Social and Political Structure
The Mbundu-speaking region was known as the land of Mbundu, and according to late sixteenth century accounts, it was divided into 736 small political units ruled by sobas. These sobas and their territories (called murinda) were compact groupings of villages (senzala or libatas, probably following the Kikongo term divata) surrounding a small central town (mbanza).
These political units were often grouped into larger units called kanda and sometimes provinces. Larger kingdoms may have emerged in earlier times, but in the sixteenth century most of these regions had been united by the rulers of Ndongo. Ndongo's capital city was called Kabasa, located on the highlands near modern-day N'dalatando. This was a large town, holding as many as 50,000 people in its densely populated district.
The king of Ndongo and the leaders of the various provinces ruled with a council of powerful nobles, the macota, and had an administration headed by the tendala, a judicial figure, and the ngolambole, a military leader. In Ndongo itself, the ruler had an even larger group of bureaucrats, including a quartermaster called kilunda and another similar official called the mwene kudya.
Social structure was anchored on the ana murinda ("children of the murinda") or free commoners. In addition to the commoners, there were two servile groups – the ijiko (sing., kijiko), unfree commoners who were permanently attached to the land as serfs, and the abika (sing., mubika) or salable slaves.
Read more about this topic: Kingdom Of Ndongo
Famous quotes containing the words social and, social, political and/or structure:
“The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self- employment and artistic autonomy.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The question is still asked of women: “How do you propose to answer the need for child care?” That is an obvious attempt to structure conflict in the old terms. The questions are rather: “If we as a human community want children, how does the total society propose to provide for them?””
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)