Les descriptions d’un banquet royal au Ndongo (Angola) en 1560 par le jésuite António Mendes : l’ambivalence des sources coloniales

• Main Author: Dora de Lima
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Institut des Mondes Africains 2014-12-01
• Series: Afriques
• Subjects: Angola; banquet; feast; jesuits; Ndongo; portuguese ambassador
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/1682

When the first Jesuit missionaries arrived in Luanda in 1859 there was great conflict in the region between the king of Congo, Diogo-Ier, and the Ngola who sought emancipation from Congolese control. Francisco de Gouveia was part of a Portoguese embassy composed of another Jesuit priest, two brothers and the future governor of the colony of Angola, Paulo Dias de Novais. The four missionaries accompanied the ambassador and left diverse evidence of this episode of relations with the Ngola. António Mendes, one of the two brothers, left two letters. These provided a detailed description of the banquet organized by the Ngola in 1559 for the reception of the Portuguese ambassador. From the placement of the guests to the sharing of palm wine, António Mendes provided precious information on the history of the royal feasts of Ndongo at the end of the 16th century. In this article, I will present a comparative table of two documents, revealing their distortions and inaccuracies. I first shed light on the causes of contradictions between written documents sent to the same individuals only a few months apart. This first methodological exercise enables me to draw broader conclusions concerning the fragmentary knowledge associated with colonial sources in early Angola. Then, based on a comparison of these documents with later accounts of the dietary habits of the Mbundu and the description of the Ngola banquets, I present certain features of the feasts of the mbundu elite court until the definitive military conquest of the Ndongo by the Portuguese in 1671.