The Chronology of the Ovimbundu Kingdoms

Extract

The tradition of Ngalangi sets out to relate the beginning. It was Feti who began: whence he came is not known. Seeing that he had no companion, but only a dog, he was hunting, and he went to a certain lagoon of the Kunene River and there he caught his wives as they came up out of the reeds. His wives were Tembo and Cĩvi and Coya. Thus they say, Feti wa fetika Coya woyapo, i.e. ‘Feti began, Coya completed.’ Feti and his eldest son, Ngalangi, were hunters of elephants and roan antelopes, and they continued in that wandering life. The kingdom of Ngalangi was founded by Ndumba Visoso, probably a son of Ngalangi, who assaulted and took the town from the ‘va Ngangela’, renamed it Ngalangi and there established the new kingdom. Ngola Ciluanji, another son of Feti, went, it is said, first to Wambu and later to ‘Luanda’ (meaning probably Ngola or Ndongo), establishing in turn these two kingdoms. After Feti's death his wives married: Tembo in Humbi (or Cilengi), Coya in Ndulu and Civi in Ngalangi, thus becoming the mothers of many peoples.