The Tribulations of the Bembe People

This book by Muhunga Ramazani w’Apolo is a narrative that recalls the collective memories of certain fundamental aspects of the Bembe culture from different periods in several sectors of life. It deals with the different trials that the Bembe people have gone through since the colonial era, through the slave trade and the national independence of the country, the DR Congo, until they settled in Tanzania as refugees.This people, whose origins are reported in at least fourteen African countries, has developed a social way of life in accordance with its essentially traditional and spiritual beliefs: belief in one God ＂Abeca Pùngu, Abeca Mwene-Ikùlù, Abeca Mwene-Malango, Abeca Mwene-Batù＂, Abeca M’mbùmba Esé n’Ikùlù (Omnipotent God, Omnipresent God, Omniscient God, Creator of man, of the Heavens, of the earth and of the whole universe).His art has strongly marked history and also evokes the functioning of a society where the cult of the ancestors dominates. But over the years, this people has gone through hard times in its history and this is what this work proposes to relate in a few lines.