Chokwe

Chokwe, also called Ciokwe or Tshokwe, is a Bantu language of the borderlands where Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia meet, and it serves as a lingua franca across eastern Angola. Its speakers, the Chokwe, trace their chiefs' ancestry to the Lunda migrations of the 1500s, and were one of the twelve clans of the Lunda Empire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

After quarrels over tribute they broke away from the Lunda king, the Mwata Yanvo, and their trade in wax, ivory and other goods made them a prosperous, independent power. The Chokwe farm, hunt and fish to the rhythm of the rainy and dry seasons.