A Note on the Luimbi of Central Angola

Opening Paragraph The Luimbi-speaking people occupy a region in the centre of Angola. This area is of a somewhat irregular shape, approximately 200 miles from north to south, between latitudes 10° 30′ and 14° S. and varying from 30 to 100 miles in width roughly between longitudes 17° and 19° E. In general their home thus lies along the Quanza valley from the source of that river to near its confluence with the Luandu river. To the east is the 150-mile stretch of the ‘hungry country’, a sandy but in parts fertile and well-wooded region which is, nevertheless, uninhabited because, by local tradition, it ‘lies under the curse of a king’. This divides the Luimbi from the arrogant, fierce, and once cannibal Chokwe who, however, are tending to infiltrate both south and north.