Kingdom of Loango

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Location of the Kingdom of Loango on a historical map
The Royal Court of Loango, from the book Description of Africa (1668) by Olfert Dapper
Young girl from Loango

The Kingdom of Loango was a pre-colonial Central African state on the Atlantic coast on the territory of what is now the Republic of the Congo .

history

The kingdom existed from the 14th to the 19th centuries . At its height in the 17th century , the land stretched from Mayombe in the north to almost the mouth of the Congo . The inhabitants spoke a northern dialect of the Kikongo language , which was also spoken in the Congo Empire.

Between 1512 and 1570, the people of the split Fiote with his Kingdom of Loango the Congo River north of the Congo Empire , and was the end of the 16th century, independent of him.

In 1624 Loango was explored by the doctor and Africa explorer Samuel Braun . As he reported, manioc , a tuber from South America , was already being grown and palm wine was being drunk. A man's wealth was measured by the number of women who tilled the field. There were no oxen or horses for cultivation. Many men had eight or twelve wives, but some had twenty or more. The King of Loango owned 360 wives and numerous slaves. The men were responsible for hunting or fishing, as well as planting and harvesting the wine palms . There were also some artisans who made clothes or melted imported copper and turned it into rings that were exchanged for iron and colored woolen cloths. When the king or a nobleman died, bloody ceremonies with human sacrifices were held.

In the 18th century the country developed into an important trading center .

In 1883 was Loango French protectorate .

literature

  • Adolf Bastian : The German expedition to the Loango coast. Along with older news about the countries to be explored . Olms, Hildesheim 2007 (2 vol .; reprint of the Jena edition 1874/75)
  1. 2007, ISBN 978-3-487-13124-5 .
  2. 2007, ISBN 978-3-487-13125-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Congo-Brazzaville in the flag dictionary
  2. ↑ Loango . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 1888
  3. ↑ Beatrix Heintze: German research travelers in Angola , Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-87476-544-2 , pp. 146–152
  4. ^ History of the Republic of the Congo at the Foreign Office