A Dance of Assassins: Performing Early Colonial Hegemony in the Congo

Appendix A: Some Background on Our Protagonists

231 AppendixA · SomeBackgroundonOurProtagonists LusingalwaNg’ombe (ca.1840–1884)andhismother’sbrotherKansabala Kisuyu hailed from Buluba (Urua or Uguha in early European accounts), the generic name for lands northwest of Lubanda inhabited by eastern Luba and Luba-influenced people. Pierre Colle’s important ethnography of 1913, Les Baluba,concernsjustsuchcommunitiesthatwereperipheraltoLubapolities alongthelakesoftheUpembaDepressionandthebanksoftheLualabaRiver, as a major tributary of the mighty Congo. Indeed, the foremost figure of Colle’s account, Chief Kyombo, was of the same clan as Lusinga, and as Colle explains, Kyombo actively sought Luba material and performance arts in emulationofhispowerfulneighbors.1 Lusingatooksimilarmeasures,andhis praise name, “Ng’ombe,” makes esoteric reference to Luba kings, tributary gifts, burial places, and ancestral spirits. At greater geographical and intellectual distance, the name resonates with social relations and cultural principles personified by Ryangombe, the hero of societies of the Great Lakes region of east-central DRC, Burundi, and Rwanda.2 Such references are consistent with the thesis of the present book, that Lusinga lwa Ng’ombe was a most ambitious actor in times of radical social change. Both Lusinga and Kansabala are said to have lived near the confluence of the Niemba and Lukuga Rivers west of Lake Tanganyika before moving to where our story finds them in the vicinity of Lubanda. Little is known of their earlierhistories,althoughonecolonialsourcereportsthatinthosedaysLusinga wasrecognizedastheseniorkinsmanofTumbwe,whowouldsoonsurpasshim 232 · Appendix A inpolitical stature.3 In the 1920s and ’30s, Belgian colonial administratorsseekingtounderstandthegenealogies ,dynasticlines,andinterrelationshipsoflocal chiefssoastoestablishindirectrulethroughahierarchicalpolitiqueindigènepaid relativelylittleattentiontoLusinga’shistory,perhapsbecauseoftheremoteness ofhismountaindomain.Suchmatterswereandareexceedinglycomplex,given the ways that purposeful and competitive histories are generated according to situationalneedthroughthemilanduidiomdiscussedinchapter2. Lusinga and Kansabala were said to have been Kalanga, an ethnonym associated with a chiefdom north of the Lukuga, but more generally an imprecise term applied to people sometimes known as Kunda or Lumbu.4 At Lubanda, “Kalanga” is an epithet for people deemed “unsophisticated” because of their residence inremote lands wellto the westof LakeTanganyika.5 Lusinga and Kansabala were of the Tusanga or Bena Tanga clan, as are Kizumina , Mpala, Tumbwe, and other personages important to the present discussion .Tusangaliveinchiefdomsscatterednorthwardfromareputedhomeland in the Mofwe marshes near Lake Mweru, and from Lubanda on to the Lukuga River they are often called Batumbwe, an ethnonym derived from the dynastic name of the important paramount living near the present-day city of Kalemie. The late Dr. Geneviève Nagant spent many years in Kalemie as a lay missionary who carefully collected and synthesized reports and oral narratives concerning political histories of Chief Tumbwe and his close kin, and interested readers are directed to the rich documentation of her unpublished theses of 1972 and 1976 at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. “Holoholo” is another ethnonym sometimes applied to these same people,butitisasobriquetmorethanasocialdesignation.Inthepresenttext, Tusanga are understood as Tabwa, after an ethnic gloss frequently used at Lubanda that includes other clans as well.6 The relative seniority of lineages vis-à-vis that of Sultani Mpala is important to local-level politics at Lubanda as disputed via milandu narratives, for land rights and related prerogatives hanginthebalance.AccordingtohierarchiesestablishedbyBelgiancolonial authorities, those who succeeded Lusinga lwa Ng’ombe are subservient to Kansabala but superior to Mpala—to no one’s satisfaction, especially within the ranks of supposedly “inferior” chiefdoms. Émile-Pierre-Joseph Storms (1846–1918) was born into the Frenchspeaking Flemish family of Baptiste-Joseph-Renaud Storms and HélèneCaroline -JoséphineHansezinthesmalltownofWettereninEasternFlanders, Some Background on Our Protagonists · 233 notfarfromGhent.NothinghasbeenfoundofanysiblingsÉmilemighthave had, and because he and his wife had no known children, it appears that the family’s descent ended with Émile. General and Madame Storms are buried in Laeken Cemetery,Brussels’ most socially prominent resting place, located near Léopold’s sprawling domaine royal; yet in 2010 the tomb was nearly coveredbybushes ,andcemeterystaffattributedsuchlackofcaretoafamilylong without issue.7 Storms’s dossier from the Belgian Ministry of War (#8547) is available at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels.8 When he was only fifteen, Storms joined the 6th Line Regiment of the Belgian Armyasastudentbugler(clairon),andthenextyearhewaspromotedtocorporal . He advanced through noncommissioned ranks, and as a sergeant-major in 1869hejoinedtheforcesledbyLéopoldIIhimselfwhenaBelgianobservational forcedefendedtheborderwithFranceduringtheFranco-PrussianWar(1870– 1871).Inthecourseofthisengagement,Stormswasmadesecondlieutenantand receivedacommemorativemedalforthecampaign.Oddly,noparticularrecord ofhiswarserviceappearsinhisofficialtranscripts,andhemadenomentionof such activities in his Congo diaries or other documents. Storms was advanced to lieutenant in 1876, and through his recognized “rectitude and energy” was seen as “a model of order and work.”9 In 1878 Storms was admitted to the War College. He was assigned to the High Command of the 9e Line Regiment in 1881 and transferred to the...