Religious Beliefs. The Luba religion shares a common cosmology and basic religious tenets with many other types of African religions. Although the Kiluba language does not have a specific word for religion, it has an extensive lexicon that describes the nature of the Supreme Being, the supernatural world, and various religious activities. The Luba belief system includes the belief in the existence of a Universal Creator (Shakapanga), the afterlife, the communion between the living and the dead, and the observance of ethical conduct as a sine qua non condition for being welcomed in the village of the ancestors after death.
The most important function of the Mbudye association was to initiate potential rulers and other officeholders into Luba esoteric knowledge. Initiation rites consisted of four stages, during which didactic devices were used to convey complex information about the origins and premises of Luba kingship. During the third level of initiation, wall paintings were used to illustrate migrations and to show sacred sites where spirits reside across the Luba landscape. During this level, each initiate adopted a spirit persona and became clairvoyant, as reflected by the white lines of enlightenment painted around the official’s eyes. But only during the fourth and final stage of lukasa did an initiate achieve full mastery of the nuances of Luba royal precepts and prohibitions. As guardians of such knowledge, Mbudye officials could remove a king from office if he transgressed the royal codes.
Among the most-important components of the Luba religion, three important figures constitute the supernatural world: Leza (Supreme God), mikishi [sing. mukishi ], which are Territorial spirits responsible for the plentifulness of game and fish or bavidye (sing: vidye), which are mighty spirits able to possess human beings and bankambo (ancestors). In the world of the living, the main figures are kitobo or nsengha (priest), the nganga (healer), and the mfwintshi (the witch, the embodiment of evil and the antithesis of the will of the ancestors). Religious activities include prayers, praise songs and formulas, dances, sacrifices, offerings, libations, and various rituals, including cleansing or purification and rites of passage. Besides prayers and invocations, means of communication with the divine include the interpretation of dreams and especially the practice of lubuko (divination) to consult the will of the ancestors before any important decision or to know the causes of misfortune. At the core of the Luba religion is the notion of bumuntu (authentic or genuine personhood) embodied in the concept of mucima muyampe (good heart) and buleme (dignity, self-respect). Bumuntu stands as the goal of human existence and as the sine qua non condition for genuine governance and genuine religiosity.
The most prestigious type of Luba divination is called Bilumbu, which accompanied the introduction of sacred kingship. According to the Luba epic, the first sacred king named Kalala Ilunga would never have acceded to the throne without the counsel and clairvoyance of a diviner named Mijibu wa Kalenga. Every Bilumbu diviner, male and female, past and present, incarnates Mijibu wa Kalenga when they enter a state of spirit possession. Spirit possession is triggered by a combination of percussive rhythms and religious songs, called "songs for twins," used to summon the spirits and to sustain their presence. Once the spirit has come to mount a diviner’s head, the diviner has the capacity to read and interpret the divinatory signs in the gourds that are used to “see” a problem and to construct meaning from misfortune. Here, a highly reputed father and son team perform morning consultations. Although the Luba notion of bulopwe is rooted in the concept of divine kingship, no one in practice identified the king with the Supreme God during the time of the Luba empire. Power was never personal; it was exercised by a body of several people. The Luba understood that the power of the king should be limited and controlled to guarantee the welfare of the people. Thus, the Luba empire was governed by an oral constitution based on the will of the ancestors (Kishila-kya-bankambo). A powerful religious lodge, the bambudye, acted as an effective check on the behaviour of the king and even had the power to execute him in case of excessive abuse of power. It was assumed that the king had to obey the mandate of heaven by governing according to the will of the ancestors. Those ideals of genuine personhood and good government had their foundation in the spiritual values inculcated by Luba religion.
The Luba religion was disseminated to the outside world by the publication of Placide Tempels’s Bantu Philosophy in 1945. The controversy generated in the international community by that book and its notion of “Bantu philosophy” placed Luba religion and thought at the centre of the vast intellectual debate that led to the birth of contemporary African philosophy and African inculturation theology.
