Luba

The Luba came from fishing, farming and metal-working communities in the Upemba Depression, where iron-working farmers had lived since the fourth century. Some scholars date their empire to before the fifteenth century; oral tradition tells how its sacred kingship began with Nkongolo and the hunter Mbidi Kiluwe.

The Luba model of government, which could absorb foreign leaders, was adopted by the Lunda, whose first paramount ruler took the title Mwane-a-Yamvu about 1665. The Lunda confederation of chiefdoms, bound by tribute, grew across southern Congo, northeastern Angola and Zambia, and its migrants founded the eastern kingdom of Kazembe.