Posts

Mythologies of the Georgian/Kartvelian Tribes

Image
The prehistory of Georgia is the period between the first human habitation of the territory of modern-day nation of Georgia and the time when Assyrian and Urartian , and more firmly, the Classical accounts, brought the proto-Georgian tribes into the scope of  recorded history .  Humans have been living in Georgia for an extremely long time, as attested by the discoveries, in 1999 and 2002, of two Homo erectus skulls ( H. e. georgicus ) at Dmanisi in southern Georgia. The archaeological layer in which the human remains, hundreds of stone tools and numerous animal bones were unearthed is dated approximately 1.6-1.8 million years ago (since the underlying basalt lava bed yielded an age of approximately 1.8 million years). The site yields the earliest unequivocal evidence for presence of early humans outside the African continent.   Later Lower Paleolithic Acheulian sites have been discovered in the highlands of Georgia, particularly in the caves of Kudaro (1600 ...

Mythologies of the Bakuba/Kuba Tribes

Image
"People of the throwing knife"   The Kuba Kingdom , also known as the Kingdom of the Bakuba or Bushongo , is a traditional kingdom in Central Africa . The Kuba Kingdom flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries in the region bordered by the Sankuru , Lulua , and Kasai rivers in the heart of the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo .  The Kuba Kingdom was a conglomerate of several smaller Bushong-speaking principalities as well as the Kete, Coofa , Mbeengi , and the Kasai Twa Pygmies . The original Kuba migrated during the 16th century from the north. Nineteen ethnic groups are included in the kingdom, which still exists and is presided over by the King ( nyim ).  The kingdom began as a conglomeration of several chiefdoms of various ethnic groups with no real central authority. In approximately 1625, an individual from outside the area known as Shyaam a-Mbul a Ngoong usurped the position of one of the area rulers and united all the chiefdoms under his leader...