Myene

The Myene are a cluster of Bantu-speaking peoples on the coast and river estuaries of Gabon, including the Mpongwe, Galwa, Nkomi, Orungu and Adyumba groups, whose villages line the lower Ogooue River around Lambarene. Their closely related vernaculars form the Myene language cluster, traditionally grouped by linguists with the neighbouring Tsogo languages.

Counted among the earliest Bantu settlers of the Gabonese coast, they lived by fishing, river and seaborne trade, and skilled woodworking, and their society was organized into matrilineal clans and villages under chiefs. Ancestor worship and cults of nature spirits shaped religious life before the spread of Christianity.

When Portuguese ships reached the area in the 1470s, Myene speakers were already established along the shore. In the following centuries, their canoes and trading chiefs became intermediaries in Atlantic commerce, exchanging ivory, dyewood and, increasingly, slaves with European merchants.