Mubila

Mubila is the protagonist of the great heroic epic of the Lega of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a narrative of the genre the Lega call lugano. The fullest recorded version was sung in Kilega by the bard Kambara Mubila and taken down in writing by the anthropologist Daniel Biebuyck in 1953 among the western Lega of Pangi territory. Mubila is a wonder-child: he is born able to speak and walk and comes into the world already equipped with a knife, a spear, a shield, a necklace of pods, and a belt of vines. Guided by his Baya, a personified inner voice born with him, he ranges restlessly across the rainforest, provoking, fighting, and subduing adversaries such as Bungoe, Kyugukige, and Kamembe. He boasts loudly of victories that are in fact often secured by his senior wife Kabungulu, who twice restores him to life; their only son is Zakeuti. Scholars have compared Mubila with Mwindo, the epic hero of the neighboring Nyanga, as twin exemplars of the Central African forest epic.

Domains

• heroism
• journeys

Powers

• to speak and walk from the moment of birth
• to receive guidance from the personified inner voice born with him
• to travel great distances through the rainforest with superhuman speed, without using established trails

Epithets

• Kimandamanda Kyawamulume

Relations

• spouse: Kabungulu

Sources

• Biebuyck, Brunhilde. "A Boastful Man Borne by a Brave Woman: The Mubila Epic of the Lega (Democratic Republic of the Congo)." AOQU (Achilles Orlando Quixote Ulysses): Rivista di epica 4, no. 2 (2023): 135–148. DOI 10.54103/2724-3346/22203
• Biebuyck, Daniel P. "Mubila Epic (Lega, DRC): English Synopsis and Comments." Manuscript published at danielbiebuyck.com, 2016 (fieldwork recording 1953)
• Biebuyck, Daniel P. "The African Heroic Epic." Journal of the Folklore Institute 13, no. 1 (1976): 5–36