Mukulumpe
Bemba · mortal · mythic founding · Recorded classification
In the Bemba charter myth recorded by Richards and analysed by Roberts, Mukulumpe is a great chief in Kola, in Luba country to the west. He marries the sky-woman Mumbi Mukasa and fathers Katongo, Chiti, Nkole and Chilufya Mulenga. When his sons build a tower that collapses and kills people, he blinds Katongo and drives Chiti and Nkole into the exile that becomes the founding migration of the Bemba across the Luapula.
Children
Domains
- kingship
Powers
- to punish and banish his royal sons
Relations
- father of: the Founding ParamountMukulumpe is the father of Chiti (Chitimukulu), the founding paramount, whom he exiles from Kola.Andrew D. Roberts, A History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North-eastern Zambia before 1900, Longman, 1973 (secondary)
- father of: NkoleFather of Nkole, the elder migration leader.Andrew D. Roberts, A History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North-eastern Zambia before 1900, Longman, 1973 (secondary)
- father of: KatongoFather of Katongo, whom he blinds in anger.Andrew D. Roberts, A History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North-eastern Zambia before 1900, Longman, 1973 (secondary)
- father of: Chilufya MulengaFather of the ancestress Chilufya Mulenga.Andrew D. Roberts, A History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North-eastern Zambia before 1900, Longman, 1973 (secondary)
- spouse: Mumbi MukasaHusband of the sky-woman Mumbi Mukasa of the crocodile clan.Hugo F. Hinfelaar, Bemba-speaking Women of Zambia in a Century of Religious Change (1892-1992), Brill, 1994 (secondary)
Sources
- Mukulumpe is the tyrannical Luba king of Kola in the Bemba origin charter, father of the migrating royal siblings whose exile founds the Bemba polity.: Andrew D. Roberts, A History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North-eastern Zambia before 1900, Longman, 1973 (secondary); Audrey I. Richards, 'The Political System of the Bemba Tribe, North-Eastern Rhodesia', in M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (eds.), African Political Systems, Oxford University Press, 1940 (secondary)