Basimba people Clan names
Clan
The Basimba people Culture is the way of their life, general customs and beliefs of a particular Basimba sub-division group of Clan at a particular time.
The Basimba Clan refers to the network of families with their surnames names of family history. It serves the Basimba people as a constant chant to remind them of the histories they are tied to within their culture. The Basimba people know a lot about a Musimba a Basimba particular group through his Clan, family names. This often allows for certain protocols to be followed. In Culture of Africa, when one comes upon someone with a certain Basimba Clan name they automatically know where they are from. The Basimba people Clan naming is a cultural science perfected by the Clan thousands of years ago. In the Basimba people culture even individuals have totems. These totems may be related to something within their destinies, some historical event that they were a seminal part of, a call upon them by the spirits, the taking on of a new responsibility or title, a wish by the Basimba people Ancestors.
Basimba Clan Sub-Divisions
Among the Basimba people settlements sub-divisions were created called ‘’ new settlement’’ (Muwuluko). The connection being that the originator of a particular Basimba group was separated from the main body and built a new settlement. These Basimba people new settlements arose from various reasons, such as;- (1) If a Musimba Clan member leaves his fathers family and settles in a new area, but keeps contact with his father’s family. The Basimba founder of a new settlement becomes after several generations its head and not the Clan head as he would be if he has severed all connections with his father’s original home. (2) When a Basimba people Clan group grows too big it is found practicable to divide the members into smaller family units for easier dealing with such matters as inheritance, maintenance of female descendants, etc. The senior member of each of these new sub-divisions became the Muwuluko head. (3) If quarrels break out among the Basimba Clan members and relatives take sides, each side constitutes itself as a sub-division with its senior member as its Muwuluko head and either adopted a new totem.
Totem
The Basimba people Primary and secondary totems are looked upon in entirely different lights. The primary totem is real taboo among the Basimba people, it may not be killed, eaten, touched and in some cases not even looked upon, but the secondary totem is a friendlier thing altogether and is often described by the Basimba people as the brother of the Clan.
For example, the Omugurusi of the Basimba Dog Clan is Mauwe. On the day of his birth a dog also had puppies. The dog often cleaned the child by licking it. Mauwe later, out of gratitude, ordered his Basimba descendants to consider the dog as their friend and the dog became the secondary totem of the Clan.
Basimba people Clan system are central to their culture. A Clan represents a group of people who can trace their lineage to a common ancestor, in some distant past. In the customs of the Basimba, lineage is passed down along patrilineal lines. The Clan essentially forms a large extended family and all members of a given Clan regard each other as brothers and sisters regardless of how far removed from one another in terms of actual blood ties.
The Basimba people take great care to trace their ancestry through this Clan structure. A formal introduction of a Musimba includes his own names, the names of his father and paternal grandfather, as well as a description of the family's lineage within the Clan group that it belongs to.
The Clan has a hierarchical structure with the Clan leader at the top (great lineal ancestor), followed by successive subdivisions of the lineal ancestors and finally at the bottom the individual family unit (house). Every Musimba is required to know where he falls within each of these subdivisions and anyone who could not relate his ancestry fully is suspect of not being a true Musimba.
The Basimba people Clans are not known by the names of the respective Clan founders. Totems were adopted by the four Basimba Clans and the names of these totems came to be synonymous with the Clans themselves. Each Basimba people Clan have a main totem and a secondary totem.
The four Basimba Clans are usually known by their main totem similar to the Aboriginal Australiansand among the Basimba people the Leopard Clan is a royal Clan.
The leopard totem is often associated with royalty and high chieftain (male and female). It is widespread in Africa as the symbol for the king. You will see many African kings sitting upon leopard skin or resting their feet on the skin of the leopard. Some drape themselves in leopard skin and you can see this all the way back to ancient Nubia.
The Clan is a matter of genealogy and it is through the Clan that the Basimba people trace their ancestry. A totem on the other hand, is just a symbol to represent the Clan. Although the two are intimately associated with one another, they are in fact different. In the west, a totem would be similar to a court of arms. The four Basimba people Clan totems are the leopard, Dog, Frog and the Rooster.
Naming
One of the Basimba people strongest manifestations of the four Clan spirit is in the traditional naming conventions. The Basimba people are patrimonialism society, everyone automatically takes on his father's Clan at birth. However, the new born child is considered to be a child of the whole Clan and not just the individual father. A Musimba child does not assume the father's name. Instead, each of the four Basimba Clan has a pool of names from which a name is selected and given to the child. Since the Basimba people Clan names are well known, a person's Clan is readily identified from their name but not necessarily the person's parents. Each Basimba family has retained its autonomy as a unit , it is nonetheless considered part of the bigger Clan family. The Basimba Leopard Clan Genealogy, their Descendants,names for men are Katunku, Mwati, Ngulya, Kaabya, Kooli, Kitembwa, Kabolesa, Ntembe and women are named Nakatunku, Namwati, Nangulya, Nakaabya, Nakooli, Nakitembwa, Nakabolesa, Nantembe among others. The sub-division names of Basimba Dog Clan for men is Mauwe among others and for the Basimba Frog Clan are Kadukulu, Ndanda, Bulikimu and for women is Nakadukulu, Nandanda, Nabulikimu among their sub-division Clan names.
Customs
The Basimba people custom is that one is not supposed to marry into one's Clan or that of one's mother. This type of system is referred to as being exogamy. Similarly, one is not supposed to eat the totem of one's Clan. Also, one is not supposed to eat the totem of the mother's Clan.
The Basimba people have a Chishimba stone and this stone represents the Chishimba spirit which came from Buluba and is related to the institution of kingship. Its absence constitutes the absence of power. According to Traditional African religions and Veneration of the dead ,the Basimba people practice both Totem and Animal worship, dedicated to the Chishimba spirit which is synonymous to kingship. Its importance in the institution of kingship is similar to that attached to Shila tradition. The Chishimba stone is kept in a specially prepared basket called Embuga. It is wrapped with bark cloth and kept in a specifically prepared shrine (Esabbo lye jembe lye Chishimba) dedicated to the spirit.
Basimba people make periodic prayers at the Chishimba shrine for the peace and prosperity of the Clan. Before these prayers are offered the Basimba people draped themselves with a leopard skin sing, calling the spirits of their ancestors while holding one of the ancestors spear and then blood of an animal killed specifically for this purpose is sprinkled round the shrine with local beer as an invocation to the spirit, similar to Loa or Lwa practice by their Basimba people in Haiti of Kongo origin who were sold as slaves.
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