Kalunga is the great Ambundu power of death, the sea, and the land of the dead — the three senses Werner (1933) records together for the word among 'the Ambundu of Angola'. In his personified guise as Lord Kalunga-ngombe ('Kalunga of the cattle'), King of the Netherworld, he is the ruler to whom the dead are gathered, and he is the antagonist of Chatelain's tale 'How Ngunza defied Death,' where he defends himself as a just rather than capricious bringer of death. The same root Kalunga is widespread among West-Central African Bantu peoples (Kongo, Chokwe, Ovimbundu), but the Death/Netherworld-king/sea cluster is here cited specifically for the Mbundu (Kimbundu). No Mbundu source assigns him kin or descent; he is figured as a primordial cosmic power rather than a member of a divine family.