Luvale

The Luvale, called Lwena or Luena in Angola, are a Bantu people of the upper Zambezi, spread over south-eastern Angola and north-western Zambia and closely related to the Lunda. Their oral tradition remembers a migration from the country north of Lake Tanganyika through the Congo basin under leaders sprung from the dynasty of Konde Mateti; the chieftainess Lueji, who married the Luba hunter Tshibinda Ilunga and became queen of the Lunda, was of that line.

Around 1747 Chinyama cha Mukwamayi established the Kakenge chieftainship in Angola. In the 1700s the Luvale were the first Upper Zambezi people to welcome Ovimbundu caravans, exchanging slaves raided from neighbouring tribes for guns and cloth.

They also levied tolls on passing traders, and the commerce reached its height in the 1830s, when their raiding expansion brought repeated wars with the southern Lunda chiefships.