrew and killed Nkongolo and founded the second Luba kingdom. He introduced bulopwe, the principle of sacred royal blood, which became the basis of Luba kingship. The story contrasts disorder and civilisation, and was performed and taught at court.

The Luba king, the mulopwe, was considered sacred. On his death, his residence became a shrine, a kitenta, inhabited by a spirit medium, a woman who embodied the dead king, so that the kingdom had many royal capitals, living and dead. Women played important roles as spirit mediums, royal wives and officials, and many Luba sculptures show women, often supporting stools, bow stands or headrests, symbolising their role in supporting kingship.

A society of specialists called the Mbudye preserved the kingdom's history and laws. They used the lukasa, a hand-held wooden "memory board" covered with beads, shells and carved patterns, to recall the order of kings, the founding myths, the locations of places and the rules of the kingdom. Each lukasa was read differently by different experts. The Mbudye also taught kings their duties and could check their power.

In the eighteenth century, kings such as Kadilo, Ilunga Sungu and Kumwimba Ngombe expanded the kingdom, conquering or bringing under influence many neighbouring peoples and chiefdoms, which adopted Luba ideas of kingship. Rather than direct rule, the Luba spread their political culture by granting chiefs royal emblems and titles, and through marriage and trade. The kingdom traded salt, iron, copper, palm oil, raffia cloth and dried fish, and later ivory and enslaved people, with the Lunda to the west and with traders from the east coast.

Luba art is among the most admired in Africa. Carvers made royal stools, staffs of office, bow stands, headrests and figures, often showing elegant women with elaborate hairstyles and scarification marks. These were symbols of power and memory.

In the nineteenth century, the kingdom was weakened by succession disputes. Swahili-Arab traders from the east coast, such as Tippu Tip, came seeking ivory and slaves, and armed with guns. The Yeke kingdom, founded by the trader Msiri in Katanga, and the Chokwe raided Luba lands. Kasongo Kalombo, the last powerful king, was killed in 1886. In the 1880s and 1890s, King Leopold II's Congo Free State took control of the region. Luba communities today live mainly in Katanga and Kasai, and Luba culture remains influential in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Our maps show the Luba Empire on most maps from 1530 to 1900, with an outline of up to about 350,000 square kilometres, mostly in today's Democratic Republic of the Congo and a small part in Zambia, its largest on the 1600 map. On the 1914 map the region is part of the Belgian Congo.