Vili

The Vili are a Bantu people and a branch of the Kongo, settled on the Atlantic coast from southwestern Gabon to Cabinda, around Loango and the Kouilou estuary. With other peoples they formed the core of the Kingdom of Loango, which broke away from Kongo in the sixteenth century; tradition names King Njimbe as its founder.

At its height in the seventeenth century Loango exported copper and cloth, while the Vili, organised in matrilineal clans, became its dominant political group and expressed their spirituality through carved nkisi nail fetishes.

Vili brokers dominated trade with European ships, first in ivory and copper and later in slaves, enriching a small elite but unbalancing society. After King Buatu died in 1787 the succession faltered and the kingdom fragmented into rival chiefdoms.