Book 2, Chapter 1

Second Book

History of the Queen of the Kingdom

of Matamba & Angola called Queen

Donna Anna di Sousa alias Queen Ginga[1]

For am I my Brother’s Keeper ?   Gen. c.[2]

Picture:  Smiths working forge, showing first king of Matamba

[1]                    Lib II   Cap I?

Of the ancestry of the ancient Kings of the Kingdom of Dongo commonly called the Kingdom of Angola from whom Queen Ginga derives   Chap. I

Dear readers, it is commonly said by the Ancients & moderns that it was always a just action to give praise, when it does not mean changing the names of virtues & vices but giving to each one what is justly due, & also that he who speaks of Kings must always say & relate the best of the Virtues, & hide the vices as much as he can; but I do not wish to change the name of the virtues nor that of the vices, but wish to give what is justly due to each, & show what it is, and in speaking of the Kings of Dongo I wish not only to speak of their virtues, but also to speak of their vices, & to follow what the great Plutarch wrote of the Wise women in Greece & the chaste ones in Rome in order to make their virtues known to the world & show that masculine valour Reigns also in a womanly breast; for this reason I briefly describe to you the descent of the Ancestors of Queen Ginga here in Occidental or luner Ethiopia, her life, her customs, the barbarities and cruelties she committed in the past, so that when her vice is noted, the virtue should also be manifest which she shows at the present time, in contrast to the past.  I say she was Wise as if she had been one of the Greeks, Chaste as a Roman converted to God.  Common fame & general report, not from written history because there is none, but from what is commonly said & information received from the Ancient black People of the above‑named Kingdom, & from others again, is that the origin & descent of the Kings of Dongo, or Angola is as follows.[3]

In the regions of Occidental or Interior Ethiopia, a part of Southern Africa between the Kingdom of Matamba, that of the Congo, & that of Binguella[4] [2] is placed the Kingdom of Dongo, with the other name of Angola; before it was a Kingdom & had a King blessed God sent one of his customary punishments coming from his Divine Clemency until man realised the sins he had committed & showed true repentance and amendment for them; & this was a great famine which he sent to the inhabitants of those parts of the country, who were only accustomed to sowing in small quantities,[5] and similarly to harvesting within a short time; they felt much apathy thinking they would have to die of hunger, but our loving God is not so rigorous in punishment that even in the middle of it he does not make the sweetness of his pity & mercy felt, as when he wished to chastise Flanders and sent a great Famine to it, & when the people were oppressed by its rigour and longing for the other life he made them feel the sweetness of his pity & mercy, for just as he provided for the Egyptians the Patriarch Joseph, minister of King Pharaoh, so that they could call on him & he could provide for their necessities, he did the same in the Land of the aged Jacob, for which he had prepared the remedy in advance of the punishment by means of his own son sold by his brothers, who provided for everyone abundantly;[6] so did he do for the people of Flanders by means of Carlo Burghi who saved it in a time so calamitous that the destruction of humanity was threatened, & they deserved great honour & praise.[7] Nor did he show less pity & mercy to the people of the above‑named Regions; although they were barbarians & Heathens he had prepared the remedy for them before the punishment.  There had come from the Kingdom of Congo a black man named Angola Mussuri[8] who was related to the King of Congo, & practised the Art of a blacksmith, and who with the skill & industry of his hands & the sweat of his brow had accumulated many goods, not only in the country called Dongo where he lived,[9] but also elsewhere, his Art being much esteemed among the black Ethiopians, & most of all among the natives of Dongo, because of the novelty of the arrows, Spears, Surresine, & other Arms which he made, & because he was the first to [3] make these Arms they madly affirmed that he spoke with the God called Zampungu or Zambi, & now they say Zambiampungu which means the same as God,[10] and that he had taught him the art.[11] He had therefore accumulated much of the land’s currency, which is pieces of cloth woven from grass called libonghi,[12] pater nosters of coloured clay, amissange,  grain, vegetables, & other things people gave him in return for his work, although he served many of them free for love of God, not only because he saw they were poor, but also because he was naturally inclined to mercy, & this was the oil of mercy which divine Clemency usually shows in the middle of punishment, because those people, who, like those of Flanders, were full of ill‑will, and thought more of the next life than the present one, had recourse to him and he relieved the distresses of the starving people in abundance, practising the work of physical mercy although he was a heathen, and so they passed in prosperity through the time that threatened the ruin of humanity.  Now if the above-named were worthy of praise & honour, is our Angola Mussuri then worthy of less praise & honour ?   Rather, he should be esteemed worthy of more than they, because they used Gold & Silver, & he used the earnings of the work of his hands & the sweat of his brow to relieve the distresses of the starving.  They considered, therefore, how graciously they had been benefited, set free from the danger which overhung them, & how well he had observed the forms which should be respected when doing good, that is, doing it in the way in which each recipient would wish to have it done, because it must be done with good will in the time of need, & without delay; he did good with good will & promptitude in remembrance of the urgent need.  They also considered that there is nothing more displeasing to God & men, according to the sayings of the Saints, and as confessed by every Traveller, than ingratitude.  These Travellers who had been so graciously benefited not wishing to fail either God or their benefactor, but rather wishing to show themselves grateful, gathered together & elected him for their King & Lord, swearing fidelity to him, & promising him obedience.

The peoples of Persia were forbidden by law to nominate a King unless he was a person well instructed in the Art of magic.

The Medes were accustomed to elect the man who was thought the strongest for their King.

[4]                    The Cathei exalted to the Kingly dignity those who were thought handsomer than the others, the Automelian peoples followed the same practice, & in Ancient Tiems our own Ethiopians also followed that custom.

Those of Libia exalted the fastest in walking.

Those of Bernia elected for their King the man who even in sleep showed himself to them with open hands, said Gastone Moncada.[13] But our Ethiopians did not follow the laws of the Persians, nor the custom of the Medes, nor did they observe the usage of the Cathei, not regarding knowledge like the first of them nor handsomeness like the second, & thinking nothing of speed, like the third, or handsomeness & shapeliness like the fourth & fifth.  They only valued their new Gastone who in the time of need had shown himself to them with open hands, and this I say they esteemed worthy of command & the Crown, & so our Angola Mussuri was exalted from the anvil & hammer to the Sceptre & crown of the Kingdom of Dongo, or Angola, & from him are descended the Kings of the above Kingdom, & their descendants from whom comes Queen Ginga.

Seeing himself exalted to the Royal Crown, therefore, our Angola Mussuri was able, mostly by goodwill & love, to captivate all the people & make them favourable to him; he formed a Court and gave the town the name of Cabazzo meaning Court,[14] & from this it came about that they called the place where the King or Lord who commands others lives Cabazzo, & until the present day this is practised among the inhabitants of this inner Ethiopia; & this I say so that the reader should know the Meaning of this word, and must also point out that the word Angola, or ngola as it is commonly said, is the surname which has remained as a Royal inheritance among all the Kings of Dongo, or Angola, called by the surname of this their first King, especially after it was conquered by the Portuguese, so that this word Angola means the King of Angola, and placing before it the syllable n, that is, ngola, means King, with the personal name natural to him added, as for example ngola Mussurri means blacksmith or locksmith King; so that wherever this word was found it means King, Kingdom, son of a King, as will be observed in the course of this narrative.

[5]                    This man, therefore, settled down and married according to the custom of the heathens, that is he took a woman & constituted her principal Lady of the other concubines, with the name of Inganna Innena[15] meaning great Lady, & mistress of the House; & this custom they still follow at the present time, & the sons of such a lady, & not the others, are the true & legitimate heirs among the Ethiopians.  He had three daughters by her, the first of whom was called Zundo Riangola, the second was called Tumba Riangola, and I have not been able to discover the name of the third;[16] being a peaceful ruler he behaved like a loving father towards all his subjects & children; he had a slave he had earned by the blacksmith’s art whom he loved not as a slave but as a son, and, thinking how with his help he had earned the means by which he had acquired the Royal Crown, he wished to gratify him by raising him to the office of Tandala.[17] This office is much esteemed among them & means he is Viceroy, & governs if the King is absent or impeded from governing, & is normally in the Rearguard which is called Iquoqua, the principal way to have access to the Court.  And as the King was already advanced in years & thinking of his death he left the care of the kingdom to the Tandala, & waited quietly, bearing the weight of his days, having no other consolation than that of his daughter Zundo Riangola whom he loved very much and with whom he talked, & consoled himself saying that no‑one other than her could be heir to the Royal Crown.  The way the old King spoke was not hidden from the Tandala, & thinking his work was in vain, & that the daughter must inherit, he took care to remain friendly with her until he should have an opportunity to free himself from the unpleasant sight of the Dying King & assure himself of the truth of the distrust he had of the daughter & make himself King & Lord.  He planned in his heart various means of accomplishing his evil intent; he did not like Cain lead him out to a field & kill him there but waited for a day assigned for the courtiers

to go to their fields and Sow them according to the custom of the Kingdom, & remained in the care of the King, & the City, with a few servants;[6]  when he considered the day was convenient for his wicked purpose, as the daughter Zundo Riangola was absent, he put his evil plan into execution without delay, like a true observer of the maxim of Suctonius? he pretended that the enemy was waging war, & hurried to set the King free, & carrying him across his shoulders lifted him up not into the shelter of a great Rock, nor of an unassailable fortress; but he carried him to a deep ditch, & there hid him forever, burying him alive.[18] (You may perhaps ask, if this was a Royal City, where the wood & the ditch were ?   I say that their custom was to build their Cities, called libate,[19] near to a wood, because a War or other adverse event can happen, & there are not many that they would carry on in open country, preferring the darkness of woods & cavernous dens, che non fanno le belle, & murada campagna, having a great deal of the irrational, & little of the Rational).[20] Having committed this act of cruelty towards his King & Lord, he did not want to be subject to question like Cain with his brother, nor did he wish to hide what he knew could not he kept hidden, but wished to show it off with such pride that no‑one dared to reproach let alone oppose him; he came to the Royal Palace & put on the customary Royal clothes, & according to the black people’s custom he adorned himself with all those things that with the throne demonstrated that he was King.  In the evening the workers returned from the Field, & found their Tandala sitting enthroned with all the necessary Requisites of Arms & people, & he had himself proclaimed King, nor was it difficult for him because he had everyone’s goodwill, and also because when things occur suddenly everyone is afraid, even the most courageous, and shows it in face & voice; he had himself anointed by the important people with the peso called Pemba,[21] a sign of Royalty & lordship of the Ethiopian Potentates; such was the end of the first? I. first King & beginning of the second.  There was, however, no lack of people who felt the death of the King, & wept for him bitterly but in secret, because in such cases nothing is more useful than to hide melancholy & sadness & convert it into joy, & deprecate all demonstration of it.  Now we pass to the second King.

[7]2?                If, while old Angola Mussuri, his King & Lord, was still alive, he always took care to keep his daughter Zundo Riangola as a friend, he took even more care after having killed her Father, alleging as excuses his old age, his inability to govern, & also the fact that she herself was a woman, and that in order to preserve the reputation of the Royal Crown it was necessary for him to govern.  The unhappy Zundo[22] took everything in good part, admitting his excuses, & lending herself against her will to whatever he said, & inwardly told herself that he was old & would shortly follow the path of the late King, & she would be freed from all fear & would he Queen, and that it was better to be deceitful than to risk her own life.  She took care to keep on the side of the wicked King, until, taken with a fatal weakness he weighed anchor from this tempestuous ocean of a world, & went to cross Charon’s dreadful passage, & from there was carried to the infernal habitations which were the eternal home of his murdered Lord, with whom he remained forever associated in those horrendous torments of the damned.[23] His death was mourned according to the barbarous customs of Ethiopia, & they gave burial to his Body, whose Soul, already buried, remained in hell, & this was the end of the second King of Dongo, or Angola.

3?                    The daughter Zundo Riangola rejoiced greatly at the death of the homicide, and she was placed on her dead Father’s throne as his true heiress; let everyone conceive her joy, & the consolation of the title of Queen, and above all the Jubeo, et volo so long desired, & now achieved by the world.  It would be good if the Rose could be found without a thorn, & summer without winter; but because this is a vain hope, and the one can never fail to follow the other, she sat enthroned enjoying the Royal Roses, but soon she found herself discovering the hidden thorn, true companion of the Rose, & it was a great sadness caused by the knowledge of having no children who after her death would inherit the Royal Crown, & she burned with anger & indignation seeing her sister with the two children she had had by her concubine called Chiluangi quiasamba.[24] She clad herself with false Zeal, & sent word to her Sister & brother‑in‑law to say that it was not fitting that as she was childless & had nephews, they should remain far from the Court, and that therefore it was fitting [8] that they should be sent to stay with her, & be brought up in the practices of the Court, so that they should later succeed her in the government; this request from his Sister‑in‑law the Queen aroused much suspicion in her Brother‑in‑law, whose Zeal & the love he showed her were false; he determined to assure himself of the truth & not send anyone; his determination greatly distressed his wife & so as not to pain her further he confined himself to sending one child.  He therefore made all the preparations that were necessary, & sent him with an honourable company to the Court of the Sister Queen; they wished every happiness to his Father & Mother, & applauded the beginning of the son’s great position, the mother saying “there is one on the right, later the other will go on the left, & who can take the Kingdom from him ?  One will Reign after the other, & I shall be called the mother of two Kings”, but O vain hopes of this world, & where do they end ?  The opposite was in store for her, the hook was covered with bait and the poison with sugar, & the Queen‑Aunt with a deceitful trick was waiting for him; when her nephew came into the presence of the Queen she gave him the required signs of humility, adoration & reverence customary among the blacks of Ethiopia, & also those of observance & obedience to her nephew, and of love & joy as he was of her blood, & when he was looking at her lovingly as at a true likeness of her sister, like Constantine the third, she showed the evil of her Heart, & disclosed what had been hidden, & showed how cruel iron was hidden under the bait, because she suddenly cast off her deceitful mild, loving & benignant appearance, & returned to her ordinary barbarous & cruel self, changing her pretended Zeal & love to hate & anger, & manifested the evil of her Heart by ordering that he should be cruelly put to death; I say that he was to die, he who should have sat on her right, & also those people who had accompanied him; the cruel mandate was executed, both in the case of the nephew and that of his servants, & what sort of welcome & caress is that ? & what order is this to give to your nephew ?  That is how things go in this black Ethiopia, and these are their customs.  If Saint Peter the Apostle, under the eyes of his Lord & master, was so daring that only he among a troop of the Pharisees unsheathed his sword, & cut off the ear of one of them, [9] the darkness of night and the fact that it was in open country not preventing such an action from seeming more foolhardy than odd,[25] everyone can conceive what the executants of the evil Royal command did under the eyes of their barbarous & cruel Queen.  Like starving Lions they threw themselves on that innocent lamb & to have their fill & expel that human figure from the world, they exercised the same cruelty & barbarity on his servants; only one of them fled and carried the tragic news to Ngola Quiluangi quiasamba, & to the mother; it is impossible to express in words the mother’s sorrow, & the Father’s remorse because he had foreseen his son’s death & the Queen’s feigned Zeal, & inflamed by wrath & hate towards his Sister‑in‑law, they prepared to wreak the vengeance that the act deserved.  He went into the field with an army against the Queen his sister‑in‑law, & although he was beaten at first, he did not lose Heart, but returned to War with reinforcements, with so much valour that he emerged Victorious and captured the Queen herself; I now say, what can wrath do?  I say that it will appear in the Heart, the face, the voice, in pallor, but also that it will appear in works, and will not cease until it sees itself entirely vindicated.  He told his wife immediately about the capture of his Sister‑in‑law, and at this news the heart of his wife was so filled with wrath and desire to be revenged on her Sister, that she sent word to her husband to Revenge himself on his Sister‑in‑law with her death; the husband did not wish to dye his hands with blood, because it seemed to him that he had obtained sufficient vengeance, as he held her prisoner and had deprived her of her freedom, & he was satisfied with this; but the sister was not satisfied, for she wished to go in person to remove the human individual too, like another Cain to Abel, and I say she ordered her sister to be killed, & thrown into the same ditch where she had had the nephew she had killed thrown, & so her wrath and fury ceased, & this was the end of this Zundo Riangola, third King of Dongo, & thus was verified the saying that he who wounds with a knife will die of it.

[10]                  When the King, I mean the Queen Zundo Riangola was dead, her sister Mtumba ngola stayed, greatly consoled by having avenged her son’s death, & when she was elected as Queen she did not wish to accept Royal rank, but remitted it to her husband who did not wish to accept it, on the grounds that he had no Royal blood that of a Concubine (a form of marriage which the heathen can easily repudiate).[26] They finally agreed that their son called Ngola Chiluangi[27] should govern, & so crowned him King of the Kingdom, both assisting him as Parents & Tutors.  Seeing himself on the Royal throne he waged war on some people, & subjugated them with his valour, & made them his vassals; for this reason many voluntarily swore him obedience as loyal vassals so as not to undergo the rigour of Arms.  He was a great warrior, & very fortunate in his Warlike undertakings, & if the Assyrians & Chaldeans, & above all the Romans aggrandised themselves by force of Arms, this King did no less, for he subjected various Provinces to his empire, & became very powerful & much feared.  He kept a great number of concubines according to the Ethiopian custom, by whom he had several children, from whom are derived the various Houses that exist in the Kingdom.[28] By a Concubine called Haria ngola[29] he had a son by the name of Maria Chiluanji from whom is derived the line of the King Angola arij.  From another called Cannina derive the ngola Cannina,[30] from another named Muenga a Chiluangi derives that called Muengha,[31] & so with others that are passed over for the sake of brevity, & among these he had a son called Dambi ngola whom he loved very much because he saw him inclined to barbarity & cruelty, a vice common among the inhabitants of this black Occidental Ethiopia.  Finally, weighed down by many years & with many sons, he left this present life by paying the tribute of a Traveller to death, his death was felt by everyone both near and far, & he was given an honourable burial according to the custom of his Ancestors with the necessary sacrifice; this was the end of the fourth King of Dongo ngola quiluangi quiasamba by name.  Now let us pass to the fifth, Dambi Angola.[32]

5?                    The son called Dambi Angola succeeded to the throne of the dead King; he soon showed his true character without changing or hiding it [11] because he ordered all his brothers & sisters, who were many, to be killed, & only two escaped, one into the Matamba Kingdom, & the other into the Libolo Province.[33] He was very cruel & also very vicious; there was no vice that did not have its dwelling in him , no barbarous act which he did not commit, no cruelty he did not practise, and he had no equal in lechery because great was the number of his Concubines, & great also was the number of his children, & among them one called ngola Chiluangi Chiandambi.[34] Finally he followed the path of his Ancestors, & paid tribute to death, & as he had been so barbarous & wicked his death was greatly felt by his neighbours & by strangers, & he had an honourable burial, & those of his own Blood & his Vassals made him great offerings.

6?                    Ngola Chiluangi Chiandambi succeeded to the throne, & was the Sixth King of Dongo.  It seemed to this new King that the actions of his predecessors, and fear and obedience inspired by them, had not been singular; he went into the field with a great army, & began to conquer the Provinces adjoining the rivers Dande, Zenza, & Lucala, until he arrived near Loanda where in memory of the enterprise he planted a Tree called Insanda which holds its leaves like the Laurel, & until today the name of Isandera has been preserved, & it is the fortress of the Portuguese Lords on the bank of the Coanza river.[35] After these & other glorious Victories he returned to his Court where he was met with great joy by his Vassals, with music, shouts & dancing, & clapping of hands as is the Ethiopian custom; the news of his return was quickly spread, & everyone ran to congratulate each other on the Victories won, & as flattering men & women are not lacking, it came about that he was so flattered that they called him God, & he came to be the wonder of Ethiopia, & was recognised not only by neighbours, but also by those from far away who sent him presents, & [12] he became so proud that he came to claim what they had given from courtesy as a right, & had himself worshipped as a God, & the result was the mad idea still heard today, that he held the watering of the earth in his hand,[36] which is still preserved by his successors who do not wish it to be regarded as madness, & it is followed by foolish vassals, as I have related elsewhere more diffusely so as not to hold up the reader here.  He finally reached the end of his days without leaving male children to inherit the Kingdom, although he had a large number of Concubines according to the custom of the Kings of Ethiopia, but as Blessed God so disposed it through his inscrutable judgements which are hidden from us, he was given an  honourable burial in the tomb of his Fathers with sacrifices appropriate to his greatness; this was the end of this sixth King of Dongo.

7?                    As a new King had to be elected, & there were no male heirs of the deceased one, they elected as King a man called Nginga Angola quilombo quiacasenda, son of Angola chiluangi quiandambi, great‑nephew of Angola chiluangi quiasamba, first King after Queen Zundo Riangola;[37] this man, when he was King, was very barbarous & cruel, & showed his haughtiness towards some Lords, his Vassals, who rebelled, whom he forced to obey him once more, & among these were those of the Province of Oarij;[38] he also conquered some Provinces, committed many acts of barbarity & cruelty, & would have committed more if the thread of his days had not been cut by death, to which as a Traveller he paid the necessary tribute, leaving an only son called Bandi Angola quiluangi[39] to inherit the Kingdom; this is all that concerns the above seventh King of Dongo, now we pass to the eighth.

8?                    Bandi Angola quiluangi became the eighth king, to whom some people give the first name of Ginga before Bandi as it was that of his Predecessor as was said above.[40]

He began to rule tyrannically, it so happened that he excited the Souls of many of his Vassals and friends against him. In the time of this King occurred many Wars in these Kingdoms, and the Giaga people passed through all of them, damaging the Kingdom of Dongo with that show of the barbarities & cruelties customary among them.  Seeing himself harassed by [13] such fierce enemies, the King thought to find a remedy & to free himself & his Vassals sent an Ambassador to the King of Congo who kept many Portuguese soldiers at his Court, to send for their help in chasing the barbarous Giaga from his Kingdom; at once the manicongo man, like a true friend, sent a Captain with his company of soldiers to him they were courteously received, & after a few days went forth to fight with the Giaghi over whom they won a glorious victory, & forced them to flee the Kingdom and leave it free.  After this victory, it is impossible to express in words his joy & that of his vassals, & the festivity they held, & their welcome to the Portuguese whom they regarded not as men born on this earth but as having come from Heaven to liberate them.

The Captain of these soldiers contracted a close friendship with one of the King’s daughters, & shared pastimes & amusements with her, and they came to form one single body owing to the love each bore the other.  As the King was so prosperous, & thinking continually about the victory he had obtained over his enemies with such a limited number of the Portuguese, he began to fear that they would kill him and seize his Kingdom, & make themselves Lords of all.  He discussed this suspicion with counsellors who, being of a very suspicious nature, were ready to believe what the King said, & lend themselves to his will.  When the King, therefore, saw his Vassals’ entire resignation to his will he determined to order all the Portuguese to be killed, not only the soldiers but also the merchants who were in his Kingdom to trade.  When the daughter had understood her Father’s wicked resolve & that he turned the thanks which were due to him into gratitude, she determined to save her Lover’s life; so, on the day assigned for committing that deed of execrable evil, so that he should not be caught in the trap, she secretly sent people who would take him away from the King’s fury.  She was faithfully obeyed, so that while the soldiers & merchants were being killed he was placed in safety, & returned to the Congo, & when later he went to Portugal he told the King of the King of Dongo’s betrayal, & the king sent him to avenge the ingratitude, which was how the conquest of the Kingdom [14] of Dongo later came about, (as I have written elsewhere), and blessed God showed that the killing of the Portuguese had not pleased him, for in the future the king of Dongo had no victories over his enemies, nor profits from war, but loss & damage.[41]

He had a principal Concubine as his wife, daughter of hango a quiquiaito,[42] whom he loved so much that he seemed bewitched by her Love; for this reason her brothers acquired the confidence to commit many crimes, owing to which the nobility were greatly distressed, because they could not remedy them as they wished.  Because of all this they invented a plot, to order the Colambolo[43] i.e.,? the Sergeant general, to make war on a powerful Lord called Cavullo Cacabasa[44] who was to be subjected to obedience, as it suited the reputation of the King & Kingdom, but he pretended to be vanquished by the enemy, & they forced the King to go in person to avenge the insult; & when he arrived to cross the Lucala river he stopped, & his men, suspecting that they were discovered, determined to kill him, & did so without delay, & returning to the Court announced that the King was ill, & after a few days that he was dead, leaving a son by his principal Concubine, who because of having committed adultery was in prison.  He left four children by a Concubine named Quenguella Cancombe[45] who came from Dumbo aebo,[46] or as others call it, a Pe; the first of them was ngolambande who succeeded his Father in the government, the second was Ginga Bande Angola, christened Donna anna de Sousa.  The Third was Donna Barbara called Cambo.[47] The fourth was donna gratia called fungi.[48] He was buried in the tomb of His Fathers according to the custom of his ancestors with the appropriate sacrifices; such was the end of the ungrateful Ginga Bande Angola.

9?                    When Ngolambande saw his Father was dead, & his principal wife in prison owing to the adultery she had committed, although there was an heir to the throne he had himself proclaimed King, & seeing himself raised to the Royal Sceptre & Crown although it was not fitting to him as the son of a slave (but right yields to might), he did not fail to be recognised as a King, and at once ordered the death not only of his brother [15], the true heir to the Kingdom, but also that of his mother, having no regard to the fact that she had been his Father’s concubine; nor did his show of barbarity end here, for he also ordered all her brothers to be killed, & his sisters, so that nobody should remain to oppose his reign, or avenge their deaths; but how different human judgements are from divine ones!

I say that it was not fitting for him to reign, firstly because he was the son of a Slave woman, not a free one, & she was not the principal wife; secondly because he had not been elected by those deputed to the election, who are the Tandala, that is to say Viceroy; secondly the manigico,[49] who is the Lord of the slaves’ market (?)?, thirdly the Manimacao[50] Lord of the people of the Court, fourthly the Manilumbo[51] Lord of the walls, who is a counsellor, fifthly the Manimiscette[52] Lord of the Case of Relics who ? the King, & his Cassalli vassals?? worship; these had failed to appear.  So he was not a legitimate King, & he was acclaimed by the people, only from fear of his barbarous acts rather than because of goodwill on the part of his Vassals, & after some time he also ordered the death of the Tandala, & all his Family without making concessions to their sex or age; nor did he stop there, but realising that his sister Gingabande had given birth to a son he sent orders for him to be killed, so as to be free from any human fear during his reign; he broke the peace with the Portuguese, & many wars followed.[53] But finally, he was thrown out of the Kingdom by force of Arms,[54] & fled to the Islands of the Coanza river called Chindonga, whence, as it was ravaged by the same people, he fled to Oacco, & when the Portuguese had left he returned to the above-named Islands where he lived miserably.

This barbarian accompanied his reign with a life of dissipation and lechery; he had no equal in the number of his concubines or the wildness of his outpourings, for they say that he made use of his own sisters.  he had many children, but only one by his principal wife, whom he entrusted to his great Friend Giaga Casa[55] for the practice of arms, & also to protect him from the anger & fury of his sister Ginga Bande, because he had killed her own son; he was buried in the Island called Dangij[56] which means a root, from which the others derive, & his Court was called Cabazza.  This was the end of ngolambande, ninth King of Dongo.

[16]      10                    When King Ngolambande has been buried, Princess Ginga Bande Angola declared herself Queen of the Kingdom with the goodwill of the Court, & made the Vassals obey her and swear to be faithful to her, although the son was the true heir to the Kingdom, to whom the right to govern belonged; but the wise Queen sent word to Giaga Case in whose army her nephew was, to say that he was to come to her so that she could yield her place to him, for her being called Queen was not so that she could govern, but to quieten? the tumults which usually arise when Kings die.  The Queen’s cunning was not hidden from the Giaga, who for that reason did not wish to send him, but the Queen showed such cleverness and wiles (as will be seen in telling the story of her life) that she managed to obtain her nephew’s presence, & having courteously received him she had him thrown into the Coanza river, & as a result the war with the Portuguese began again until she too was chased from the Kingdom by force of Arms, & remaining obstinate in her evil will she made herself Giaga, practising the behaviour & customs of a Giaga, and the laws, & made herself felt in Western Ethiopia as the most barbarous & cruel woman that there had ever been in the world, & this not for a few days, but for the space of forty years, each one worse than the last, as will be seen from the story of her life.[57] I will only add that she was a sea of lust, & had more Concubines than the three most famous prostitutes in the world had lovers; she surpassed the Tyrants in barbarity, the lions & tigers in cruelty, the harpies in wrath, & the poisonous snakes in the ferocity she showed in her lair, shedding more blood in peace than others in war.  When the Portuguese saw that this cruel harpy thought of nothing but the destruction of human beings they swore that she was their principal enemy & to her shame created a new King of the Kingdom, called Angola arij,[58] son of the King Bandi Angola arij the elder.  He called himself D. Joanne the first, but that did not last long, & they elected another named D. fellippe first of this name,[59] a second to govern, & after his death which occurred in the year 1663[60] they elected his son named D. Joanne second of the name, & third to govern; but the Queen, after persevering so many years in the diabolical life of a Giaga, was finally recalled by our loving God, like a good Shepherd, to his sheepfold like a sheep of his flock, & having been marked with his sign in her youth, although she had reneged on her vassalage [17] as his slave, & had become a servant of the devil, she answered to his call in the year 1655 by means of the Italian Capuchins sent by His Holiness Pope Innocent X in the year 1653 & persevered until her death, which occurred in the year 164 (sic) on 17 October, as will be seen at greater length in the story of her life.[61] This is as much as I need to say about the tenth King of Dongo, so let us pass to the eleventh.

11                    When Queen Ginga Bande Angola was dead, the Princess Donna Barbara named abondo Cambo was elected; she was imprisoned by the Portuguese while King ngolabande, her brother, was on the throne, and remained a captive for five years with a sister called Donna gracia, & Fungi in that country.  They were finally sent to the King their brother who then sent them to be baptised with the above-mentioned names & while the Queen was reigning they were captured again, & remained captive for fourteen years, after which she was rescued by the Queen her sister in the year 1655; 130 slaves were paid for her release to the Lord Governor Luis Martino di Sosa Ciccoro, & she was sent to her sister accompanied by a Capuchin Father named Father Antonio Romano, a native of Gaetta; this was in the year 1661.[62] She had an illness which made her permanently blind, but in spite of this was elected Queen because she was the sister of the late Queen, & there was no direct heir, and now what should I say?  It is enough to say that anyone can imagine what is may be like to govern while Blind; she was baptised while still young (as will be told in the proper place) & always showed herself a Christian ardently willing to exhort her Vassals to Christianity & the observance of the divine precepts.  As soon as she was elected Queen she ordered that, under pain of strict penalties, nobody should dare to made sacrifices, rational or irrational, to the dead Queen, her sister, according to the custom of her Ancestors; there should only be masses, gifts of gold & alms according to the Christian custom.  [But she too paid the Traveller’s tribute to death in the year 1668 on 24 March, & she was succeeded by her husband as twelfth King, a barbarous & Cruel one (as will be seen in its Place).][63]

(replaced earlier text:  may it please God for her to continue to the end without showing any instability as these Ethiopians, both Western and Eastern, generally do, but that she will always remain steadfast &)

[18] marginal note:  & who have remained

This, dear readers, is the ancestry of the Kings of Dongo, or Angola, from whom Queen Ginga descends, so that the most honourable office among these people is that of Blacksmith or coppersmith, as they were descended from a man with that office.  It is not to be wondered at that the above‑mentioned lowly born Kings should have acquired Sceptres & Crowns, because honour is validated by the use of weapons, & a good reputation is the best patrimony in the army, because the honour of a soldier does not consist in the family name of his House, nor in the inheritance of goods from his ancestors, for if this were so the Kings of Angola would not have existed.  For although this man was related to the King of Congo he was extremely poor, & lived in the sweat of his brow; as a King of Ethiopia had two or three hundred Concubines anyone can judge how their sons & Relations lived.  I say that sometimes they go clad in the clothing in which they came from their mothers bellies eating like dogs & sleeping on the ground like animals, & when they have a mat to sleep on it is? a great treat; to describe them is a waste of time & paper because those unaccustomed to the world would not believe it.  Nobility for a soldier consists in the opinion his Friends & Enemies have of his courage & worthiness; this is how the above‑named Kings began.  The soldier is the son of his works, & may be called honoured without inheritance, because being noble by birth or achieving merit through Arms is an honour to one’s Ancestors & an obligation to one’s descendants; but they, who at first were low & humble, and attained titles, Crowns & Sceptres through their arms & valour, give birth to their own family, House & Kingdoms, which then remain for their descendants & successors, as can be seen from the Kings of Angola or Dongo who at first were poor, and from being blacksmiths acquired the Crown.  If they did not honour their Ancestors by being noble, at least they bestowed an obligation on their descendants, & gave birth to the Kingdom of Angola, or Dongo.  So did the lowly born Theorato come to be King of the Goths.  So did his successor called Vgito.  The same was true of the descent of the Tartars from Cangio who began as a blacksmith like the first King of Dongo or Angola, and acquired the name of Cham.  Martian, also a blacksmith, was raised to the Imperial Crown, Maximinus from being a shepherd acquired [19] Imperial dignity, Friteo was raised from being a Cook to the office of Exarch of Italy.  The? oxherd? Lucias? Valerio was made Emperor,? Abortonius the Cook was raised to the Royal Crown of the Sidonicens?, Seleucus, lowly born, acquired the Crown of the Assyrians.  So these Kings attained the Royal Crown, began their family line, & at the same time honoured their ancestors & obliged their descendants, & attained so much stature that they became Lords of conquered Provinces & also of other Potentates.

This is the true information I have been able to acquire as to the beginning & ancestry of the Kings of Angola from whom comes Queen Ginga, so that the reader may read & admire the means which God uses to save redeemed souls with his most precious blood.

Dear reader, I must advise you of what Catullus says of Cicero, that to write history it is not necessary to be an orator, but it is enough not to be a liar.  Aristotle says that that? those who invent things which are not, or hide those that are worthy of blame; in this narrative I shall not be condemned for lying, or hiding what has happened, but only for the absence of the Talent that I lack.  I have simply described the descent of the Kings of Dongo, without relating how much time elapsed between one reign and the next because it cannot be known, as there were no writers among these Ethiopians, and they do not commit their affairs to memory, so I merely say “in the time of such a King”; but what I have written of the Giaghi, & what remains to me to write of Queen Ginga, is what I have seen & heard, as I have already spent my twelfth year living in these remote parts of Western Ethiopia in Southern Africa, living there in accordance with the laws.  You must also believe that I have experience of the Country & its inhabitants, & if you hear something unheard-of & hard to believe, suspend [20] your judgement, because this can be called a world Upside-down without fear of being censured by anyone knowing what diversity, monstrosity & vicissitude? there is in this world.

Of Queen Ginga’s birth, & of what she did until she became Queen, & ruled (Chapter II) and various things that followed.

In about the year of grace 1582[64] when Gregory IIIX steered the ship of St Peter & Ginga Bande Angola, the eighth King of that Kingdom, reigned in Dongo, was born Queen Ginga, so called by her Father at birth in our language, & in abondo Nginga[65] which was her own name in the libata; that is the city called Cabazzo, the ancient Court of the Kings of Dongo.  You should know (dear reader) that among the many beliefs these Ethiopians have about the birth of their children, the most commonly observed are the following.  The first is that if the child is born with the hands showing first, they believe this is an evil omen, & the nurse forces him back into his mother’s belly, & she does the same every time a baby is not born in the customary way; they call such a child by the name cabinga[66] which means a petitioner, because even when not yet born it wishes to beg & steal.  The second belief is that when a child is born & its Father or mother dies, this means that it will be a magician & cause other people to die.  The third is that when it is born feet first it is an evil omen because it will be restless & will walk prematurely.  The fourth is that when it is born with the sex organs first it is a bad omen.  The fifth is that when it is born with its face upturned, & with the umbilical cord from which it received nourishment from the mother’s belly round its neck, this is a clear sign that it will be haughty, barbarous, cruel & bloodthirsty, and the do not fail to practise various ceremonies to divert what they call its natural inclination.[67]

Queen Ginga was born with this sign and there was no lack of people running to the newly born Princess, not only Astrologers & Mathematicians to observe the course of the stars & Planets, their position & the hour that predominated, of which there is no lack in this black [21] Ethiopia, but there was also a large number of warlocks & magicians of whom there are many; they ordered various washes, of different herbs & woods mixed up in pots, to bathe the newly born Princess.  They did not fail to observe the dreadful sign, without declaring its meaning, but remembering only their usual practices they said the usual words:  “ma, ma o aoe aoe”[68] which indicate admiration & wonder, at the thought of what she would be like when she was of age.  Haughty, barbarous and inhuman is what she will be to anyone who will see her at that time, & if the day of a man’s birth gives a true likeness of what he is to be in life, what forecast could not one give for our Ginga who was born under such a dreadful sign?  There was no judgement that one could give, except that she would be haughty, bloodthirsty, an enemy of her own blood relations, & barbarous & cruel to everyone, which is in fact how she turned out, & the prophecy was fulfilled as will be observed in the progress of this narrative.

She was brought up by her nurse with much care & vigilance as was appropriate to a King’s daughter, and her Father loved her greatly and placed her before other children he had by various Concubines, & wished to see her often & in his fashion bless her.  As she grew in years she also grew in her observation of the laws, rites & customs of her Ancestors; she had for a Nurse not one of the wise women of Greece or the chaste Romans, but an Ethiopian woman without any of the three qualities which women are normally praised for having, that is modesty, Shame & mercy, because they are found rarely or never among these Ethiopian women, especially those who have something Giaga?,? in them as they are normally models of shamelessness, & if there is no-one shameless who is not barbarous & cruel, let everyone judge at leisure, from what he hears about our Ginga and other Ethiopian women, who cannot feel as much shame as we can, if one of them was Nurse to the new-born Princess, dear Reader, if such was the tutor then judge what the pupil will be like?  [22] And to show how well she was learning evil knowledge from her teacher she began by banishing the first two virtues, that is modesty & shame, and never wished to have anything to do with the third, nor have any affection or converse with it, & growing in years she also grew in malice, so much so that she let herself be dominated by the evil beast of sensual appetite, became a voluntary slave to it & let herself become prey to all kinds of carnal wickedness, & swore to neglect none of the appetites & delights she could wish for; & for this reason she was not content with a single Concubine but accepted as many as the evil beast of sensual appetite desired.  Owing to this unbridled sensual progress she went from vice to vice, adding sin to sin, becoming barbarous & cruel to man who was in the image of the Creator; while she was leading this licentious life her Father Bandi Angola, burdened with many years, grew mortally ill, and finding no Remedy for is infirmities was forced to bow his neck to that which every mortal obeys, & the Author of life bowed his stet?.  His death was felt by his Vassals, his neighbours, & by foreigners, & he was given an honourable burial according to the heathen custom in the same Court called Cabazzo where his Fathers were buried, with mourning & the appropriate sacrifice.

After his death his son Ngolambandi, son of guenguella Cangombe & blood brother of our Ginga, was proclaimed, although the government did not fall to his share.  [marg.:  as you have heard in Chap. i.c.16 above,[69] because he was the son of a slave, & not a free woman, & there was a legitimate heir according to their laws, I say, the son of the principal Concubine, & because he was not Canonically elected, that is not with the votes of the great men of the Court according to their custom, but as he caused the legitimate successor to be killed with his followers & relations, he was able to retain the power to govern without any suspicion of difficulty.]   He began to govern with a great appearance of prudence & stability, & appeared to wish to follow the ways of his late father; but this Course did not last long because it was not natural to him, as he was by nature inconstant & unstable as is the custom in Ethiopia & among its inhabitants.[ added in margin:  as has been observed in the first book in Chap. Ix c 89 ][70] To this nature he returned suddenly, because it reappeared and put into his Brain ambitious thoughts which so troubled his mind, that he despised not only his father’s [23] warlike actions, but also those of his ancestors. and called them cowards * poltroons who let themselves be conquered by the Portuguese & other enemies.  Being ambitious to Immortalise his name he girded himself for future victories without reflecting that the good & evil fortunes of war depend on divine mercy.  He gathered people together & formed an army, & set out against the Portuguese by whom he was defeated several times, & lost two of his sisters, one called Cambo & the other fungi,[71] & also his chief wife, & suffered great misfortunes & tribulations, as did his Vassals; let everyone judge for himself, at his leisure, I only mention the loss of goods, wife, sisters, & part of his Kingdom.  He spent some time in these afflictions, & seeing that his ambitions appeared to be in ruins, he reduced them to such an extent that instead of wishing to subdue everyone as at first, he managed to grow more humble, more from fear of further ruin than by his own will, making a virtue of necessity, & sent a petition to the Governor of Angola asking for his wife & two sisters, promising to remain on friendly terms with the Portuguese, redeem slaves, & also restore those who had fled from them?.  The Governor sent the King his two sisters & his wife immediately, and he celebrated their return & fulfilled his promises except for the restoration of the slaves, for which he gave various reasons, & alleging various difficulties which prevented him from keeping his promise.  Finally there came the new governor who normally comes every three years, & this was Il Signore Cavagliero Giovanni Correa de Sa[72] who came to govern the Kingdom of Angola, and who was very well qualified to do so.  For some Years our Ginga had not been in friendly correspondence with her brother the King, & the reason was that when she bore a son by one of her Concubines the King ordered him to be killed in order to ensure that he himself would rule, following the example of Zundo Riangola, who was the first King after the King who murdered her late Father; and when he had observed this barbarous Custom of these Ethiopian nations the King’s hatred did not end there, for, so as to be sure no other child would be born, they say that he ordered oil to be boiled with various herbs, & had it thrown while boiling onto the bellies [24] of his sisters, so that, from the shock. fear & pain, they should be forever unable to give birth; and this came about, for it is not known that any of them ever gave birth again.  Our Ginga’s feelings cannot be believed, & she was also angry on the others’ behalf without being able to avenge herself; when the King saw his sister’s Feelings which she expressed in her voice, her words & her face, & knowing how barbarous & cruel she was & that she would not lose the opportunity for revenge, he wished to pacify her before her anger could turn to deeds, & wipe the bitterness from her Heart; but how hard it is to suffer by the hand of someone who thinks to bring Consolation.  Ginga felt such hatred for children after the death of her own, that she never wanted to see any others, perhaps to avoid reminding herself of her own childbearing, like the Goddess tomala.  The King, being afraid of fresh trouble with the new government, determined to send his sister Ginga Bande as an Ambassadress to the City of Loanda to the new Governor Giovann’Correa de Sousa[73] with a great present of Slaves, (The City of Loanda is about a hundred leagues from the Court of Dongo, & it is the Capital & the place of royal Government, & give orders with all the Portuguese fortresses in the interior of the country) to negotiate for the peace & quiet of the Kingdom.  She was somewhat consoled by the honour her brother was doing her and although her feelings were mingled with sorrow, she cleverly & prudently dissembled & appeared with a happy face & willingness to do whatever was to his taste & in the interest of the Kingdom.  The King prepared her an honourable Escort, & all that was necessary for the journey, & entrusted the conduct of the negotiation for the peace & quiet of the Kingdom to her skill & prudence, & before she left gave her a new name, & called her Ginga Bande Gambole, meaning referee, which is the name Cambolle,[74] & also ordered her to be baptised if she was exhorted to be baptised, as he knew how much they wished for this conversion and even in this was prepared to submit to their convenience; he conceded various privileges & did her various kindnesses before she left.

So the new Ambassadress left Cabazzo, Court of the King her brother, & went to Loanda where ther? above‑named Lord was Governor; when he heard word of the coming of Ginga he sent

to meet her as it was fitting with much festivity & mirth [25] & when she arrived in the square she was received with a discharge of Artillery & musketry, & with the sound of various instruments both abbondi[75] & European, & after due welcome she was given lodgings in the house of a Citizen called Paij d’Araguso,[76] & was there given much to eat & drink both by the Lord Governor and the Citizens, particularly of the liquor which Noah drank and which is so esteemed by Ethiopians that to taste it a Father will sell not only his slave but his son, as I have seen more than once, A they will drink deeply of this liquor in a short space of time without any ill effect, but with much pleasure and comfort, without suffering from loss of consciousness or palpitations of the heart.  [Marginal note, apparently at end of paragraph]  The following case has been told me by several people, and having known and frequented Queen Ginga I have no difficulty in believing it, or even making others believe it, and on that account it will be described in the course of her story; all that I have experienced she has applied to others, but let it be as it may and let the consequences be as they may, for she does not lack great powers of observation and curiosity and what follows from them.]

Observe, dear readers, remembering the proud sign under which our Ginga was born, how on the day of the public audience she appeared dressed in a remarkable way according to the custom of black people, accompanied by a good number of pages & waiting women,[77] and entered the State chamber in the presence of the Governor & Ministers of State, among whom she complied with the ceremonies normal on such occasions.  For her to sit on a carpet had been prepared with a Cushion on the ground according to the custom of black people, but when she saw she was not given a magnificent & showy Chair she called one of her waiting‑women, & sat on her as if she had been a Chair, rising & sitting down as necessary, & explained her Embassy with much acuteness and intelligence of mind; she gave her political reasons which, although she was a black Ethiopian, were well founded, as if she had been a Semiramis, a Zenobia, or the Queen of the Amazons, and excused her brother’s youthful acts, asking for peace & quiet in the Kingdom, etc.  Her proposals were heard, and the Governor’s Chamber sat in council over them, & answered that they must live in peace with the Portuguese, lay down their Arms, be be? Friends of their Friends & enemies of their enemies, & pay an annual tribute to the King of Portugal recognising him as Supreme Lord, & there were other conditions which were all accepted except for the payment of the annual tribute, on the grounds that he who is born free should maintain himself in freedom, and not submit to others, & so lose freedom which is so esteemed by all, as there is nothing worse nor more abhorred than slavery, & by paying tribute [26] her King would lose that which was so precious, & would become slave instead of free; so she excluded this & accepted the other conditions with the consent of the Governor’s Chamber.[78] Having to leave the audience, she left the chair on which she was sitting, which was her waiting‑woman, which made the bystanders laugh, & when she realised this she answered that it was not a mistake, but because her King’s Ambassador was not accustomed to sitting the second time where he had sat before, being rich in such Chairs, & she left that one, there being no lack of someone else to take her place, and this gave everyone cause to realise Ginga’s pride & ambition.  The Governor, seeing her & how courteously she behaved to him, gave her banquets, & invited her to dine with him; she accepted the invitation, the banquet took place with the festivity & gaiety which was fitting, & with a splendour more appropriate to the host than the Guest.  While the Princess remained in Loanda enjoying everyone’s hospitality the Governor, Zealous for the saving of souls, did not fail to exert all his force to remove Ginga from the heathen state in which she lived, explaining to her the perils of persisting in it, & the spiritual wealth to be gained by leaving it, & even the worldly glory that would as a result she would acquire in everybody’s opinion; but above all the Heaven which is prepared for those who from their Hearts abandon idolatry & embrace the Holy Catholic faith; moved by these cogent reasons of the Zealous Governor & already having the King her brother’s permission she yielded like wax to flame, & freely gave her consent to receiving the Catholic faith; she had at once assigned to her someone experienced in the abbomdo language, to instruct her in our Holy faith; when she was instructed all that was necessary for that solemn function was prepared, and at the age of forty she was baptised in the Cathedral Church of the City of Loanda with the name of Donna Anna, the Lord Governor serving as her Godfather, & Donna Anna de Silva as her Godmother,[79] & as the black people do not usually have a Family name she took the surname of her Godfather, & was called Donna Anna de Souza & also that day?[80] (crossed out) kept it until death.  Great festivity & joy [27] took place to celebrate the spiritual birth of our Princess, and there was no lack of the appropriate Presents.  She was finally seen off by her Godfather the Governor & her godmother, & others also, & an honourable escort assigned to her, with many Presents also for her brother the King, nor was there lack of Citizens who not only Bestowed on her things to eat & drink, but also gold & silver, trusting that the new christian woman would be equal to their kindness.

So she left Loanda for Cabazzo, Court of the King, accompanied by some Portuguese assigned to her by the Governor;[81] I say she left with all signs of being a true christian, with many promises, but before she had gone very far she forgot them, & when those who were escorting her had turned back, she returned to her usual behaviour & actions, and did not fail to perform various heathen Ceremonies in order to have a successful journey back to the King’s court, & removing the christian weapons with which she went armed and which she kept in their repositories, she armed herself with the satanic Relics customarily used by these Ethiopians and sold by their priests.  She proceeded with the journey she had begun, showing cruelty to her servants and castigating them even for small errors most severely, showing in this way that she had lost her right to the honourable? Epithet “merciful & compassionate” appropriate to women.  She finally reached the Court of the King her brother, who received her with festivity & joy; she showed the King what she had brought back from her Embassy, not failing to live up to the name that she had taken from the King, the word Gambelle meaning referendary, & she also gave him the various Presents that she had received on his behalf from the Governor and the Citizen, and which were very gratefully received, particularly the liquor which Noah drank and which is so much esteemed by the descendants of his son Cain; he was also grateful for what she had done to his benefit & that of the Kingdom.

When the King saw his Sister a Christian, & that she had received so much honour from the Portuguese, he conceived an ardent wish to become a christian too, & to that effect sent word to the City of Loanda to ask the Governor to send him a Priest to baptise him.[82][28]  He was not lazy, for he showed eagerness in everything, but sent him at once a priest, a local man, whose name was Don Dionisio de Faria, who knew the Abbondo language, & with him a Captain who was to be the King’s Godfather.  They were both received courteously with a great display of joy & festivity, because of the great desire he felt to receive the Sacred ablution.  The Priest began to Catechise him to make him worthy of such a Sacrament and did not find him opposed to the renunciation of any pagan practice, such as the great number of Concubines he kept.  The only difficulty that arose was in seeking for the new name he was to receive, as the Priest wanted him to take his own, & the Captain himself wanted it too.  They said, in the hearing of his Vassals, & particularly Ginga, that it was not fitting that she should receive the baptismal water from a Clergyman who was the son of one of their slaves, nor to have a Godfather who was also born of a slave, but he should take the name of a white person, & the Godparents should also be white.[83] Having heard the opposing arguments of the King, the Vassals & his sister, he said that he had thought about the name he should take, and the following night while he was asleep he heard beating at the Cavazzera?, & heard clearly the voice of a friar who told him he should call himself Francesco which was his own name.  When he awoke, without realising Phoebus had risen, he went in great joy to the Clergyman’s House, & told him he already knew his name, & told him what he had heard.[84] The Priest did not fail to point out to him who was the friar who had spoken to him, so that he recognized the great grace that God was granting to him, and so as not to delay in carrying out what he wished to do, he answered that he was ready for everything, but that the ceremony could not be performed by his own hands because he was the son of a slave, but that he would send for a white Priest & Godfather.  The Priest felt this resolution deeply, but it behove him to be patient because there were other worldly difficulties which made it impossible for the soul of the King to Carry out his pious wish & eager determination.  He sent the Captain with whom he also sent his two sisters Cambo & Fungi to be baptised.  The Captain set off with the King’s two sisters, & having reached Loanda he [29] presented them to the Governor who sent them to be baptised with much display, festivity & revelry, Cambo calling herself Donna Barbara, her Godfather & Godmother being Paij d’Araguso & Barbara da Silva.  As a surname, she took that of Souza, as Ginga had.  Fungi called herself Donna Valeria ferreri, whose surname she also took.[85] When they were baptised the Governor sent them back to the King accompanied by a Captain, & this was in the year 1625,[86] & their sister Ginga’s baptism was in the year 1622.  Then the Governor sent the King a great present, the carrier of which behaved with much prudence as it deserved the most careful dispatch, & brought back to the Governor the requisite answer to the present which he had sent him, the King making it public what he had agreed with the Portuguese, & that he wished for peace & quiet in his Kingdom, & to enjoy in peace what he had gained in previous wars, & he appeared to wish to keep his promise; but this promise did not last long as his observance of it a novelty for him and was STET, as is common in this black people of western or Inner Ethiopia, & not long afterwards there were clear signs of it, because he forgot the vision he had had & abandoned his desire to be baptised.  Proud & ambitious thoughts that he would be called a coward if he let the Portuguese enjoy in peace not only what they had taken from him, but also from his late Father, sprang into his head, and he did not think of his sister’s agreement, nor the peace & quiet of his Kingdom, nor the loss of his possessions; to gain power over what others held, he went into the field, & in spite of himself broke his peace with the Portuguese, & thinking to regain what he had lost he lost what he had, & the common proverb was verified, that he who covets all loses all, because he was defeated by the Portuguese, & chased from the ancient Court of his Royal predecessors, & he fled to the Islands in the river Coanza called the Islands of Chindonga, six days’ journey away, & there formed a new Court with the same name of Cabazzo & gathered together the soldiers who had fled from the Portuguese Armies.[87] Ginga felt her brother’s instability deeply, in that she had [30] negotiated in Loanda & the King her brother had followed this by changing to hate & anger towards the Portuguese; but before going on I shall demonstrate how her deeds corresponded to the haughty sign under which she was born:  when one of the King’s officials saw how many cruel deeds she committed in person & ordered to be done, (while the King was still ruling) without fear or shame, (in fact she gloried in being haughty & ambitious) making it a point of honour and glory to show herself barbarous & cruel; foreseeing the great damage which this could do to the Kingdom & the Royal personages, he tried to advise her humbly observing due respect & courtesy, as to what befitted her as a sister of his King; having therefore awaited a suitable occasion, one day when speaking to her he said:  “My Lady, I, your & the King’s slave, hold that I must advise you of something of great moment, which in time could do great damage to the Kingdom & the Royal personages.”  Having heard, she raised her Eyebrows & listened attentively, & said that he must speak as he felt.  He loosened his tongue, & without any fear told her that the barbarous deeds she fearlessly & boldly committed would destroy the Kingdom & its Vassals.  Having heard these mortifying words, she did not let him come near, but said she wished to reward him for his advice (listen, dear readers) & this cruel Tigress & raging harpy sent orders that a little son he had with him should be killed.  When the Father heard that cruel sentence, knowing that at the tribunal of wrath there is no appeal admitted, even to mercy, because wrath must have its vent, he asked on his knees not for his son’s life, but only that he might be the first to die rather than feel such grief; but barbarous Ginga for the same reason […fold] said the son must die first, & then made the afflicted […fold] stretch his Neck out above him as if he had been a trunk, & his Head was cut off; nor did her barbarity end here because when others offended her she ordered [31] their beards to be pulled out (piece missing here) to their great pain & suffering, & many, many other very painful and heavy punishments if she did not take their lives at the least she made it impossible for such people to hold the offices fitting to them, & even  today among these Ethiopians […] the memory of such barbarities is preserved and there were many others which I leave aside for reasons of brevity [added later]:  in this place, because many are found elsewhere, treated at greater length.

Now let us return to the new Court called Cabazzo and situated in the Coanza river where the King & his sister remained, full of anger & hatred towards the Portuguese who had driven them away not only from the Court of their ancestors but from almost all their Kingdom, because the new Court was an Island in the Coanza river, one mile long & a swivel-gun musket? shot wide, surrounded entirely by water, as the river was divided at the beginning of the island & reunited again at the other end which was shaped like a pyramid.  This in their language they call Dangij meaning root, from which derive all other islands,? fifteen in number, that are subject to our Ginga, & it is fortified by the water and the various rocks that are there, round which can be seen sea Horses of enormous size and Crocodiles 25 & 30 feet in length, which terrify not only strangers but also the inhabitants, who cannot safely fetch water by hand for fear of being preyed on by these savage Animals who are so amazingly strong, but they fetch water with the aid of a stick on the end of which they tie a Gourd, & if this is wondrous to hear, what can it be like to see it with one’s own eyes?  Once one of these strong Animals carried off eleven people at a time, forming a chain, because when it had snatched the first the force of ten others was not sufficient to hold it, but it pulled them all into its Home & lair, and another time five people, & another seven; I say this to show the force & ferocity of this animal, and merely to see it lying on the ground one can conjecture what its strength is, as its back is covered with […] strong? scales, so that to kill it it must be struck hard in the weakest parts such as its flanks,[…] or its belly, or near its ears.

[32]                  King Ngolabande died,[88] & his Sister set herself up as Queen of the Kingdom with the encouragement of some of the Court, caused the death of her nephew, the true heir to the Kingdom, & others of Royal blood, to assure power of governing for herself, & to be revenged on the Portuguese behaved according to the inhuman & barbarous Giaga laws.  Chap. III [added later:  and how she conquered the KIngdom of Matamba].

So while the King remained in his new Court working out how he could be revenged on the Portuguese, he realised that he had only an ardent wish but that he did lack resources to carry out his will, & one & the other held […] of him to see their principal enemy, he was overcome by great melancholy, & […] he grew ill, and there was no lack of doctors nor of medicines of the black people’s kind to nurse him, but no human remedy helped him, for he was burning with anger & indignation owing to seeing himself persecuted by the Portuguese.  Some say that he took poison in order to free himself from himself; others affirm that the haughty Ginga helped him to die with the aid of a poisoned drink, which we can well believe from the course of her life, & her proud ambition to rule & command, & also from her many acts of cruelty to those of her own Blood.  He was finally compelled to follow the same path as his Ancestors, & pay to death the traveller’s tribute.  Then he went to be eternally punished with them, not through lack of remedies which would have been his salvation, because he had already been sent the necessary remedy by the Priest from whom he was not willing to receive the sacred ablution, confining himself to the name of Fulla ya nzambi,[89] meaning Fran.? of God; because he had no excuse for not being saved, he received the punishment due to his ingratitude, which comes to many who, knowing of divine grace, are too ungrateful to receive it.  He was buried in the same Island on the right hand side of the Current of water, and did not lack the sacrifices due to him according to the custom of his Ancestors, & this was the payment […]

Picture of man with knife sneaking up on three people lying on mat with legend:  1.  Look, and observe the actions of those Sleeping, the Queen, 2.  Willingly or unwillingly they are punished with the pain of death

Picture of priests

Picture of procession of serving women, with Marimbero

Picture of Tembo Andumba pounding child

Picture of Queen as a Giaga with arrow (Ginga with bow and arrow)

Picture of queen ordering woman’s breast cut off

[33]                  The Prize for his inconstancy which he received in the year MDCXXVII.[90]

When King Ngolabande was dead, Princess Ginga managed to place herself on the Royal throne, & she achieved it with the encouragement of some of the Court who liked vice better than virtue, & acquired the name of Angola quiluangi meaning Queen of Angola.  Her chief Concubine was also allowed the title of King; he was called Chiay tuxi[91] and was much loved by her.  Her brother had left a son, who was heir to the Kingdom because he was the son of his chief wife, which among the Ethiopians makes him the legitimate heir.  He had recommended him to his great Friend Giaga Casa,[92] not only so that he should learn the practice of arms, but also so that he should be free from the anger & indignation of his sister Ginga, which she felt towards him because of the death he had brought on her son; but who can flee from an angry woman?

When, therefore, Ginga found herself on the Royal throne, served & obeyed by all, in order to consolidate her power and avoid being deposed as an illegitimate Queen, & also to be revenged for the death of her son, she sent with feigned cordiality for her nephew, asking him to come and rule as he had the right to do so, and if she had usurped his powers she had only done so to calm the tumults which usually occur in such circumstances.[93] But the Giaga, who well knew Ginga’s cunning, did not wish to send him; when she saw that her previous wiles had not been effective, she invented another, a snare of the devil, and sent a Message to the Giaga that she loved him & was so much in his power that she could not live without his presence & its enjoyment, & wanted to marry him.  The Giaga thought nothing of this show of excessive love; she determined to captivate him by her presence, & to achieve her evil end she sent another Message that the fire of her love was such that she could not wait, and must go to him in person.  So she arrived in the Giaga’s army although he had been warned by his own guess the devil [34] did not allow him to discover Ginga’s intentions, either because it was impossible, or because there were great rewards to be gained by hiding them; however, blessed God, without whom nothing can be done, allowed this.  She was received with festivity & joy, & with womanly wiles persuaded him to take her as a concubine according to the heathen custom.  [marginal note:  Troylus for the same reason killed his brother.  Vimerano Vueterico killed Levva to usurp his command and Aurelius for the same reason killed Troylus just as he had killed his brother Vimerano also ordered his eyes to be torn out.]  When the wedding was celebrated, & the newly married pair’s love was at its peak of happiness, she invited the bridegroom to her Court, and he did not refuse her invitation but went to her Court where they had many festivities, & after a few days she sent for her nephew, who, having no suspicions of his Aunt and being deceived by seeing her joined to the Giaga, went; & she received him with a serene countenance, & had him ceremonially dressed; but this was only an outward show of love, as she still had a Heart full of anger and like another Zundo Riangola ordered him to be killed & thrown into the river.  When the bridegroom saw his wife’s betrayal he left in sorrow, seeing that she had only joined herself to him in order to kill her nephew, and she felt it little, because she had a whole mass of Concubines at her command.[94] She felt great consolation because she had avenged the death of her son with that of her nephew, & had secured power to rule for herself; but do not think, dear readers, that this was the end of the Queen’s hate & anger towards the relations who might interfere with her rule, because in pursuit of her Cynical will to evil she continued to kill all those of Royal blood with an iron heart & harpy-like anger, particularly the males, like the wicked Athaliah, but without sparing either Sex of age, but giving to everyone an equal death, & only spared the life of her two sisters mentioned above, whom she lost in a war in the year MDCXXXX, and who were captured a second time by the Portuguese.

I                       Those who reign must not trust friends of relations, Brothers-in-law or even brothers & sisters, because on a point of honour & command Pompey arose against his father-in-law Julius Caesar, Absalom against his own parents, & the King of Anamite people against his brother, Romulus & Remus also, & many others whom I pass over in order not to weary? the reader to no purpose.  When Ginga saw that there was nothing to hinder [35] her pride and ambition to rule & command, she resolved to show what has often been observed, that honours change behaviour, and it would be well if it were for the better; but this woman, forgetful of her sacred baptismal ablution, took new laws, Rites & customs to revenge herself on her enemies, particularly the Portuguese, and to this end sent to various places not for Priests of the true God so that they might instruct & teach her about the Catholic Religion, & obtain pardon for her sins by this means, but for ministers of Avernus that they might instruct and teach her about the laws, Rites & customs of the Giaga people.[95] It was not long before the ministers of the devil appeared from various places, particularly the quilombo of Giaga Casa & Caenda with their devilish Relics, & orders were given in her council not only to accept, but faithfully to observe & follow, what they taught, because she was going to gather people together & form and army, & be revenged on her enemies & the deaths of her Ancestors.  This resolution pleased everyone, the orders were carried out at once, & she subjected herself to the ministers of Avernus & their doctrine.

To begin this new state of affairs she needed a son sprung from her own belly, like the Reformer of the Giaghi who pounded her own child in a mortar (as has been told in treating of the Giaghi).  Our Ginga lacked this, because the only son she had borne was killed by the orders of the King her brother; so she could not carry out this task to perfection, but she did not grow less dismayed for that, nor did she lose Heart, nor wish the work to be imperfect; but she took the child of another woman from her loins & adopted it in order to do what was required b the new system & order.  so she took this small child, placed him inside a mortar which in their language the call quino, & began to pound his tender flesh violently without hesitating at all or showing any compassion, for she had lost the honourable epithet of compassionate, and having pounded him well with hard blows she had him put into [36] a Cauldron to cook on the fire, & then made him into oil which they call majij ya Samba, meaning great & sacred oil, with which she anointed herself & her Vassals, & used it in the future before going into the Field of battle, & in the festivities which she celebrated according to the Giaga custom, & in short she learned that art which is frightening & alarming to men & beasts, & from being a pupil became an accomplished teacher of all the laws, rites, customs & observations of the barbarous & inhuman Giaghi who felt no anguish or suffering at her teaching, but much joy & delight in hearing & seeing her turn from a pupil into a teacher, & instruct others.  Tell me, o cruel harpy, is it not normal for the Craftsman to love his work, & love it more when he is loved by it?  Is not the son the work of the species, so why not love him?  The Father confers three benefits on his son by begetting him, firstly he is the cause of his existence, secondly by nourishing him he is the cause of his growing, & thirdly by instructing him he is the cause of his learning.  so if he has not begotten him, but only adopted him so that he might be, why then not feed him so that he may grow & teach him that he may learn, but only kill him so barbarously?  You should have persecuted his mother for the sin she had committed, when giving birth the individual loses and what has been born, & remains alive, taught & fed by mother nature so that he grows & learns [marginal note:  Now consider, Dear readers, how much love the Irrational beings bear their children; admire the way the Lioness defends her young, observe attentively how the hare fights for its leveret, watch how the Hen hides her chickens under her Wings so that they may not be taken from her by the obibio?, and so what will God think of these Ethiopian women?  From S. Aecq. in Exari. lib 5. c. 108 vol. 1.[96] Fathers and mothers may learn from the ravens and animals of the woods what they should do with their children.  The woman who does not love and bring up her child in not Snre. and must not be called so, as faverino the Philosopher said, lib. 12 c. i. nost. Attica.[97] It is not the act of a true mother to give birth to children and suddenly abandon them, and throw them from herself, but what would this philosopher have said if he had seen Queen Ginga executing these barbarous deeds?  He would undoubtedly have exclaimed “O Deed outside the order of Nature.”]  With this inhuman action she acquired the name of Angola Ginga gombe Aenga,[98] meaning great Lady, Queen of Arms, & great warrior.

She was given the moquoquo, a military instrument of the black Ethiopian people called longa by the Giaghi, which is like a bell upside down, & they use them in war both advancing and retreating, & it is understood by all; they strike it with a piece of wood which is one palm in length thin where it is held in the hand, & bigger at the end with which it touches the instrument, & without this warlike sound the laws, rites & customs cannot be truly practised, & one cannot call oneself a true Giaga, & be a legitimate Lord.[99]

[37]                  When Queen Ginga had everything she required, she caused the warlike instrument to be played, gathered the people together, & formed an army entirely from malefactors & thieves who were careless both of their lives and those of others, who had come at the report of her barbarous acts, by which she had shown herself, in manifesting publicly her evil will, an enemy not only of God whom she had repudiated, but also of the human race, & a destroyer of human beings:  now I say, o newly enrolled warrior under the dreadful & woeful Giaga standard, what do you claim & what do you expect?  do you not know that one should enrol under a military standard for three reasons only, that is expecting a reward, paying a debt of gratitude & discharging an obligation.  And what reward do you expect for the life of a Giaga? & what debt of gratitude can you pay to one who always did you evil? & what legal obligation forces you to pay a debt you did not incur?  You can only answer that the new life, laws, rites & customs mean you must be recognized not as a pupil but as a teacher, guide & standard of barbarity & cruelty, & oblige all others to follow you without hope of reward, debt of gratitude or obligation, except for following your will which is bent towards evil like the shadow to the body & the wave to the wind, & cause yourself to be known as a cruel harpy towards human beings, & a persecutor & destroyer of them, as if they were not of your own kind.

When the Portuguese saw the great damage they had suffered from this cruel harpy, & the way all the black people followed her and looked at her as their natural Lady & honoured & revered her as a demi-goddess, from fear of greater damage they determined to chase her from court, and to this end made preparations for war with light boats to be launched into the Coanza river, & assault the Islands in the middle of it.[100] So they left Loanda, & went towards them, arriving at the Island called Vcole, which was the biggest and best fortified & garrisoned? of all; they did battle there, & had a glorious [38] victory, though not without the loss of lives, as usually happens on these occasions.  They went on to another island called quitachi, where the same happened, & following the course of the river in their warfare they reached the new court called Dangij, meaning root.  They formed their Camp in the part of the Bondo[101] directly opposite that Island & while they were making preparations, & acquiring provisions in the neighbouring lands, the Queen gave orders to assail the Portuguese Camp, & wounded 300 & 300,? but she too had her hands? full.  Finally they made an advance with their boats, & fought with Lusitanian determination having no doubt about who should be victorious, owing to the situation of the island, strengthened by the rocks surrounding it under water; when the Queen saw she had lost many people, & that the naked black men were hit more often than the white ones, although she had captured some of the Portuguese, & being afraid that the next day would bring them victory, sent a feigned Embassy that, on the day after, she would surrender herself as a Vassal when she had spoken with her counsellors.  The Queen was greatly comforted by this Embassy, which promised peace with her enemies, & that she would be received by their King with good grace, & gave orders to lay down Arms; all were waiting attentively to see what would be the end of the tragedy, which was as follows:  seeing the resolution of the Portuguese, she made a sacrifice to the dead King her brother, from whom she had an answer through the Singhilla that to become a vassal of the Portuguese was to lose freedom, & become slaves instead of Lords, & that it was better to retain one’s liberty by flight.  When the Queen and her counsellors had heard the speech of the Singhilla, to show her gratitude for his advice she ordered fourteen of the most beautiful young girls of her Court to be strangled, as a sacrifice to her dead brother; she caused them to be gathered together at his tomb, & with her servants crossed the river by night, & fled to the Province of Oacco.  When the time had passed when she should have sent word to the Camp, as they saw no signal from the Island they sent some boats from which they disembarked without any opposition, & found only the fourteen dead girls without any sign of iron or rope.  When the Portuguese saw they had been deceived by the Queen,[102]? (p. [39] appears to be missing)

She continued to govern for a time with her above-mentioned concubine, & because she loved him greatly [40] she allowed him to be called by the name of King, but not long afterwards he was compelled by death to pay the tribute which every traveller must; he was given an honourable burial & according to the barbarous heathen custom he did not lack the required sacrificial victims to serve him in the next life & assist him in the dark tomb, & he was recognised even by the greatest people at Court as the Concubine of their Queen.

[1]. Njinga, more commonly written Nzinga in English literature.

[2]. Genesis 4.9 (Cain’s words after slaying Abel).  This motto apparently used sarcastically by Cavazzi, also appears under illustration no. 30, which shows a Jaga beheading a prisoner.

[3]. See Book 1, p. 44 for Cavazzi’s statements on his informants for his work on the Jagas.  Page 19 below gives other details.  Cavazzi clearly used a number of informants from both Matamba (Njinga’s court) and Mpungu a Ndongo (“other kingdoms”) to write this account, which sources of European provenance and Cavazzi’s sense of a logical story.

[4]. Kingdom of Benguela, in Cavazzi’s day was the Portuguese dominated strip of Atlantic coast near the modern towns of Lobito and Benguela in central Angola.  It derived its name, however, from Old Benguela, further north up the coast, which in turn derived its name from a kingdom on the upper reaches of the Longa river, first reported by Europeans (in that location and as a source of copper) in 1546, Regimento for Diogo de Soveral, in Brasio, Monumenta, 2:      Antonio Mendes mentioned it as a powerful enemy of Ndongo in 1563, Ibid, 2:      For more details on its location, see Beatrix Heintze, “Wer war der ‘Konig von Banguela?’” In Memoriam Jorge Dias (2 Vols., Lisbon, 1974) 1:

[5]. A common observation of Capuchin missionaries in west central Africa that the people sowed too little and saved too little for the future or against vagaries of the climate.

[6]. A somewhat garbled reference to the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 37.13- 50.26.

[7]. The reference is impossible to locate precisely, but it clearly refers to a widespread feeling among Catholics that disaster to Calvinist Flanders was the result of Divine retribution, while Carlos Burgos is apparently a Spanish official there who presumably relieved this famine.

[8]. Angola Mussuri = Ngola Musuri.  Da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p.134 calls him “Angola Bumbambula”.

[9]. In Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 126 Cavazzi presents this story in a different way, which shows that in revising he borrowed heavily from the story of Ndongo’s origin found in Pigafetta, see Relasione (ed. Cardona), p. 19, where the founder was a governor or appointee of the King of Kongo who was able to dominate the area because it was divided into many small political units.  There is not mention of the famine, but simply a statement that Ngola Musuri became wealthy from his art and was thus elected king.  A story similar to the one in the Araldi MS is found in da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p. 135, but with no connection to Kongo.

[10]. Nzambi Mpungo means in Kikongo, “highest nzambi” where nzambi (related to the Kimbundu nzambi, see Book 1, pp. 83-5 and notes 211-12) is a general term for ancestor spirits.  See also MacGaffey, “Cosmology” pp. 7-9.  This term was widely used in both Kikongo and Kimbundu catechismal literature to mean “God” in the Christian sense: its earliest recorded use in Kongo is 1548, letter of Cristovao Riberio, August 1548, Brasio Monumenta, 2: 187; and in Angola it was probably in use since the first arrival of Jesuit missionaries (who had Kongo experience) in the 1560’s or at the latest 1575, see Francisco Rodrigues, “Historia da Residencia dos Padres Jesuitas no Reino de Angola”, 1594 in Ibid, 4: 560.

[11]. Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 126 says that he learned the skill from an “idol”, that is, a territorial spirit (see Book 1, pp. 90-93 and note 222).  Nzamba a Mpungu would have the attributes of a very ancient ancestor spirit of a territorial spirit, as some modern philosophers believe that the two chains of spirits merge at the top, see MacGaffey, “Cosmology”, pp. 7-9 and thus the discordance might be explained.  The role of blacksmith in central Africa likewise had cosmological significance.

[12]. Libongo (Lubongo) is the cloth money made in northern and eastern Kongo and widely used by the Portuguese in seventeenth century Angola as money, of an earlier description of its nature and sources in Alvitre de Pedro Sardinha (ca. 1611), Brasio, Monumenta 6: 52-6.  Its use here may be an anachronism as prior to the Portuguese conquest monies of Kongo provenance such as nzimbu shells did not circulate in Ndongo; Pigafetta, Relazione (ed. Cardona), p. 24 is quite specific on this point.  Pigafetta does speak of two other types of money mentioned in this passage, ‘rosary beads’ (pater nostras) and amissange = misanga.  He speaks of “pater nostras of a glass made in Venice…called Anzolos” which when “threaded like a rosary” are called “Mizanga”.  These Venetian substitutes were probably considered as interchangeable with locally made, and named, bead moneys made from ostrich shells in southern Angola, see Edouard Dartevelle, Les n’zimbu monnaie du Royaume de Congo (Brussels: Societe Royale Belge d’Anthropologie et de Prehistoire, 1953), pp. 41-5.

[13].This somewhat garbled list of Classical and medieval precedents for electing kings is difficult to trace, and at least some of it may have come from Cavizzi’s imagination.  In any case, he probably did not have the necessary library of Classical texts close at hand in Matamba.

[14]. Cabazzo = kabasa, court or capital city.  The earliest use of the term comes from letters of Francisco de Gouveia, 1563 and 1 November 1564, Brasio, Monumenta 2: 520 and 528.  This kabasa had a circuit as large of that of Evora in Portugal and contained some 5-6,000 houses.

[15]. This is not a personal name, but solely an honorific title.  Inene can also mean “first” or “original”.  Traditions from the 1570’s collected by Lopes (Pigafetta’s informant) and Jesuits call the first king “Angola Inene” meaning simply first or original king, see note 33 below.

[16]. Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 127 states that Cavazzi did not remember the name of the third daughter, while here, significantly he was “unable to find it out” implying an attempt that failed rather than simply a lapse of memory.  Da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p.136. 14, gives different names for the children, and has different sexes: Zunduria Angola is a son, while a daughter is named Hohoria Angola.

[17]. On the title Tandala, see Book 1, pp. 45-8 and notes 115-6.  Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no.127 makes this usurper simply a slave, without suggesting that he held the title of Tandala.

[18]. Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 127 had a different version, in which the slave raises a false alarm which causes the courtesans, who are in the fields to flee.  This allows him to run to the king;s residence, and kills the aged king (who begs for mercy) with a knife.  The differences are more than simple detail, for the later version allows for the spilling of royal blood, while the one we meet here does not.  On the difference between starvation or suffocation and violence as a cause of death, see Miller, Kings and Kinsmen, pp. 171-4.

[19]. See Book 1, note 299 above for definition.

[20]. An apparent reference to the common central African fortification technique of constructing walls of living trees around their towns which in the course of the years form an extremely thick forest around its perimeter.  Such a fortification surrounded the royal capital in 1563, according to Antonio Mendes, Brasio, Monumenta 2: 500-501.

[21]. Pemba, see book 1, note 156 above.

[22]. I have supplied the name here although the text does not have a name, based on the logic of the story and the feminine modifiers.

[23]. Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 127 depicts Zundo Riangola’s resistance to the usurpation as being vigorous and verbal, in which she openly questions his right to rule, which is in line with the differences noted in note 18 above, to the lower legitimacy placed on those who violently kill (as opposed to suffocating) the old king.  Cavazzi had perhaps heard two versions of the story, one with violent death and resistance by Zundo which he favored in Istorica Descrizione, one with death by suffocation and resigned acceptance favored in the Araldi version.  It is significant that in da Gaeta’s account of these events, collected solely at Matamba in 1656-58, the old king simply dies and is peacefully succeeded by his son Zunduria Angola; Maravigliosa Conversione, p.136.

[24]. Chiluangu quisamba = Kilwanji kia Samba.  Da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, pp. 138 calls him husband of Angola Bumbambula’s daughter Hohoria Angola (sister of the second king Zunduria Angola) and a “knight of Bembe” (perhaps the region in the Central Highlands of central Angola, home of the Ovimbundu, called Bembe by Cavazzi, Istorica Descrizione Book 1, no.    ).

[25]. A rather far-fetched way of bringing in the story of Peter’s defense of Christ before his betrayal, John 18.1-11.

[26]. Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 127 differs.  There, she maintains that she is incapable of governing, while he says he is satisfied as her mulumi or favorite, and to serve her as a slave, while the parenthetical phrase on the ease of dissolution of marriages by heathens is presented more as a speculation.  Da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, pp. 141-2 is different as well:  Chiluangi Chiasamba is acclaimed king by popular support, with Hohoria Angola as his queen, he takes the title “Angola” and then, upon his death, passes it to his son Angola Chiluangi.

[27]. Angola Chiluangi = Ngola Kilwanji.  On page 10, upon his death, Cavazzi calls him, probably erroneously, Angola Chiluangi Chiasamba, the name of his father.

[28]. This feature makes this next section a sort of “charter” for various lineages of royal blood found in the area in the seventeenth century, while his son by his main wife founds the royal line.  On such genealogies, see Miller, Kings and Kinsmen, pp. 82-3.

[29]. Haria Angola = Hari a Ngola.  In Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 129 he is called Nadi Angola, which might be a misprint for Hari Angola (a similar misprint is found in Book 2, no. 59 where the “idol” Naviez is written Haviez), and his descendent Joao II was ruling in Cavazzi’s day.  This line challenged Queen Njinga’s right to the throne, supported by the Portuguese, and founded a rump kingdom of Ndongo with their capital at Mpungu a Ndongo in Hari province, Heintze, “Ende”, pp, 222-4, 227-8, 238-9, 243, 246.  Da Gaeta calls this line Haria Chiluangi (Hair a Kilwanji), Maravigliosa Conversione, p.144.

[30]. Cannina = Kanini.  Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 129 adds that his seat was Ambaca, the Portuguese fortress, where he was made to serve the church and they were thus called “sobas of the church”.  Their kabasa was two miles from the fort.  Da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p. 144 calls him Caninica Chiluangi (Kanini Ka Kilwanji) and mentions their connection with the fort, but not the other details.  Thanks to Njinga’s capture of their leader in 1644 and her promotion of him to her mwene lumbu, the Kanini were able to become rulers of Matamba after Njinga’s death and the civil war that followed, Birmingham, Trade and Conflict, pp.

[31]. Muengha a Chiluangi = Mwenga a Kilwanji.  In Istorica Descrizione Book 2, no. 129 Cavazzi added that their territory in his day was two day’s journey from Embaca, while da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p. 144 says that their line was ruling in a place called “Lembo” and he adds a fourth son, by a fourth concubine, named Mubangaa Chiluangi (Mubanga a Kilwanji) whose line ruled “not far from Embaca”.

[32]. Dambi Angola = Ndambi a Ngola.  Sixteenth century sources give the name of the ruler who was reigning when Paulo Dias de Novais arrived in 1560 and Dambi Angola, son of “Angola Inene” who they, and the traditions of the 1580’s named as the first ruler of Ndongo.  They specify that this Dambi Angola was the son of Angola Inene, and that Angola Inene had sent ambassadors to Portugal in 1556 or 1557.  In addition to contemporary documents, cited in Birmingham, Trade and Conflict, pp. 33-41, the traditions collected in the 1580’s can be found in Pigafetta, Relazione, (ed. Cardona) p. 19; Francisco Rodrigues, “Historia”, Brasio, Monumenta, 4: 551-2; various fragments of Baltasar Barreira in Brasio, Monumenta, 3: passim and Pierre du Jarric, Histoire des choses plus memorables advenues tant ez Indes Orientales, que autres pais de la descouvert des Portugais (3 Volumes, Bordeaux, 1609-12) 2: 76-84.  With the exception of Pigafetta, all these sources are of Jesuit origin and stem from a probable single source, most likely a document originally written by Baltasar Barreira about 1582 and only known from fragments, quotations and excerpts.

[33]. This would explain the origin of various titles in Matamba and Lubolo in Cavazzi’s day, making them junior to those mentioned in notes 29-31 above, but still allied to Ndongo or Matamba.

[34]. Angola Chiluangi Chiandambi = Ngola Kilwanji kia Ndambi.  According to du Jarric, Histoire 2: 83 a king named Quiloange Angola had succeeded Dambi Angola between the first contact with Angola by Paulo Dias de Novias and his return (probably in 1575), and that this new ruler, much more friendly to Portugal was, was a “nepheu ou petit-fils” (nephew or grandson, probably from the ambiguity that a French speaker would face in translating the Portuguese word “neto” which can mean either grandson or nephew, in his Portuguese language sources) of his predecessor.  baltasar Barreira, in one on his fragments Brasio, Monumenta 3: 327 makes this a great grandson of the founder, and thus possibly a son of Dambi Angola as Cavazzi suggests here (and confirmed by da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p. 145).  Antonio Mendes mentioned that the ruler on the throne when he was there in 1563 was named Angola Quiloange, while Gouvia noted that he had been recently installed, Brasio Monumenta, 2: 511 and       .  The documents thus suggest the following chronology:  Angola Inene died between 1556 and 1560, Dambi Angola ruled between the death of Angola Inene and sometime between 1561 and 1563 when Angola Quiloange began ruling, each being the son of his predecessor.  The traditions of Cavazzi and da Gaeta conform to this, and would concur with the relationships if Angola Chiluangi Quisamba were the same person as Angola Inene of the documents.

[35]. The general description seems to match that of the Portuguese fort of Muxima on the lower Kwanza, right across the river form the valuable salt producing area of Kisama.

[36]. See Book 1, pp. 69-73 for further elaboration.  In the regard see the letter of Garcia Simoes to the Provincial of Portugal, 20 October 1575, Brasio, Monumenta 3, 134, “The king [of Ndongo] maintains and says openly that he is the lord of the sun and the rain and he orders it to rain or not to rain as it seems fit to him…”

[37]. Contemporary documents are extremely scarce for the last years of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, although Cadornega, who may have had access to documents of this period when he wrote in 1680-1, noted that a king called Angola Quiloangi died during the rule of Andre Ferreira Pereira (1591-93) and was succeeded by his son Angola Ambandi, Historia 1: 49.  This king Nginga Angola quilombo quiacasenda = Njinga Ngola Kilombo kia Kasenda, is not found on any other list.  Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p. 145 says that when Chiluangi Chiandambi died he was succeeded by his son Angola Chiluangi, who would be the equivalent to this king, of Cavazzi’s.  It is significant that in Cavazzi’s list this king has no immediate royal antecedent, but traces his ancestry back to Angola Kilwanji kya Samba, which makes his lineage approximately equivalent in legitimacy to that of Kanini of Hari (both of which claimed Ndongo’s throne, Hari after 1624, Kanini after Njinga’s death in 1663), the senior line descended from Chiluangi Chiasamba’s head wife having now expired.

[38]. The southern most province of “metropolitan Angola” just north of Kwanza, Heintze, “Unbekanntes Angola,” 750, 768-9.  His cruelty to Hari suggests that informants at Mpungu a Ndongo (Hari’s capital) might be the source for the tradition as a means of legitimizing their claim.  They might also be the source for the tradition in note 37, which also helps their cause.

[39]. Bandi Angola Chiluange = Mbandi Ngola Kilwanji.  Perhaps the king mentioned in Cadornega, Historia 1: 49.  Da Gaeta lists him as a son of the king Angola Chiluangi cited in note 38, Maravigliosa Conversione, p. 145.

[40]. Nginga = Njinga.  That some, but apparently not all Cavazzi’s informants chose to place this element “Njinga” before his name shows that Cavazzi collected this information from various informants.  That he connects it with the curious 7th king tends to suggest that his informants for that king, and some of that data on this king were the same.  In Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 137 a certain “Nginga Bande Angola senior”, perhaps this king, is given as father of Angola Hari.  See p. 16 and note 58 below.

[41]. A second version of the story is presented in the history of the Jagas, see Book 1, pp. 41-4 and note 103 above.

[42]. Hango a Quiquiaito = Hango a Kikiayito.

[43]. Golambole, see Book 1, note 114 above.

[44]. Cavullo Cacabasa = Kavulo ka Kabasa

[45]. Quenguella Cancombe = Kengela ka Nkombe

[46]. Dumbo Aebo or Dumbo Ape = Ndumbo a Ebo or Ndombo a Pe, located according to Istorica Descrizione 2, no.135 and 15 leagues (60 kilometers) from the Portuguese fort of Cambambe.  See also Cadornega, Historia 3: 153 which puts it in the region of       Heintze, “Ende” pp. 240-1 (with map) locates it on the Kwanza near the center of the old state of Ndongo: it was sacked by Portugese troops in 1626, but can still be located in eighteenth and nineteenth century sources.  When Queen Njinga died and her sister succeeded her, a delegation was sent here to collect baobab bark to make a new crown, see below, p. 224.

[47]. That is, Queen Njinga (ruled 1624 -63); Cambo = Kambu; (See da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, p.145.

[48]. Fungi = Funji or as sometimes written Kifunji.

[49]. Manigico = mweni kijiko.  Quisicos in Portuguese (kijiko, Kimbundu plural ijiko) were household or administrative slaves who could not be sold, see du Jarric, Histoire, 2:

[50]. Maimacao = mweni ma kayo

[51]. Manilumbu = mwene lumbu, see Book 1, note 117.

[52]. Manimescette = mwene misete, a misete is a reliquary, see Book 1, notes 151 and 201, and pp. 79-81.

[53]. This particular account ia peculiar to Cavazzi, none of it being in da Gaeta.  It suggests that neither Njinga nor her brother were legitimate, and as such must have been motivated by seventeenth century politics, either at Matamba or Mpungtu a Ndongo, as were, in all probability, some of Cavazzi’s other stories, and perhaps two kings: numbers 7 and 8.

[54]. The Portuguese stormed the royal residence in Ndongo in 1617, forcing the Ngola to flee to the eastern border of Ndongo, at a place named Samba a Quinzele; he subsequently died early in 1624, either through suicide or as a result of poison, Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 203, 219-24.

[55]. Jaga Casa = Kasa, and Impangala group very active in Ndongo and areas south of the Kwanza in this period, Heintze, “Ende” pp. 221-4.

[56]. The islands are described in greater detail in Book 2, pp. 31, 166-74.

[57]. See Book 2, pp. 33-5.

[58]. Angola Arij = Ngola Hari, placed on the throne by the Portuguese in 1625, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 224.  Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 137 makes him the son of Nginga Bandi Angola senior, who is probably king number 8 on this list, while here his is son of “Bandi Angola Ariji the old one”; at the same time, Istorica Descrizione, incorporating revisions from da Gaeta, has him descend from Angola Canini, see note 30 above.  Cavazzi has apparently mixed up accounts from several sources, partisans of Kanini, Ngola Hari and Queen Njinga in his account.

[59]. Placed on the throne when Ngola Hari died in June 1626, he was formally installed on 12 October 1626, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 243.

[60]. Cavazzi also gives his death as 1660 in Istorica Descrizione, Book 2, no. 137 and as 1664 in Book 7, no. 137.  Birmingham, Trade and Conflict, p.125 supports the 1664 date.

[61]. See Book 2, pp. 196- 214.

[62]. On this incident, see Book 2, pp. 108-111; in revising for this section in Istorica Descrizione, Book 6, nos. 5-15 Cavazzi made extensive use of the account in da Gaiet, Maravigliosa Conversione, pp. 69-83.  Antonio Romano, a native of Gaetta, is, of course, this Capuchin missionary (lived 1617-1662) from the province of Naples.  He arrived in Angola (with Cavazzi) in 1654 as head of the fourth Capuchin expedition to Angola, and was rapidly made head of the mission to Njinga.  He came to Matamba in 1656 and remained there on and off until 1662, when he was made prefect, but died shortly after coming to Luanda to take up his post, Leguzzano, Descricao Historica, 2: 381-2.

[63]. See Book 2, pp. 223-4, but the more detailed version which appears in Istorica Descrizione, Book 6, nos. 122-28 did not get into this manuscript, although Cavazzi’s note here indicated that it would.

[64]. Cavazzi probably figured the date of her birth from her supposed age at the time of her baptism in 1622, at age 40.

[65]. Abondo = Kimbundu.  Although Cavazzi normally writes her name “Ginga”, here he provides a more careful spelling which confirms its spelling in modern Kimbundu would be “Njinga”.  a similar carefully spelling is given in da Gaeta, Maravigliosa conversione, p. 145-6 (his normal spelling is “Singa”).

[61]. Cabinga = Kabinga

[67]. Da Gaeta, Maravigliosa conversione, p. 146 gives a nearly identical explanation.  Simoes Brando, “Ritos gentilicos” (ed. D’Assumpcao) p. 317 also gives a list of names (including “Nginga”) for babies born in particular ways, but he does not link it to the famous queen who had reigned 45 years before he wrots.

[68]. See also Book 1, p. 120 and note 288.

[69]. It is, in fact, found on pp. 14-5 above.  This may be a reference to the proper citation in an earlier draft, as several drafts of the opening pages are found in the front matter.

[70]. Probably a reference to his section on instability, Book 1, Chapter VI, pp. 64-68.  Page 89 of the present draft refers to activities of a xingula and bear no obvious relation to what is written here, again perhaps a reference to an earlier draft.

[71]. These sisters, Kambu and Funji were not “lost” during the reign of Ngola A Mbande, according to Cavazzi or any other source, though Queen Njinga did lose and regain them several times during her reign.  See Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 218-24 for an interpretation grounded on contemporary documents.

[72]. Giovanni Correa de Sa, probably Joao Correia de Sousa, governor from 14 October 1621 to 2 May 1623, Heintze, “Ende” pp. 210-17, see p. 24 below.

[73]. Corrects the name of Joao Correia de Sousa (note 72 and p. 23 above).

[74]. Gambolle = Gambole.  On p. 27 below he gives a definition of the term as “envoy”.

[75]. Abbondi = Italian plural of abondo, or mbundu (kimbundu).

[76]. Paif d’Araguso, Payo de Araujo de Azevedo, whose wife was probably Njinga’s godmother upon her baptism in 1622, Heintze, “Ende” p. 211, note 84 and 212.

[77]. The idea of a ruler sitting on the backs of one of his or her subjects as an attribute of power is so widespread in central Africa (of Miller, Kings and Kinsmen, p. 139) that this story ought not be taken seriously.

[78]. Cavazzi is the only source to discuss the actual terms of the treaty that Njinga negotiated in Luanda, see Heintze, “Ende” p. 216 on the contemporary documentation.

[79]. On various versions of her name, see Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 211 note 84 and 212.

[80]. The words “until the present” suggest that this part of the MS was written originally befor 17 October 1663, the date of Njinga’s death, especially in the light of the correct usage, “until her death”.

[81]. Njinga left Luanda in 1622 accompanied by the Portuguese captain Bento Rebelo Visasboas, who had most recently served in Angola as (among other things), Escrivao das causas do mar, auditor do campo and ouridor e provedor dos defuntos e ausentes, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 211 and note 85.

[82]. Contemporary documents, especially the Fernao de Sousa collection studied by Heintze reveal a different version than this one given by Cavazzi.  According to these records, Njinga’s embassy was as a result of the visit of a Portuguese mission led by Manuel Dias, a long serving soldier and the local (filho da terra) priest Dionisio de Faria Baretto, after working out some details, Ngola a Mbande then sent a mission which completed the treaty, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 210 and notes 79-80.

[83]. Elsewhere in this section, Cavazzi (p. 28) suggests this priest was of whole or partial African ancestry, as “filho da terra” only indicates Angolan birth, not race or color.  He was well regarded by Fernao de Sousa, although Bento Ferras had him imprisioned and deported in 1626, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 210, note 79.

[84]. Contemporary documents do not mention the naming incident, although the second mission, with the royal sisters (including Njinga) did take place to greet the new governor, Pedro de Sousa Coelho who arrived on 2 May 1623.  The other two didters were baptized in 1622 along with Njinga, Heitze,”Ende”, pp. 211, 218.  Dionisio de Faria Baretto’s departure was precipitated by the breakdown in relations between Ndongo and Portugal, and was not simply his decision, ibid, pp. 219, 221.

[85]. On the names, see the well documented discussion in Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 210-11.

[86]. The second embassy was in 1623, not 1625, ibid, p. 218.

[87]. The Portuguese attack on kabasa, their victory over Ngola a Mbande, and his withdrawl, first to Samba a Quinenzele in eastern Ngongo, then to the Kwanza Islands (Kindongo) took place during the rule of Luis Mendes de Vasconceles (26 July 1617-14 October 1621).  The Portuguese tried, unsuccessfully, to establish a puppet king named Antonio Correia Samba a Ntumba after this victory, and then, in late 1621 or 1622 initiated the peace talks with Ngola a Mbande.  Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 203, 208-9, 211.

[88]. He died sometime in January-April 1624.  Fernao de Sousa, a contemporary, mentioned only his suicide in his own memoires, but put the story of possible poisoning by Njinga in his reports to Lisbon, perhaps to justify his campaigns against her, Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 219-20.

[89]. Fulla ya Nzambi = Mfula ya Nzambi

[90]. See note 88, above, his death was in 1624, not 1627.

[91]. Chiay tuxi = Kia ituxi, no contemporary documents mention this husband whom she had as king.

[92]. This alliance between rulers of Ndongo and the Imbangala of Kasa was a recent development at the time, as “Casa Cangola” served in the Portuguese army that sacked Kabasa in 1617, but he was reported in 1619 to have rebelled and gone to Ndongo, Heintze, “Ende”, pp.202-203, 222.

[93].   Contemporary sources do not mention this arrangement, but simply stress her siezure of power.  On the other hand, they were from Portuguese officials anxious to satisfy Lisbon’s desires for respecting the legitmate rulers and to justify their making war on her as an usuper.  It is noteworthy in this regard that during much of this time she signed her name as “Senhora” (Lady) and not “Rainha} (Queen), a titile which she only took up in a letter to Bento Banha Cordoso, 3 March 1626 (published in Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 268-9), ibid, p. 222.

[94]. While contemporary sources mention her continued alliance with various Imbangala groups and the murder of her nephew, these details can only be found in the later sources from Njinga’s testimony (and perhaps that of others in her court) recorded here by Cavazzi, and also in da Gaeta, Maravigliosa Conversione, pp. 203-205; see the discussion in Heintze, “Ende”, p.222.

[95]. Njinga was still calling herself a Christian in her letter to Bento Banha Cordoso, 3 March 1626 (Heintze, “Ende”, p. 268), while in 1629 it was reported to Fernao de Sousa that the Jaga Kasanje had falled out with her because she wanted to dominate him as she had Kasa, and yet she did not have a “lunga” (an emblem of the Imbangala, see above, Book 1, p. 22 and note 61).  Perhaps she became an Imbangala herself in the period shortly after this, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 258.

[96]. Faverino

[97]. Faverino

[98]. Angola Ginga gombe Aenga = Ngola Njinga Ngombe e Nga

[99]. See note 95.

[100]. The Portuguese attacks on the islands of Kindonga began early in 1626, which would make this conversion to Imbangala rites, which I have suggested took place in 1630 or so, out of place, Heintze, “Ende”, pp. 227-9.

[101]. Bondo = Mbondo, the territory perched on the western edge of the escarpment that marks the Baiza de Cassange in modern Angola, see Miller, Kings and Kinsmen, p.

[102]. Njinga fled the islands on 12 July 1626, Heintze, “Ende”, p. 242.