Pende

Pende country lies in the interior east of the old Mbundu kingdom of Ndongo. Traditions recorded among the Pende describe ancestors leaving Ndongo and settling farther inland in the Matamba region. In the seventeenth century their lands became entangled in the conflicts surrounding the rise of the Imbangala kingdom of Kasanje. Some Pende communities moved away from Portuguese domination, carrying their own ties of kinship and authority into the Kwango country.