Zande

The Azande are the people of the upper Uele river and surrounding savannas; their name means the people who possess much land, won by conquest. They were forged in the first half of the 1700s, when the Vungara, or Avongara, clan built a string of chiefdoms by military expansion. The related Bandia dynasty, of foreign origin, adopted Zande speech and customs and came to rule the Vungara in the early 1800s.

On a king's death his sons fought for the succession, and the losers marched out to found new chiefdoms, carrying Zande rule until raids out of the Sudan checked their spread.

Unmarried men served as warriors and labourers under the Avongara nobility, and Zande smiths were famed for their multi-bladed throwing knives. Their traditional belief centred on the supreme being Mbori, and men settled disputes through oracles, above all the poison oracle reserved for men.