Bulanda

One of Nkongolo's two sisters and a wife of Mbidi Kiluwe; in de Heusch's recension the mother of the founder-king Kalala Ilunga, hence an ancestress of the Luba dynasty. SOURCE DIVERGENCE: de Heusch (the anchor) makes Bulanda the mother of Kalala (and Mabela the mother of Kisula); a competing popular/Wikipedia tradition reverses this (Mabela → Kalala, Bulanda → the Lunda founder Tshibinda Ilunga). Authored as a deity to keep her in the same autochthonous, charter-level register as her brother Nkongolo and sister Mabela, rather than as a historical mortal. era mythic.

Children

• Kalala Ilunga

Domains

• royal motherhood

Powers

• Bears the founder-king of the dynasty

Relations

• sibling: Nkongolo Mwamba
• sibling: Mabela
• spouse: Mbidi Kiluwe
• mother of: Kalala Ilunga

Sources

• Luc de Heusch, The Drunken King, or The Origin of the State (1982) — Mbidi's wives Bulanda and Mabela; Bulanda's son is Kalala Ilunga
• Thomas Q. Reefe, The Rainbow and the Kings (1981)