Vansina, Jan. Western Bantu Expansion

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Western Bantu ExpansionAuthor(s): Jan Vansina

Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 25, No. 2 (1984), pp. 129-145Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/181385Accessed: 04-01-2016 19:06 UTC

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J7ournal

of African History, 25 (I984)

pp.

129-145

I29

Printed

in Great Britain

WESTERN

BANTU EXPANSION

BY JAN VANSINA

THE massive

spread

of the Bantu

languages

remains

a witness

to one

of

the

major developments

in

Africa's

past:

the

settlement of a subcontinent

by

farmers.

As soon

as

it was

realized,

the scale

of

the

phenomenon

attracted

speculation.

A

genetic

classification

of

Bantu

languages

correlated

with

archaeological

data should allow

us to

reconstruct

the

process

in

detail.

But

establishing

a

genealogy

of

languages proved

to be

immensely

difficult

because

borrowing

('convergence')

has

been

so

heavy among

Bantu

languages

that loans obscured genuine genetic traces. To cope with this, novel method-

ology

was

needed.

It

eventually

became clear that

core vocabularies

retain

more

genetic

traces than other

aspects

of

the

languages,

and

lexico-statistics

began

to

yield

a

genealogy of

Bantu

languages.

But it is only now that

such studies are coming to fruition. The

latest

study by

Y.

Bastin, A. Coupez and B. de Halleux,1 of the Musee

Royal,

Tervuren,

is

now

trustworthy

enough

to

serve

as a

foundation

for

historical

reconstruction. The number of

languages

tested (250) is

over half of the c.

450

Bantu

languages

known.

The

volume

of

languages

tested has

proved

to

be

important

because substantial differences

in

classification

appear when the

numbers are

smaller.2 There

still remains

some uncertainty in the

taxonomy

concerning

the exact

place

of small

groups, especially

in

Eastern Bantu

where

the languages are much closer

to each other than elsewhere.3 But the main

outlines seem

definitive,

especially

for

Western

Bantu

languages which

diverge

further

from

each other.

Both the quality

of

the

samples

and the

actual

method of

comparison im-

prove upon previous

efforts. Most data were obtained from

speakers4

not from

dictionaries,

and

were elucidated

and

compared

in a

uniform and

stringent

fashion. Each

entry

was

compared

to all others and its

distribution data

have

been kept. References to eventual

derivation in a

regular way (or

not)

from

proto-forms

have been traced out.

The

statistical

methods have also been

improved,5 although here a word

I

Y.

Bastin, A.

Coupez

and

B. de

Halleux,

'Classification

lcxicostatistique

des

langues

bantoues

(214

releves)',

Bulletin

de

l'Acadkmie

Royale

des

Sciences

d'Outre-Mer,

xxviI

(I983),

173-99.

2

Compare

annexe

9

with

annexe

3

in

ibid.; B.

Heine,

H. Hoff

and

R.

Vossen,

'Neuere

Ergebnisse

zur

Territorialgeschichte der

Bantu',

Zur

Sprachgeschichte und

Ethnohistorie

in

Afrika

(Berlin,

I977),

57-70, used

I47

languages.

3T. J.

Hinnebusch,

D.

Nurse

and

M.

Mould,

'Studies

in

the

classification

of

eastern

Bantu

languages'

(Beiheft), Sprache

und

Geschichte

in

Afrika

iii

(Hamburg)

is

expected.

For

now

besides

Bastin

et

al.,

see D.

Nurse,

'Bantu

expansion

into

East

Africa:

linguistic

evidence',

in

The

Archaeological

and

Linguistic

Reconstruction

of

African

History,

eds.

C. Ehret and M. Posnansky (Berkeley,

I982), 199-238;

D. Nurse and G. Philippson,

'Historical

implications

of the

language

map

of

East

Africa',

in

L'expansion

bantoue,

ed.

L.

Bouquiaux

(Paris,

ig80),

iii,

685-714.

4

Bastin

et al.,

'Classification',

I81-3;

cf.

Heine et

al.,

'Neuere

Ergebnisse',

58-9.

The

Heine

group did

not

use

the

Swadesh

list of Ioo

words

but a

similar list

compiled by

B.

Heine.

The

'group

average

method'

was

used; cf.

Bastin

et al.,

'Classification',

I75-6. This

differs

and

improves

on

Heine

et al.,

'Neuere

Ergebnisse', 59.

5

AFH

25






130

JAN

VANSINA

10?

~-'-<

200 30?

400

500

Batoid

W_

Zairek

Western

C.

E

00

......

E

00

\ ,, \ \ \ }~~~~~~~~~-"U.

Eastern

loo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

............ - * ----r.*.-.- ...

..\.... \...

A-

200

1

Eastern

200

Bantu

borderline

.....

Limits of Western

Bantu

Western

and Eastern

.300

W,

E Isolated

Western

30~-

Eastern Bantu

cluster

i0. 20.

300

400

600 10

km

I

i

~~000

60~100k

Fig.

i. Bantu

languages.

of caution is

necessary.

The

'group

average'

method

is

designed

to

yield

only

two-way splits

and

to localize

them

at a

single

moment and

a

single

place.

But

this is

highly

unusual

in known

language history. Usually

the

territory

of

a

speech

community

expands

so much that

dialects

appear

which over

time

differentiate

and

become

languages.6

Thus

nodes

represent

time-prod

n

often

larger

areas.

Moreover,

when lexicostatistics

show several

two-way

splits

close to each

other,

we

may

in

practice

think

of them as

multiple-way

splits,

and

to a small

extent

this is done

in the

present

article.

The Tervuren

group

has

also conducted

tests with statistics

of

grammatical

features,7 comparing

them to the results

of lexicostatistics.

Overall

there

is

much

congruence;

where

differences

in

taxonomy

do

appear,

they

establish,

to

my

mind,

the

superiority

of the

lexical data.

The

reliability

of the

method

now

seems

impressive.

But it

took

thirty

years

to

gather

the data and

test

them.

6

Cf.

the differentiation

of Romance languages

from Latin or of the

West

Germanic

languages on the

continent.

No single moment

in time and

no

single place

are

involved,

but periods

and areas.

7 Y.

Bastin, A. Coupez and

B. de Halleux, 'Statistiques

lexicales

et grammaticales pour

la classification

historique

des langues

bantoues',

Bulletin

de

l'Academie Royale

des

Sciences d'Outre-Mer, XXIII, iii

(I979),

375-87 (68

languages).






WESTERN BANTU

EXPANSION

I3I

Confidence

is

also

inspired by

the fact that the results

agree

well

with the

detailed observations made by

three

generations

of Bantuists.

We

can

rely

on this

taxonomy

for Western

Bantu at least and

avoid the fate of Oliver's

brilliant

hypothesis,

which foundered when the

assumptions

of M. Guthrie

about

the

genetic

relationships involving

groups

of Bantu

languages proved

to be unsound.8

Readers must realize, however, that the Tervuren group

and

others are

continuing their work and will produce, five or ten years

hence,

a definitive

classification valid to the level of individual languages. Thus

our

present

discussion can deal only with the major outlines of Western

Bantu

9

expansion.

WESTERN BANTU

Contrary to what most historians imagine, 'Bantu' is no longer a clear

linguistic

category.

Bennett

and

Sterk

showed

10

that

Bin,

a

subgroup

of

Bantoid,

must

be divided

as shown

in the

diagram:

Bin

Wok Ungwa

Jarawan

Cameroun-Congo

Tiv Zambesi

(Eastern

Bantu)

Ekoid Mbam-Nkam Equatorial (Western Bantu)

Equatorial and Zambesi are

usually

labelled Western and Eastern

Bantu,

and I will

use

that nomenclature. This

early split

is confirmed

by

the

Tervuren

group

on

the basis

of

conventional Bantu

languages

and some

neighbouring

languages

from

Cameroun.11 This means that so-called

common Bantu refers

to a

group larger

and older than was

previously thought

and

that distinctions between Western

and

Eastern Bantu become

very

important

when we are

dealing

with

proto-vocabulary

and

its

cultural

implications.

The

finding

also leads to a

mystery.

We know that all

Eastern

Bantu

languages spread

from the area of the

Great

Lakes,

but no

trace

of

them

survives between Tiv country (Nigeria) and the Great Lakes. Some authors

have used this as an

argument

that

somehow

Eastern

Bantu

must derive from

Western

Bantu.12 But the

linguistic

data are now too solid to

be

discarded.

It is clear

that, just

as the

languages

of the

autochthones in the Western Bantu

8

Roland

Oliver,

'The

problem

of the Bantu

expansion ',T. Afr.

Hist.,

vii

(I966),

361-76;

'Papers on

Comparative Bantu', African

language Studies, XIV

(I973);

B. Heine,

'Zur

genetischen Gliederung der

Bantu-Sprachen', Afrika

und

Ubersee,

LVI

(I973),

I64-85.

9

The Tervuren

group has over 300

languages now, including the last remaining

major

gaps for western Bantu. For

the 'as yet unclassified' area of

Fig. 2 lists are available

since

I98I. The final

classifications should come from this team

and, for eastern Bantu,

from

the

Hinnebusch/Nurse/Mould team.

Since the procedures of both are not

identical the

correspondences that are shaping up will be especially significant.

10

P. B. Bennett and

J. P. Sterk, 'South Central

Niger-Congo: a

reclassification',

Studies

in

African Lingui-stics,

viii,i

(977),

241-73.

11

Bastin et al., 'Classification', 176-7.

12

C.

Ehret, 'Linguistic

inferences in

early

Bantu

history',

in

Ehret and

Posnansky

as

cited

in

n. 3,

59-6I,

whose argument remains

strictly geographical and does not take

wider

Bantu into account.

5-2






132

JAN VANSINA

area

vanished,

so have all traces of Eastern Bantu

in the

west, their

speakers

having been

absorbed by

other

linguistic

groups.

Sites

on the Cameroun

grasslands

have

now been found which

pertain

to

farming communities using ground stone tools and pottery, but no metal.13

Shum

Laka

is

such a site.

It dates

from

4000 to

6000

B.C.,

a period when

the

area was covered

by

forest; it

is thus a little

older than neighbouring

Nigerian

sites

with

pottery,

ground

stone and

presumably

some

agriculture.14

By

3000 B.C., therefore

a 'neolithic'

was

established

in

the 'Bin'

area. The first

site to

be found

in a Western

Bantu

area

is Obobogo,

near

Yaounde; here

a

large

village site

yielded

pottery,

ground stone,

a

grindstone

and remnants

of oil

palm

and

the edible

fruit of

Canarium

schweinfurthii.

The

dates for

it

range between

I675

?

I65 b.c.

and 682

+ I

00

b.c. and

seem

to cluster

around

I000

B.C.15

By

this date Western

Bantu

expansion

was under

way.

We

may

guess that the process had started by

2000 B.C.

or

I500

B.C.

Only intensive

archaeological

research

will

tell

us

more.

Proto-Western

Bantu

culture can

be deduced

from

its vocabulary.16

These

people

farmed yams,

oil palms,

some gourds

and minor

domestic

plants.

They

also fished,

hunted and

gathered wild

produce,

kept

goats and

dogs and were

potters.

Their

mode of

life seems

quite

similar to that

of the

Bubi on Bioko

island

by the

mid-nineteenth

century.'7

They lived

in

villages, recognized

political

leaders

and specialists,

especially

religious

specialists.

Not

much

can

be

said

at this

time about their social

organization.

Elements

of their religious

practices

and

beliefs

are

known.18

It

is

very

important

to

recognize

that

the

speakers of Western Bantu did not farm cereals, nor did they know how to

smelt

iron.

Their

technology

was

purely

neolithic and the

archaeological

evidence

must therefore

relate to 'neolithic' sites,

not sites

from the Iron

Age.

The area

where

they

lived

is indicated

by

the distribution

of the

related

languages

Ekoid

and Mbam-Nkam.

It was the area between

the Cross

River

(or

further

west),

the

ocean and the Cameroons

grasslands,

reaching

into

the

heavily

forested

hilly country

south

of what are now grasslands

but

were

then

forest.

The Cameroon

mountain

itself was

probably

not inhabited.

Proto-

Western

Bantu

forms

relating

to environments

support

such

a

localization.

This

area

includes

many

environments:

hilly,

flat,

marshy,

inundated

13

P. de

Maret,

'Preliminary

report',

Nyame

Akuma,

XVI

I

(i 980),

I0- 1

2;

J.

P.

Warnier,

R.

Asombang,

'Archaeological

research

in the

Bamenda

grassfield',

Nyame

Akuma,

xxi

(I982),

3-4;

P. de

Maret,

'New survey

of

archaeological

research

and

dates

for

West-Central

and

North-Central

Africa',

XXIII

(I982),

I-3.

14

See n. 13

and

T.

Shaw, Nigeria,

Its

Archaeology

and

Early History

(London,

1978),

45-50;

B. W.

Andah

and

F. N.

Anozie, 'Preliminary

report

on

the

prehistoric

site

of

Afikpo',

West

African

Journal

of Archaeology,

in

press.

15

De

Maret,

'New Survey',

2-3;

personal

communication,

30

Aug. I982.

16

Data are

found

in

M. Guthrie,

Comparative

Bantu, 4

vols. (Farnborough,

I967-7I),

especially

vol. ii,

indexes

A

and

B,

II6-56

and

supplement,

pp.

176-80.

But

dis-

tributions

and

reasoning

for each

item

must

be

carefully

checked.

No faith

at

all

should

be placed in E. Polome, 'The reconstruction of Proto-Bantu culture from the lexicon',

in

L'expansion

bantoue,

ed. Bouquiaux,

III,

779-91.

17

A. Aymemi,

Los

Bubis

en

Fernando

Poo (Madrid,

1942);

G.

Tessmann,

Die

Bubi

auf

Fernando

Poo

(Darmstadt,

1923).

18

A full

study

of

Proto-Western

Bantu

culture

has not

yet

been done.

For

this

the

distribution

and

variability

of

meaning

for each

term involved

must

be more

precisely

plotted

than

it usually

is

and

the

reflexes

must

be

regular.






WESTERN BANTU EXPANSION

133

rivershore, ocean

fringes, usually

forested

by

different

types

of

forest

from

mangrove swamp

to dense

rain forest on

dry

soil and

including

some

forest/savanna mosaics.

Its

major

characteristic

is this

great

environmental

diversity, the single great unifying feature being excessive rainfall. It is logical

that different specializations would occur under

such

circumstances, especially

as

between fishing and

farming

communities.

Specialized

hunter/gatherers

(pygmy?) were probably present

in

the eastern

part

of

the area as the term

'pygmy, aborigine' (CS I804)'9 indicates. Because both

yams

and

oil

palms

grow

best

on

the

margins

of forests and not at all in dense

forests,

the

inhabitants must have favoured

ecotones,

the boundaries

between different

environments,

since these

gave

access

to varied

resources.

It is

true that

they

could grow their crops

in

clearings

hacked out of the forest with

stone

tools

and

by burning.

But the labour

was

daunting, compared

to

planting

near

natural' forest margins.

The

population

was

also fairly

immune to natural disaster. Rain

never

fails

there. Tornadoes and

lightning

are indeed

major threats,

but

their effects are

very localized. Moreover the

basis for food

production

was

mixed,

so that

farming always

was

complemented by hunting

and

gathering

at

least,

thus

yielding

some insurance

against

the

destruction of fields. On the whole we

can assume that there was

population growth

in

the area because

of

the

variety

of

environments,

the

relative

unimportance

of natural

disaster

and a

settled

mode of life where birth control was less

stringent

than

it

had

to

be

among

nomadic

hunting

communities. The situation

probably lasted for centuries

and expansion began as a result of local population growth, so that population

pressure induced by

the desiccation of the far-away Sahara c. 2500 B.C.

need

not

be invoked here.

EXPANSION IN

CENTRAL AFRICA

Farmers

speaking

Western Bantu

gradually occupied all of Central Africa.

Table

i

shows

the six

major splits

of

languages that occurred

one after the

other

and

the topogram

shows the areas of expansion with

the direction of

the

expansion of

languages. We may assume that the

expansion was accom-

panied by migration of at least small numbers of people. Such an assumption

has

been proved for

Eastern Bantu languages.20

Further

archaeological

research at

'neolithic' sites must be

conducted to confirm this for Central

Africa.

The

course

of

the expansion is

deduced from the present-day

localization

of

language

clusters.

This

is valid because there

exists

a

general

congruence between

the taxonomy and spatial

proximity. Where later

language displacements occurred, maps

show striking

discontinuities over

space,

as for

example in the northern borderlands.2'

19

This

notation

refers to

Guthrie,

Comparative

Bantu,

iii, iv.

20

For a recent summary cf. T. N. Huffman,

'Archaeology and

ethnohistory of

the

African

Iron

Age', Annual

Review

of

Anthropology,

xi

(I982),

133-8.

Current

research

is

listed

in

Nyame

Akuma.

21 As

on

Fig.

2

for

Ubangian,

Gbaya and

Central

Sudanic

enclaves

in

Bantu

territory

or

Western Bantu

enclaves on the

Mbomu

River

and in

Bahr el

Ghazal. At

a less

remote

level and

between

Bantu

language

clusters

examples of

Cameroun

(the

splitting of

the

group

labelled A

8o) are

known.

The

location

of

Bobangi also

betrays

later

movement.






134

JAN

VANSINA

5 ~ ~~

The

spread

of Western Bantu

This

topogram

shows that the

expansion

occurred

in

three waves

mainly

fanning out further

and

further

from

the

point

of

origin.

(I

=

denotes

language group)

1.

Yambasa-Nen

2.

Cameroun

(i)

Mbam

7

(

i)

Coast

/

LCentralal

Kako

3. Bioko

4.

Ogowe-Estuary

(i)

Tsogo

(ii) Myene

5.

Northern

Zaire

(

waterpeople

landpeople

(i

Lomami

Eastern 6.

Lualaba-Atlantic

7. Southern

(i)

([Bateke

Kwango

LKasai Western

Highlands

(i

Zaire

Bend

(

O

Luba

Atlantic [Eastern

(Tanganyika-

Zambezi)

(Maniema)

Key

i. Yambasa-Nen:

group

Mbam: block

i, ii, grouping of blocks

(Maniema)

sub-block

Notes.

The

nomenclature

and

numbering

are new.

They may

not

gain

universal

acceptance.

Blocks are

high

orders

of subdivision

within

groups,

but

they

are not

truly equal

in

the

taxonomy

of

Bastin,

Coupez

and de

Halleux

(i98I).

Lexical

distance

and

relative

time

are not calibrated in

the

line of

development.

Western

Bantu Languages:

Genetic

Taxonomy






WESTERN

BANTU

EXPANSION

I35

The

first hiving-off occurred

in the hilly

terrain

part

of the Western

Bantu

heartland.

A

language

group

now known as Yambasa-Nen developed,22

probably

without

any

major migratory

movement

and simply

because

communication in this area is difficult. The real expansion began when the

Cameroun group

of

languages

came to be differentiated from others.

This

may have begun

with the language

cluster

of

Bioko, again

understandable

since

these farmers crossed

to an

island

posing problems

of communication

with the other

Western Bantu speakers.23

But

perhaps

this

split

came

only

later.

The Western

Bantu

speakers

were

expanding

over

four different sorts

of

terrain. Coastal

populations

spread along

the ocean shore

north and

south,

mostly among

mangrove

swamps. Some,

such as the

Bafia

speakers,

moved

towards

the lower

Mbam where they

reached

a

major

forest/savanna divide,

drier and richer than the homeland. In the centre, other farmers crossed the

Sanaga

and found

favourable

forests

at

higher

altitudes on the plateau

of

southern Cameroun.

And at least one set

travelled

far to the

east, beyond

the

Kadei, again

towards

a

forest/savanna

mosaic in a

much

drier environment.

By and large,

no major adaptation

of the

techniques common

to the heartlands

was

required, although

in the case

of

the

coastal people

further specialization

in fishing

may have occurred.

As

this

was happening many

others were

moving

towards the

Ogowe

bend

in the

south, advancing

from one specially

favourable site to another,

scattered

over a huge

front on the plateau.

Near

the middle Ogowe

one group

split off to form the Ogowe-estuary language group. It must have grown

around the Okande

savanna,

which has

poor

soil but provides open

margins

to

the forests. This group

must later have split

into two blocks:

one of

undoubtedly

river people

who

moved downstream

and occupied

the Ogowe

delta

and

the

Gaboon estuary,

the other crossing

the river and settling

in

difficult broken terrain

to its south (Tsogo).

The fishermen

developed various

specialized ways

of life to

cope with their

varying aquatic environments.

Some

became deep-sea

fishermen; others

became specialists

in inundated

marshy

environments;

others

again

became

mixed

farmers

and fishermen near

large

bodies

of water abutting high

banks.24

The neolithic finds of

the middle Ogowe

may be traces

of this group,

whilst

the

other widespread sites

of the Gabon neolithic

are

probably to be

attributed to the mass of Bantu speakers

that

was expanding

south-eastwards

from the Ogowe-estuary

group.25

These migrants first

found

a rich savanna/

forest ecotone

away

from

the upper Ogowe

and

running

north-south, and

22

The nomenclature

adopted is new and

may not

become standard. Bastin

et

al.,

'Classification',

do

not provide a nomenclature

while Heine et al., Neuere Ergenbisse,

does

not quite

fit. Labelling by letters

or numbers is confusing

because the standard referential

classification

(not genetic ) using

letters and numbers

varies in different classifications.

23

Bastin et

al.,

'Classification',

does not include Bubi

yet.

But it is known

(unpublished

data,

Tervuren) that there are several

Bubi

languages.

We

follow

tentatively

Heine et al.,

Neuere Ergebnisse, 6i.

24

This means

that the tenacious

notion

in

Gabonese historiography

that

Bantu

speakers

only entered the country

in the centuries

after A.D. I

200

is

totally

erroneous.

It

flows from

the

speculations

of R.

Avelot,

'Recherches

sur l'histoire des migrations

dans le bassin

de

l'Ogooue et la region

littorale adjacente',

Bulletin de geographie

historique et descriptive,

Xx (1905),

357-4I2.

25

B. Farine, Sites

prehistoriques gabonais (Libreville,

I963), fig.

3I,

56;

Y.

Pommeret,

C(ivilisations

prehistoriques

au Gabon (Libreville,

I966);

B.

Farine,

'Le neolithique

de






136

JAN

VANSINA

In

0

in

+

+

In

+

*k

0

X

x~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0

+~~~~~

00

In

In~~~L






WESTERN

BANTU EXPANSION

I37

some moved

eastwards until they were stopped by a

major new

environment

further to the south.

Yet another very specialized

environment appeared

to

the

south-east. Fig. 2

shows the extent of the great

Ubangi/Congo marsh,

one of the biggest in the world, running from south of the mouth of the Alima

northwards to

Ouesso

and north

almost to the confluence of the Kadei.

Any

expansion

eastwards had

to

cope with

this environment,

and obviously such

a

novel environment of inundated

forests, marshes and levees must have

held

up expansion for

quite a while. But

eventually an aquatic culture

developed

and once

that occurred

very rapid

expansion followed. It is not

surprising

that these

migrants

developed a new branch of Western

Bantu: the

Northern

Zaire languages.

At

first, speakers

of

these

languages

followed the Zaire

upstream

and found

a

magnificent

environment.

The

river,

in

its

bend,

is over

40

km

wide,

strewn

with islands, fringed by levees, marshes, inundated forests of various sorts

and here and

there bluffs

giving

access to

the rain-forest

that

surrounds

the

valleys. Once they reached the eastern

part

of the

bend,

the

fishermen

moved

on to terra firma

again, readapted

to

farming

life

in

dense forests and

pushed

to

the

north-east

and east

as

far as

the forest

went. Indeed, some made

their

way to the gallery forest

on the Mbomu

(Akare)

and

a

few left the

forest

altogether

for the

Bahr-el-Ghazal

(Homa). Meanwhile, along

the

rivers

below

the

upper bend the

populations

came

to

specialize,

separating

themselves into

water-people and

land-people,

and formed two blocks of

languages.

Once

again

the

land-people

moved north as far as

the forest went towards

the

Ubangi

and lower

Uele.

Whether

the

Ubangian

or

Uelian

neolithic

sites relate

to

the

later

phases

of

this

expansion

is

problematic.

The

first, occurring

in

what

was

then savanna

near the

Ubangi bend,

is

better attributed to

Gbaya-speakers,

while the status

of the second

still remains

unclear.26

As this

occurred,

a

mass

of

other Western

Bantu

speakers kept

moving

south

along

the

upper

Ogowe

and

the

forest/savanna ecotone,

the nucleus

of the Lualaba-Atlantic

group.

It broke

up

in

various

blocks,

each

associated

with

a different environment.

A

first

block

(Atlantic)

stuck to

the forest

savanna

ecotone,

followed it

into

lower

Zaire and back

up

north

again

to

south-western

Gabon,

while others

settled

along

the

coast

or

along the

gallery

forests of

the rivers south of the Zaire and into

Angola,

the

middle

Kwango

river and the lower Kwilu river, occupying the patches of forested area

between the Kwilu and Kasai

rivers. Numerous

traces of a neolithic

of

lower

Zaire have

been

found

up to

c.

400

km

north and

south of that

river and

have

been dated to

400

B.C.

and later.27

They should

correspond to this block.

It

will

be noted that the southernmost

farmers

in

this

expansion again found

an unfamiliar environment which

they

did not

master.

These are the

sandy

or

stony highlands

between the

rivers,

infertile lands

where drought was

a

recurrent

problem. Their

technology therefore confined

them to deeper

and

sheltered river

valleys and

their gallery forests.

Moanda', Bulletin de la societe prehistorique et protohistorique gabonaise', v (i 966), 79-94;

P. de

Maret,

'Gabon', in

The

Archaeology

of

Central

Africa,

ed. F.

Van

Noten

(Graz,

I982),

62-3.

26

Ibid.,

57-9.

The

association

between

Uelian

artefacts,

slag

and

tuyeres

at

one

site

may

be

fortuitous.

Not

all

archaeologists

can

accept

Van

Noten's

conclusion

that

the

Uelian is

entirely

an Iron

Age

phenomenon.

The file

remains

open.

27

P.

de

Maret, 'Lower

Zaire,

Congo,

Angola',

in

Archaeology

of

Central

Africa,

ed.

Van

Noten,

63-5.






I38

JAN VANSINA

Another

block

moved to

the lower

Alima again

and faced

the same

problem

as the

Northern

Zaire speakers

had

done.

The Zaire

Bend speakers in

their

turn adapted

to

life

in the great

marsh

and expanded

northwards

along

the

Zaire river. Unlike their predecessors, however, they do not seem to have

mastered

a truly

inundated environment

and therefore

they looked for

and

found

environments

where rivers

and drier

land

meet.

These were the

Lulonga

and

Tshuapa

river

systems

as

well

as the shores of

Lake Mayi

Ndombe

(formerly

Leopold

II).

From there they

filled the whole

bend

of the

Zaire

river

north

of the

Lokenye

and west

of the Lualaba/Lomami,

always

following

rivers

and

specializing

as either

water-people

or land-people.

Yet

another block

stayed in

the original

environment

and split

up later into

forest

people and

savanna

people.

For

between

the

Alima river

and

the

Kinshasa

plain

they found

a succession

of flat, sandy

plateaux

where surface

water is so scarce that settlers must invent elaborate techniques for rain-water

conservation.

Eventually

some

Teke speakers

did just

that. But

at first they

lived

in

the

nearby

forests

of Gabon

and

Congo

and expanded

around

the

plateaux

towards

the Pool,

in familiar

environments.

From the

Pool

or from

the banks

of the

Zaire

south of

the Alima,

some

migrants,

the Kasai block

of the Atlantic-Lualaba

group,

took to the

water.

They

adjusted

to

an environment

of

great

rivers in a savanna

environment,

settling

both

banks

of the

lower

Kasai

and the Kasai-Mfimi/Lokenye

interfluve

wherever

there

was surface water.

Meanwhile

other Western

Bantu

speakers

kept

moving

southwards

and

then turned towards the middle Kwango river. These are the ancestors of the

southern group.

Faced

with

the

same environments

which

the Atlantic

block

of the

Atlantic-Lualaba

group

had

not

mastered,

these

people

adapted

to

it.

They apparently

developed

new

intensive

hunting

techniques,

learning

these

from

the

local

Late Stone Age

hunters

and

they

reduced

farming

to

a

subsidiary

activity.

Once

the environment

was

familiar

they spread

in a

huge

arc,

covering great

distances

in search

of the best sites for semi-permanent

settlement.

Ultimately

they

reached

northern

Namibia,

the

Zambezi,

the

Luangwa,

northern

Lake

Malawi

and Lake

Tanganyika,

and one

sub-block

even readapted

to

forest

life in Maniema

Their

expansion

was

probably

arrested in the south-east when they met Eastern Bantu farmers. If so, it

stopped

in the

very

first

centuries

A.D.

Neolithic

sites have

been

reported

from Kasai and

Shaba,

but no

serious

excavation

has

been undertaken

yet

and we do

not know whether

they

should

be

associated

with

this

expansion.28

THE

THICKENING

OF SETTLEMENT

The

original

expansion

of

Western

Bantu

speakers

resulted

in a

very

thin

occupation

of the area

as

people

moved to the most favourable

locales

and

easily

moved

again

in further

search

of excellent

living

sites.

Population

pressures

probably

had

nothing

to do with this search for an early farmer's

Eldorado.29

Pressure

from the

autochthones

was

negligible

because

in

most

28

Van

Noten,

op. cit. p.

65.

29

Flux

was

therefore

much

greater

than

it

would

be

later

when demographic

pressures

from already

settled

nuclei

led

to 'outflow'.

Such later movements

are

a

consequence

of

stabilization.

The

settlement

of the Americas by Europeans

shows similar dynamics.






WESTERN

BANTU

EXPANSION

139

Western

EaLimit

?

rnforstern

* * *blockin7ii

~--- \\

l0

00Bateke

lateaux

a

15

~ -

30

J

0

09

2001

Fig. 3. Western

Bantu

group

7.

cases

the numbers

of both farmers

and

autochthones

were puny and

their

preferred

environments

did

not overlap

very much.

In time

there was to

be

considerable

change

in the density

and spatial

distribution

of the

Bantu-

speaking

settlements,

once farmers

acquired new

crops that

allowed

them

to

make

full use

of environments

which

they had

previously shunned.

The

incentive

for this was

certainly

local population

growth,

occurring

in

the

highly favourable

spots that had

been first

settled. Moreover,

the

adoption

of

an iron

technology,

which

preceded or accompanied

the

introduction

of

new crops,

favoured entry

into novel

environments.

In

the south

the crops were

cereals.

The Eastern

Bantu

speakers had

had

cereals

ever since

they

left Cameroun.

In the Great

Lakes

area they

also

mastered

techniques

for smelting

iron

and eventually

they

carried

cereal

agriculture,

cattle

keeping and

metallurgy

all

through

eastern and

south-

eastern Africa

in the

first

centuries AD.

From c.

A.D. IoO

and 400

onwards

their

pottery

and iron

are found

in

portions

of Zambia

and

Shaba,

previously

settled

by Western

Bantu

speakers.30

Eastern

Bantu

speakers

then

carried

cereal agriculture and where possible stock-raising westwards all over every

savanna

to

the

Atlantic. In

doing this

they deeply

influenced the

languages

30

D. W.

Phillipson,

The

Later

Prehistory of

Eastern and

Southern

Africa

(London,

I977),

I4I,

dates

Chondwe

between the

fourth

and sixth

centuries

A.D.

For

Shaba, cf. P.

de

Maret, 'The

south-east and

the

copperbelt',

in

Archaeology of

Central

Africa,

ed. Van

Noten,

86-8; cf. also

Huffman,

as

cited in

n.

20, I36.






140

JAN

VANSINA

of the southern group and the Atlantic part of the Lualaba-Atlantic groups

(Fig.

i).

They brought millets and sorghums to these lands, as the botanical evidence

shows,31

and these were much better adapted to them than the yams - which

required too much rain

-

and the oil-palm

-

which does not even grow over

much of this

area. Conversely, cereals were useless

in

or near the rain forest

where the humidity was too great for them. Linguistics confirm

this, as all

common Bantu terms relating to cereal agriculture are

Eastern Bantu,32

barring one. This term, cangu,

is not

only Western

but is only

found

south of the forest. It is not Proto-Western Bantu and must therefore be an

innovation derived perhaps

from

rather similar forms

meaning 'bush country'

and 'sorghum' in the east.33

This evolution explains the difficulties of classifying the languages of the

southern parts of Western Bantu. A more summary classification34 and a

statistical

analysis

of

grammar35

had excluded these

groups

from Western

Bantu. In fact, these results are due to massive linguistic borrowing,

both in

grammar and

in

vocabulary, by

these

people

from

the cereal farmers who

mixed

with them.

This

also

explains why

Guthrie found the highest

concentration of his Proto-Bantu

roots

(in

fact

at the

'Bin' level) in Shaba

and

Zambia.3f

The introduction

of

cereals

and some

stock-raising

certainly altered the

distribution

of

populations,

since lands

away

from

major

river

valleys were

now suitable

for

agriculture and a spurt

of

population

growth must have

occurred. As yet, we cannot date these developments at all except by the

earliest

Iron

Age

sites

of

Zambia and

Shaba.

There,

iron-users formed

the

earliest farming

settlements

found so

far. We need actual cereal finds

at

the

western

end

of the

distribution, perhaps

in

lower

Zaire,

and

archaeologists

should realize the crucial

importance

inherent

in

such

discoveries.

My

own

guess

is

that

by A.D.500

cereals

were

cultivated

in the whole

area.

The

new

crop

in

the

north was the banana.

How that

crop

came

from

south-east Asia

to Africa

is

still

very

much

disputed

among

botanists.

But

they agree

that the

crop

must have reached

Africa at least

two

thousand

years

ago.37 Recently

an

introduction

from the Middle East

to

the

upper

Nile has

been

favoured.38

That

agrees

well

with

the

linguistic

evidence

for

Central

Africa, which indicates an introduction from the north-east.39 There is

31

J.

M. J. De Wet,

'Domestication

of African

cereals', African

Economic

History,

IIi

(I977), esp. maps, 19,

21, 24;

J.

R. Harlan

and A. Stemler,

'The races of sorghum

in Africa', in Origins of African Plant Domestication, eds.

J.

R.

Harlan, J. M. J.

De Wet

and

S. Stemler (The Hague, I976), 465-78.

32

Guthrie,

Comparative Bantu,

II,

I77,

then pp. 27-8; and check each CS where 'X'

is

given in vols.

33

CS

293' 294.

CS

260

may

be the

most

likely

source with a skewed

reflex

constituting

the innovation but see

also

CS

288-290

and

ps

73.

3

Bastin

et

al., 'Statistiques',

380.

3

Ibid.

38I. 3 Guthrie, Comparative Bantu,

I, 97-I

I0,

esp. Ioo

and topograms

I-2

37

N. W. Simmonds, Bananas (London,

I

959);

D. N.

McMaster, 'Speculations on the

coming of the banana to Uganda',

Journal of Tropical Geography, xvi

(I962), 57-69;

J. Barrau as cited by J. Bouquiaux and J. Thomas, 'Le

Peuplement Oubanguien', in

L'expansion bantoue, ed. Bouquiaux,

iii,

8i6.

38

Barrau as cited

in

ibid.,

fn

9:

line AAB-ABB from Asia via

the Near East. Such letters

designate groups

of

genetic

varieties of banana. All AAB varieties are

usually

known

as

'plantain', but not all

'

plantain' are AAB, and 'plantain' is

not a valid genetic category.

39

C. P. Blakney, 'On

banana

and iron:

linguistic footsteps

in

African history'

(M.A.

thesis,

Hartford

Seminary, I983), 54-94,

and

my

own

distribution

map.






WESTERN

BANTU EXPANSION

141

evidence to suggest that the plant was seen in about

A.D.525 at Adulis, the

harbour that was

then

in

regular trading

contact

with

India, Ceylon

and

indirectly south-east

Asia.40

It

could have been there since A.D.

IOO

or

200.

But its diffusion from there to Central Africa remains very problematic

because

the banana

requires

so much water.

In

Central

Africa the lines AAB

are

now

widespread, probably

since well before

A.D.I000.

Cultivation

of

the

banana revolutionized

life

in the forest. For it is much

better

adapted

to

dense

rain forest

than

either

oil-palm

or

yams.

Its first

impact

was dramatic, and brought deep changes

to the

language maps

of

the

north-eastern portion

of Western

Bantu. The savanna

dwellers

there were

Central Sudanic and Ubangian speakers.

The first

had

no

crop

that could be

grown

in

the

forest,41

and

while the

second had

yams,

they

learned

to

tend

the palm tree from Bantu speakers.

Both

came

from the

north

and arrived

well after the Northern Zaire Bantu speakers were on the scene. With the

banana,

which

they acquired first,

both

groups

penetrated deeply

into

the

forest, occupying areas

in

between Bantu settlement, as far as

the

Equator

(Central Sudanic)

and

the

vicinity

of

Kisangani (Ubangian).

The

Ubangians

underwent an expansion

from the north-east between

Uele-Ubangi

and

Zaire

that left traces everywhere

and led

finally

to

the settlement

of

the

Gbanzili/

Ngbaka group

on

the

lower

Ubangi,

whilst

the Baka

hunter-gatherers

that

had been associated

with

them went

even further

west, nomadizing

in

eastern

Cameroun.42

Centuries

later,

Northern Zaire

speakers,

now

also

cultivating

bananas, recovered much

of

the lost ground

in

the north-east, but not

in

the

Ubangi bend.

The banana was so well suited to the rain-forests that all its farming

inhabitants made it their staple crop, until the advent

of maize and manioc.

They planted it in fields, not

in

groves

as

is

customary

in

East

Africa, and

prepared new fields

for

it every year. The humidity, temperature and shade

in

such fields were much better for this plant than

they had been for yams;

the yields were higher, and much less labour was required

to prepare the soil.

The

yields were

such

in

fact that

it

was easy

for farmers to produce enough

for

exchange with hunter-gatherers, who were thus

tied more closely to the

farming villages.

Farmers also

exchanged

bananas

for

the fish of the water-

people.

The

complex patterns

of

symbiosis

in the rain forest developed as

a result.

Because bananas do well in any rain-forest, huge areas of suitable

land were

now

opened up for farming. Farming

villages now began to be

spread out over the whole forest area and populations

certainly increased.

Moreover

the banana was introduced

here after

metallurgy had reached the

forest-dwellers, facilitating clearing for fields.

Iron

came to

western Central Africa early, and

from two possible sources.

Iron-smelting from Taruga (Nigeria) has been dated

to the sixth or seventh

40

G. A.

Wainwright,

'The

coming

of the

banana to

Uganda', Uganda

journal,

XVI

(1952),

I45-7;

S.

Munro-Hay,

'The Foreign

Trade of

the

Aksumite port

of

Adulis',

Azania,

XVII (I982), I07-I25.

Axumites being familiar with the ensete, a relative of the

banana,

could very well

have

brought the plant to

their

home

from

India where,

according

to

Pliny,

soldiers

of

Alexander

the Great

found it well

established.

41 N.

David,

'Prehistory and

historical

linguistics

in Central

Africa:

points

of

contact',

in Ehret

and

Posnansky as

cited in n.

3, 8i, 89.

For the

oil-palm

see D. E.

Saxon,

'Linguistic evidence

for the

eastward

spread of

Ubangian

peoples', ibid. 76,

and CS

I40

(western

Bantu).

42

Bouquiaux

and Thomas

in

L'Expansion

bantoue, ed.

Bouquiaux,

807-24.






I42

JAN

VANSINA

century

B.C.43 In

Rwanda,

Burundi

and Buhaya,

iron-working

is at least

as

ancient,

while

some dates

from

Burundi

and Buhaya

reach as far back

as

the

second

millennium

B.C.44 If the

latter

are discounted

(but why?)

the dates

are

comparable for both sources. At the opposite end of the forest, iron is

reported

from

lower

Zaire

by the

first

or second

century

A.D.45 and by

the

fourth

or fifth

century

A.D in

Shaba.46

In Shaba

and Zambia

the

knowledge

certainly

diffused

from the Great

Lakes. But

the ceramics

of the

lower

Zaire

site differ

too

much

from the East

African

traditions

to

be

directly

linked

to

the Great

Lakes

via the savanna. Knowledge

of

iron-smelting

was

probably

diffused

through

the forest. Linguistics

tells us

that there

is no

evidence

that

iron-smelting

was

known to

speakers

of Proto-Western

or

Proto-Eastern

Bantu.

A number

of

basic terms

relating

to metallurgy

are however

widely

spread

over

the

whole Bantu

area,

although

their

distributions

are

not

congruent among themselves. They cover Western and Eastern Bantu

indiscriminately.47

This

points

to an

introduction

of the

technology

from

the

Great

Lakes

area.

There

at

least

it was not

derived from Nigeria

and

from

there

it

spread

to eastern

and

southern

Africa. Because

the

terminology

is

common

to

both Western

and

Eastern Bantu,

the Western

Bantu

speakers

must also

have

received

the

technology

from the Great Lakes,

barring perhaps

some

of the

most

north-westerly

groups.

However,

alternative techniques

may

also

have spread

from

Nigeria,

and later developments

in

technology

occurred. Only

a

fuller

study

of

the

technologies,

the

implements

and

the

associated

full

terminologies

will

bring

an answer

to this

question.

Metals

have been

exceedingly

important

for the Western

Bantu

speakers,

especially

in

the north. Not

only

were tools

and weapons

made out

of

metal,

but

iron and copper

were

even

more important

as

money

(currency

and

standard

of

value),

media

for

any

social

payment,

including

bridewealth,

fines

or fees

and as

items

of

prestige,

e.g.

jewellery.

What

cattle is to

eastern

Africa,

iron and

copper

are here.

The advent

of iron has therefore

revolution-

ized

communities

well

beyond

the

spheres

of food

production

or war.

No

wonder

that

the

status

of

smelters

and

smiths is so

high

in this

area.

The

thickening

of settlements

resulting

from

the new

crops and

the

use

of

iron

occurred

in the

first centuries

of our

era and

the process

was completed

well

before

A.D.IOOO.

Thereafter,

there

was

a change

in basic

population

dynamics. No longer did farmers move in search of even better lands. Instead,

areas

of

significantly

higher

densities

built

up and

population

pressure

directed migratory

flows.

The

distribution

of people

across

Central

Africa

and

the dynamics

of

population

began

to take

on the

features

that

we can

still

discern

in

the

nineteenth

century.

After a

run of

two

or three

millennia

the

pattern

of

settlement

by speakers

of

Western

Bantu

is

now completed.

43

D.

Calvocoressi

and

N. David,

'A new

survey

of

radiocarbon

and

thermolumin-

escence

dates

for

West Africa',

J. Afr.

Hist.

xx

(I979),

IO.

44

M.

C. Van

Grunderbeek,

E.

Roche

and H.

Doutrelepont,

Le

premier

age

du

fer

au

Rwanda

et au

Burundi:

Archeologie

et

environnement

(Brussels,

I983),

48-50.

45

P. de Maret, 'The Iron Age in the west and the south', in Archaeology in Central

Africa,

ed.

Van

Noten,

77-9;

idem,

in

litt.,

30 Aug.

I982.

46

See

fn.

30.

47

F. Nsuka-Nkutsi

and

P. de Maret,

'Etude

comparative

de

quelques

termes

metallur-

giques

dans

les

langues

bantoues',

in

L'expansion

bantoue,

ed.

Bouquiaux,

III,

73I-42;

P. de

Maret

and

F.

Nsuka,

'History

of

Bantu

metallurgy:

some

linguistic

aspects',

History

in

Africa,

IV

(I977),

43-65;

Guthrie,

Comparative

Bantu,

I, I32,

I38-40,

for

a

distribution

of some

of these

terms.






WESTERN

BANTU EXPANSION

143

THE AUTOCHTHONES

There

had

been

autochthones

everywhere

in

Central

Africa before the farmers

immigrated. North of

50

S these hunters and gatherers were pygmies and

south of that line

San.48

Apart

from abundant finds of Stone Age materials,

the presence

of men is also

vouched

for

by

the

biology

of

pygmy populations.

They

must have lived

in

the

forest

for

many

millennia

in order to

acquire

their present characteristics.

Moreover they

must have

roamed in small

isolates.49 This in turn means

that each

of

these probably

had

its own

language. Whether

in addition to hunters

there were also

fishermen, perhaps

of different biological build,

we do not know.

All the former

languages spoken

by these hunters

and

gatherers

have

disappeared

and most of their

populations

have been

absorbed.

How did this

happen?

During the first phase of Western Bantu expansion the autochthones were

only moderately inconvenienced,

at least at first.

But demography was

working against

them and linguistic influence began to

run more in favour of

Bantu speech: that is to say, more

hunters learned a Bantu language as

a

second language than the reverse.

Favourable environments fostered

population growth

among the farmers,

while hunters and gatherers had

to

maintain

rigid population controls,

given their nomadic life.50

Villages

became

the centres

of local areas because the

village

was

larger

and

more

permanent

than

hunting

camps.

Even

if

the

number

of hunters

around

was, say, thrice

as large as the number of farmers

in a

village,

the village was

still the centre

of attraction and its

language enjoyed prestige.

Many

hunters

no doubt became

bilingual. Moreover, given

the

relative

former isolation

of

the hunters

it would not

be

unusual

to find several

languages

of

hunters

in

a

district confronting only

one

Bantu

language,

which

would

thus become

a

lingua franca.

Trade

and

intermarriage

may also have begun to favour the

central

locations,

the

villages.

We should however be

careful not

to

overstress this

process.

The

hunters

also

had

advantages. The

farmers

had to

learn techniques

from

the older

population, especially when

it came

to

hunting.

In

times

of

stress or disaster,

farmers turned

to nomadic hunting-gathering themselves. Intermarriage

could favour autochthonous groups,

and there is some

evidence

for processes

whereby farmers culturally turned into 'pygmies', though such cases are

rare.5'

48

S. Seitz,

Die

Zentralafrikanischen

Wildbeuterkulturen

(XWiesbaden,

I977),

26-48;

P.

29

gives

the best

map

to

date

on the

occurrence

of

'pygmies'

in which

most of the

groupings are

indicated. At present

the

San do not range further north than southern

Angola and

south-westernmost Zambia.

Formerly,

according

to

writers and

traditions,

'pygmy' hunters

extended

further south, being found

on

the middle

Kasai

and

in

the

kingdom

of

Kongo (in

the

north),

whilst

traditions about San-like hunters are found

further north

in

central

Angola and

in northern

Zambia.

49

J. Hiernaux,

The

People of Africa (New York,

I

974),

I I

3-25.

50

R. B. Lee, The Kung San. Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (Cambridge,

I

979), 309-22

is the

fullest discussion of birth spacing and nomadic life. His findings seem

to

be true for all described

hunter-gatherers

in

Central

Africa, although the information

is often

fragmentary.

5'

Hiernaux, People of Africa,

II8-25,

esp.

I22

for

biological information; G. H.

Hulstaert, 'Nordkongo-Der Zentrale

Teil',

in

H.

Baumann, ed., Die Polker Afrikas znd

Ihre Traditionellen Kulturen (Wiesbaden,

I975), I, 74I,

for

the absorption through

marriage

of

Jofe 'pygmies' by

Boyela 'negroes' and similar cases: J.

A.

Hart, 'Nomadic






144

JAN VANSINA

A decisive

alteration

in

the situation came with

the

thickening settlements

induced by

the new crops and metal

technology. A dramatic shift in

favour

of

the

farmers occurred. First, their

numbers could now grow almost

unhampered for some centuries, and their settlements were found everywhere.

This

raised

population

densities to levels

which,

while still low in our

eyes,

were high enough seriously to

disturb the hunting

of

the

autochthones.

Still

more

important, expecially

in the forest, bananas

and

iron tools forged

chains

of

dependency

between the hunters and

farmers. Hunters

soon realized the

superiority

of

metal

weapons and once

used to them

could no longer do

without them. They could

acquire them

only in return for meat or

wild

produce, which farmers

needed less than

hunters needed iron. Bananas

were

highly

welcome

food to the hunters.

Over the centuries

they

came to

rely

on

a

supply

of

bananas to

the

extent that they no longer went

without them for

a whole year. Thus bands were linked to villages and the symbiosis between

forest farmers

and hunters developed.

But in spite of

the protests of

sympathetic

anthropologists,

the

relationship was unequal.

Some hunters and

gatherers

no

doubt reacted

by turning to farming

themselves and thus

lost

their

languages, just as surely as

did

those who

became dependent.

The

spreading

of

villages

all over the

landscape

was not as

peaceful as the

first immigration of farmers had

been. Some oral

traditions recall wars

between

'pygmy'

hunters

and

farmers,52

and

a

glance

at

the distribution

of

pygmies

shows that

they

were driven out of

large areas,

in

many

of which

their former

presence is still remembered. The

hunters either had

to

leave

in

search of

ever fewer empty lands,

or

they had to

give

in to

villagers,

accept

dependency

and learn

their language. The

speech

of the

village

became so

important

that

in

time the

bilingual

hunters

abandoned their

own.

Today,

all

known

languages

of

'pygmies'

are those of

farmers. San

hunters,

hemmed

in

by cereal

growers,

moved

away,

sometimes

fought them,

often intermarried

(e.g. among

the Cokwe

of

Angola). Symbiotic

relationships

did not

fully

develop

here

and,

unlike the northern hunter

gatherers,

the

autochthones

of

the south

did not even

preserve

some form of

separate

identity, except

for

those San who moved

completely

out of

reach

in

the arid lands

of

southern

Angola

and Namibia.

Given the

timespans

involved and the forces at

work

it would

in

fact be

surprising if any autochthonous language had survived. None did. But certain

words, e.g.

names

for

plants

or

animals,

seem

to

have survived as loans

in

the Bantu

languages.53

hunters

and

village

cultivators'

(M.A.

thesis, Michigan

State

University,

1979),

34-5,

71-5,

for bakbala

relationships

between

Mbuti

and

Pakombe, whereby

a

number

of

Mbuti

women

were

married

by

Bira

or Pakombe

in each

generation.

For P.

E.

Joset

('Cinquante

annees

d'histoire

du

territoire

de

Beni

(I889-I939)',

Ms.

in author's

possession,

74-5),

the

Pakombe

were thought

to

have

lost their

original

language

to

adopt 'pygmy'

and

Bira

speech,

whose

women

they

married.

Bira

is

spoken

both

by

some

Mbuti

and

by

farmers.

Cases

of biological

'pygmy'

turning

to

farming

have

been

reported

from

the

Mayi

Ndombe

area,

while

the

Kele of

Gabon

were in

the nineteenth century abandoning

their

farms

to become professional hunters, some fusing with 'pygmies', H. Deschamps,

Traditions

orales

et archives

au

Gabon

(Paris

I962),

128-33.

52

Hart,

'Nomadic

hunters',

34,

14; J.

Vansina, Degeschiedenis

van

de Kuba

(Tervuren,

I963),

io8,

124,

195-7,

203-4,

305.

53

J. M.

C.

Thomas,

'Emprunt

ou

parente?',

in

S.

Bahuchet,

ed., Pygmees

de

Centr-

afrique

(Paris,

I939),

I4I-69;

R. Letouzey,

Contribution

de

la

botanique

au

prob1eme

d'une

evenutelle

langue

pygmee

(Paris,

I975).






WESTERN BANTU EXPANSION

I45

CONCLUSION

This account of the expansion of Western

Bantu has stressed environmental

factors because the correlation between areas of expansion for many of the

groups or blocks involved

and different natural regions is so striking.

And

of course farming is highly susceptible

to natural environments. The

influence of farming

practice on language is

magnificently demonstrated by

the

impact

of cereal

agriculture

and Eastern

Bantu

languages

on the savannas

first occupied by

Western

Bantu

speakers.

But

we must beware of

environ-

mental determinism.

Expansion by

one

group

or

a

block over several

natural

regions also occurred,

while

splits

did occur

within a

single region

as

well.

Archaeology, which will have

to

test

the

linguistic

results so

far,

can

also

tell

us

a

great deal about

man's

relationship

to former environments.

Certainly

environment was not the only dynamic at work.

What now

?

Once

languages

are

classified,

historical

linguists

can

confidently

study proto-vocabularies,

innovations and

borrowings

at various

time-depths

and thus provide

new data

for

historians,

and

new

leads

for

archaeologists.

Let us hope

that the new

leads

will attract more scholars

to

dig.

For

only

through

the

dialectic

of

language

and

archaeology

will

the

early past

of

Central

Africa

finally

come to

light.

SUMMARY

Linguistic studies are now advanced enough to allow us to sketch how Central

Africa

was

settled

by

farmers

who

spoke

western Bantu

languages.

From the second

millenium

B.C.

onward, yam-growers

with neolithic tools

spread

in the

rain-forests

of

the Cameroons. By

adapting repeatedly

to

different environments they

expanded

over

the whole

forest area and

also over the savannas and woodlands further south.

These people were in

search of optimal environments, quite willing to move

to settle

in

favoured

locales.

Although they multiplied

there, their expansion over such huge

areas meant

that

their settlements remained

very thinly scattered over Central

Africa.

A

thickening

of

settlement would

only

occur

when

new

crops

-

the banana in the

rain-forest,

cereals in more open lands

-

allowed farmers

to

settle in

most places.

Iron-smelting was less important here than these new crops. These induced further

population growth,

densities rose and movements

in search of the best unknown

lands

ceased.

If the first

settlement had only moderately inconvenienced

the

autochthones,

the thickening

of

population

led in time to their absorption,

dependence

on

villagers,

or

emigration

in

search of

ever-decreasing empty

areas.

Vansina, Jan. Western Bantu Expansion

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