Bembe

The Bembe, plural Babembe, are a Bantu people of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, settled mainly in the Fizi territory and Itombwe highlands west of Lake Tanganyika, with communities across the lake in western Tanzania.

Their oral genealogy names a common ancestor, Mbondo, holding that the Bembe once lived beside the Lega before the two peoples separated, the Lega turning back while the Bembe moved on toward the lake; a third brother, Bangu, is said to have founded the Bangubangu of Maniema.

They grew into a fiercely independent mountain people, divided into lake and highland groups, women working the fields while men hunted, fished and traded from semi-nomadic forest villages. Their customs blend pre-Lega, Boyo-Kunda and Hemba traditions, and oral history recalls that from 1820 they endured repeated wars that brought them close to extinction before the colonial conquest.