Kabungulu is the senior wife of the epic hero Mubila and the effective co-protagonist of the Lega heroic narrative sung by the bard Kambara Mubila and recorded by Daniel Biebuyck in 1953. Repeatedly, when Mubila is checked or overwhelmed, she intervenes decisively: she vanquishes enemies with a sweep of her loincloth, enters hostile villages in the guise of a runaway woman to undo warriors such as Bungoe, Kyugukige, and Kamembe, and twice brings the slain Mubila back to life with an eye-philter. She is the mother of the hero's only son, Zakeuti. Recent scholarship emphasizes that the boastful hero would not prevail without her, reading the epic as a meditation on complementary male and female power among the Lega.