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The Archives of The Zone de Bulungu and The Sous-Region du Kwilu (Region de Bandundu, Zaire): a Situation Report1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Robert Eugene Smith
Robert Eugene Smith*
Affiliation:
Institut Moanza, Zaire
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Extract

In the summers of 1971, 1976, and 1979 I visited the archives of the Zone de Bulungu, and in 1979 those of the Sous-Région du Kwilu. Both are located in the town of Bulungu, in the Région de Bandundu of Zaire. These archives have had a checkered history. The Zone de Bulungu was named Territoire du Moyen-Kwilu during much of the colonial period, with headquarters first at Niadi (about seventy kilometers north of Kikwit), then at Kikwit, and finally at Bulungu.

The capital of the Sous-Région du Kwilu has been transferred several times--from Kikwit to Bandundu (ex-Banningville) to Kikwit to Bulungu. After a look at the archives in Bulungu, I was not satisfied that all of them had been transferred there from Kikwit, but when I was in Kikwit in April of 1979 I could find nothing more, and officials of the Sous-Région de Kikwit (the city) insisted that they had all been transferred to Bulungu in 1968.

I did not get into the archives of the Région de Bandundu, but since Robert Harms drew a blank during his visit to Bandundu, I will pass on unconfirmed and indirect information that these archives were never transferred to Bandundu, and are still at Kikwit, at the Service de Sous-Région: Cultures et Arts, whose office is next to the main marketplace in Kikwit. But I also suspect that materials generated before 1962 will be found in Kinshasa, where the archives of the Province de Léopoldville are located, for it was in 1962 that the Province de Léopoldville was broken into five smaller provinces.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 9 , 1982 , pp. 371 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1982

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Footnotes

1.

Not easily accessible to most readers are the numerous reports on Zairian archives to be found in Likundoli, Série B, Archives et Documents, published by Secrétariat des publications Likundoli, CERDAC, B.P. 213, Lubumbashi (Shaba), Republic of Zaire.

References

NOTES

2. Harms, Robert, “Some Archives in the Bandundu and Equateur Regions of Zaire,” HA, 4(1977), 296.Google Scholar

3. For a short administrative history of the area see my L'administration coloniale et les villageois, Les Yansi du Nord de Bulungu, 1920-1940 (Zaïre), [Les Cahiers du CEDAF (1976–1973)], 6.Google Scholar

4. Jewsiewicki, B., “Etude analytique des archives administratives zaïroise,” (Lubumbashi, 1973)Google Scholar, mimeographed, 26 and Vellut, J.L., Guide de l'étudiant en Histoire du Zaïre, (Kinshasa, 1974), 108.Google Scholar Both of these works remain indispensable for anyone working in the archives of Zaire.

5. A useful table showing changes in area and names of the zones over time will be found in Lamal, F., Basuku et Bayaka des Districts Kwango et Kwilu au Congo (Tervuren, 1965), 301.Google Scholar