Mangbetu people

The Mangbetu people northeastern Congo, speakers of one of the most populous Central Sudanic languages. Farmers of plantain, manioc and oil palm under rainforest skies, they built 19th-century kingdoms famed for elongated courtly heads, bound in infancy, for ivory-and-ebony thrones, and for the great domed halls where kings received under leopard skins. Mangbetu harps, pottery with whirling geometries and barkcloth robes dressed one of Africa's most aesthetic courts. Arab-Swahili slavers and then Belgian officers broke the kingdoms, carrying off ivory and people; the art they looted taught Europe what African sculpture could be. Northeastern Congo villages still speak the populous Mangbetu tongue. The related Mangbetu languages still dominate the northeastern markets. Mangbetu is the everyday speech of the northeastern Congo towns. Mangbetu farmers and teachers still bind infants' heads in some villages, and the harp songs still praise the leopard kings. Mangbetu pottery whirls the same geometries as the old court robes.