BALUBA, LUBA  (KASAÏ, ZAIRE; SOUTH-CENTRAL CONGO)

 

IndexAfricaZaire Baluba

Also: Congo

Featured: Mbo, Bwela, Ngwana, Mukete, Basoko, Kuba, Bahemba, Azande, Bakongo, Bakwa-Luntu, Tetela, Muyaka, Alur, Baluba, Baushi, Wagenia


 

 

Colle (1913, I:p279)[1] on the Baluba: “Même avant la puberté, garçons et filles se fixent des rendez-vous secrets, dans les herbes ou sur le bord de la rivière”. Potions may be used in the intention of altering the course of a slow or accelerated puberty (Enry, 1971:p94). Boys organise masturbation contests to prove their virility.

Burton (1930)[2] notes that marriage is enacted at age ten to eleven for girls, compared to later ages in the past. The genitals of little girls (seven to eight onward) are rubbed internally and externally by themselves with a pepper called kiulamulundu, the juice of which makes the flesh swell. Pieces of wood were inserted and occasionally the girls resort also to bleeding and cupping. For this, they would be sent out in the forests by parents for secret rendezvous known by the term kwikana.

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. VolumeI. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed. 2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology

Last revised: Sept 2004

 



[1] Colle, R. P. (1913) Les Baluba (Congo Belge). Bruxelles: A de Wit, Vol.1

[2] Burton, W. F. P. (1930) The secret societies of Lubaland, Congo Belge, Bantu Studies 4,4:217-50