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Punu people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For the Punu or bajag people of Nilotic-abyssinian, see Nilotic-abyssinian people.

The Punu or Bapunu (Bayag) (Bapounou, Jaka, Gìpunu), are today recorded as a Bantu group of Central Africa and of the Great Lakes Region, there are one of the four major people of Gabon, inhabiting interior mountain and grassland areas. They are around the upper N'Gounié and Nyanga Rivers in Gabon. They are also located in Bandundu, Kasai in Democratic Republic of Congo. Bapunu also live in the Kibangou, Divenie and Mossendjo districts of the Republic of the Congo, in the Nkwango River area between Zambia and Angola.

They are linguistically related to the Bajagas of Lunda kingdom and to Gikuyu of Kenya grassland area; they are the original descendants of Kingdom of Aksum. According to scientific record, they migrated from the northeast region of Africa to the east coast of Axum during the kingdom pinnacle under the Queen N'Gudi meaning Queen mother in the 4th century and after the decline of the Kingdom of Aksum.

Punu or Jagas traditions records a migration from the southwest sometime as result of wars and Arab slave trade some of them then migrated southwest to the great lakes region where they settled and created their kingdom in the 13th century that was located between the Kwango River and Angola and Zambia.

In the 1600s Punu Bajag people of Lunda Kingdom were attacked by Chokwe tribesmen resulting a new migration of Punu Bajag to the northwest towards Republic of Congo through the cabinda enclave via Angola and via the Democratic Republic of Congo to kibangou district in Republic of Congo then Gabon where they settled definitely up to today. In the 17th century, they gathered rubber, Punu Bajag people were known by Portuguese colonialists as Punu Bajag warriors because they were attacking the Kongo Empire people, destroying everything in their way and causing damages and loss to both King Alfonso I and Portuguese who were doing business together at that time, they participated in Slave Trade, sending both Kongo Empire people and acquisitions from further inland to Loango and Fernan Vaz.

In the present day, the Punu-bajag are noted for their cloth made of palm fiber and for iron weaponry.

Punu and Gikuyu are the same people because after the death of Queen N'Gudi of Aksum Empire they left together and migrated to the Kilimanjaro area then a group of Gìkuyu left because of the Arab trade and migrated southwestern to great lacs area actual Zambia and the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and east of Angola. The Punu have preserved their ancestral tradition and knowledge through wooden tribal masks, jars made of clay, medieval weapons and mystical ritual techniques. Mukudji okuyi is the Punu mask of peace, protection, and fertility used during appropriate rituals to invest the ancestral spirits, it is known by all lovers of old sculptures as the most beautiful mask among African masks for its resemblance to Asian women, like the Gikuyu of Kenya. Punu Bajag praise their ancestors through the Mukudji's rituals.

The Gìpunu, ipunu or kipunu is one of the Bantu languages related to the beta-Hebrew spoken in the Kingdom of Aksum. It uses the same writing method as Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda.

Punu art

One of the well known Punu art objects are the white masks, now know as the Punu masks.The masks are life size, they can cover a persons face, they are worn by the dancers in south Gabon. When there is a major community event the dancers wear these masks, one major event would be a dance preformed for a secret society. Europeans have been trying to discover the Punu society for a long time, but not until June 1865 did the first European discover the first white mask. Later in 1925-30 Europeans had more access to the societies and the secrecy was less then before.

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  Punu Mask