Fieldwork – BantuFirst: The first Bantu speakers south of the rainforest

Jean-Pierre Donzo did BantuFirst fieldwork amongst Batwa communities in Kasai province (DRC)

From August 8 until September 2, 2023, Prof. Jean-Pierre Donzo (ISP-Gombe, Kinshasa & BantUGent) carried out a BantuFirst fieldwork mission amongst several Batwa or Pygmy communities in DRC’s Kasai Province, more specifically around the towns of Mweka and Dekese. He has inventorized and mapped the different Batwa languages in that part of the DRC as well as the Bantu languages of the communities with which they interact. He has collected audo recordings of basic lexical and grammatical data in those Bantu languages.

Guy Kouarata did linguistic and genetic fieldwork in Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa

From July 05 to August 14, 2023, Guy Noel Kouarata conducted linguistic and genetic fieldwork in Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa. The objectives of his mission were to:

Obtain authorization for linguistic and genetic research in Congo-Brazzaville;
Gather linguistic data in languages with little or no description, especially Bantu languages spoken by indigenous forager communities;
Gather extra data for an ongoing comparative study on nasal-consonant clusters in Bantu languages of Guthrie’s zones A, B, C and H;
Gather genetic data in indigenous Bantu-speaking forager communities for analysis by Carina Schlebusch’s lab at Uppsala University.

At the end of his mission, Guy managed to collect linguistic data in 25 different language communities: Ibongo from Sibiti, Teke from Zanage, Ibwisi from Loubetsi, Tsayi from Lioueme, Ndasa from Bambama, Mikaya from Peke, Bambenzele from Mokouanzo, Pomo from Kabo, Bomwali from Mabelou, Lino from Kabo, Ngombé (Ligbaka) from Sembe, Itswa from Ngo, Mosien from Moseno, Likouala from Mossaka, Likouba from Loboko, Doondo from Loutete, Bongili from Pikounda, Njem from Souanke, Mboko from Mbomo, Moyi from Makotipoko, Fumu from Kintele, Kukuya from Djambala, Ibali from Mpila, Nzikini from Ossele and Bomitaba from Epena.

He furthermore obtained 59 saliva samples for genetic analysis amongst the Mikaya, Ngombé, Babongo, Atswa and Bambenzele communities.

Negotiations with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research fruitfully resulted in a one-year authorization for linguistic and genetic research in the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville).

BantuFirst Stone Age archaeology fieldwork in Kwilu Province, DRC

From July 13 until July 27, 2023, Prof. Igor Matonda (UNIKIN, Kinshasa), Dr. Isis Mesfin (Museum of Natural History in Paris), Isidore Nkanu (UNIKIN, Kinshasa), and Ilo Ondel Holy (IMNC, Kinshasa) carried out a short fieldwork mission focussing on the Stone Age archaeology of the Bagata and Luani sites in the Kwilu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Igor Matonda, Isidore Nkanu, and Isis Mesfin

New archaeological fieldwork along the Kwilu and Kasai Rivers

BantuFirst team member Peter Coutros has just returned from an archaeological field mission in the DRC. Between August 16 and September 29, Dr. Coutros and Prof. Igor Matonda Sakala (UniKin & BantUgent associate) returned with their team to the Kwilu and Kasai Rivers for continued research and community outreach. This year, they were conducting survey of new areas as well as returning for more intensive investigations at locations identified during the 2021 mission. More than 50 new sites were identified – dating from the Middle Stone Age through the Early Iron Age – and excavations were conducted at numerous sites along the two rivers.

A ceremony led by the village elders at Mashita Mbanza prior to excavations.

Prof. Matonda [center] overseeing the second year of excavations at Kikundi along the Kwilu River.

The team and community members at Bagata Mukea standing over trench 1 after excavations.

Team member Arnold Mabuaka [Institut des Museés Nationaux de Congo] taking depth measurements during excavations at the village of Mfubakwan.

Jean-Pierre Donzo & Marie-Faustine Beloko do BantuFirst fieldwork amongst Batwa communities in Sankuru province (DRC)

From September 13 until October 4, 2022, Prof. Jean-Pierre Donzo (ISP-Gombe, Kinshasa & BantUGent) & Marie-Faustine Beloko (ISP-Gombe, Kinshasa) carry out a BantuFirst fieldwork mission amongst several Batwa or Pygmy communities in the Lomela territory of DRC’s Sankuru Province. They aim at inventorizing and mapping the different Batwa languages in that part of the DRC and collecting audo recordings of basic lexical and grammatical data in those Bantu languages. It is an exploratory mission to prepare a more in-depth documentation project.

Marie-Faustine Beloko upon arrival in Lodja

Jean-Pierre Donzo upon arrival in Lomela after three days of travel by motorbike

Jean-Pierre Donzo & Marie-Faustine Beloko working with Loonga speakers in Lodja

Jean-Pierre Donzo with Lokeka Batwa consultants not far from Lomela

Sara Pacchiarotti & Koen Bostoen on fieldwork and teaching mission in Kikwit (DRC)

From August 6 until August 30, 2022, Sara Pacchiarotti & Koen Bostoen are on a BantuFirst mission in the DRC. They mainly stay with Prof. Joseph Koni Muluwa (ISP Kikwit & BantUGent associate) in Kikwit where they are doing linguistic fieldwork on several West-Coastal Bantu languages, most notably Eastern and Western Ngwi (B861). They also teach classes in Methods in Linguistic Research (Sara) and Comparative Bantu Linguistics (Koen) at the MA1 students of the English and African Cultures program at the Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Kikwit. In Kinshasa they work with Prof. Jean-Pierre Donzo Yugia (ISP-Gombe & BantUGent associate) on other West-Coastal Bantu languages, mainly Northern Boma (B82).

Sara Pacchiarotti teaching Methods in Linguistic Research at ISP-Kikwit

Home languages of students in Koen Bostoen’s Comparative Bantu class

Sara Pacchiarotti with some students of her Methods in Linguistic Research class at ISP-Kikwit

Eric Lamur, Freddy Empenge, and Alain Ntuntu (left-to-right) transcribing Ding, Ngwi and Lwer data respectively at Joseph Koni Muluwa’s house

New Teke fieldwork by Guy Kouarata in Congo-Kinshasa/Brazzaville

From June 28 until August 13, 2022, Guy Kouarata is doing again linguistic BantuFirst fieldwork on lesser known varieties of the Teke group (Bantu, B70), both in Congo-Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville. Just like during his 2021 fieldwork campaign, he will collect new data to feed several ongoing historical-comparative linguistic investigations aiming at a better understanding of their classification within West-Coastal Bantu.

Peter Coutros and Igor Matonda on an archaeological fieldwork mission along the Kwilu-Kasai-Loange river network (DRC)

Peter Coutros (BantUGent) and Igor Matonda (UNIKIN), together with their team of local assistants including Isidore Nkanu, left early August from Kikwit (Kwilu Province, DRC) on a 6-week archaeological fieldwork mission along the Kwilu-Kasai-Loange river network as part of the BantuFirst project. They will also explore the Kasai-Kamtsha confluence area in the proximity of which linguists of the BantuFirst team have situated the new West-Coastal Bantu homeland.

Lorenzo Maselli and Jean-Pierre Donzo’s BantuFirst fieldwork mission in Mai Ndombe Province (DRC)

Congolese gestures in Inongo

Italian gestures in Inongo

The Province of Mai-Ndombe from above

Explaining genetic research at ISP Inongo

Community gathering in Bolingo

Lorenzo Maselli (BantUGent), a PhD student affiliated with the BantuFirst team, recently came back from a field mission in the DRC that was financed to a large extent by the BantuFirst project. On this research trip, Lorenzo was accompanied by Jean-Pierre Donzo, a former PhD candidate at our department, currently professor in African Linguistics at the ISP Gombe, in Kinshasa. The two met up in Kinshasa on May 21, 2021, and remained together until July 12, when Lorenzo flew back to Belgium. The area where they conducted their research primarily centred around the Province of Mai-Ndombe (in an ecoregion defined as “forest-savanna mosaic”). Specifically, they worked in the provincial capital Inongo, in a number of hunter-gatherer villages NE of Inongo, namely Bobangi-Sept, Douze, Quinze and Bolingo-Trentesept, and finally in Nioki.

The stays in Kinshasa allowed Lorenzo and Jean-Pierre to fill up on fieldwork paraphernalia, arrange meetings with local scholars, relevant political figures and members of local Twa communities. They were also paramount in establishing first contacts with collaborators in Inongo and Nioki, in organising a conference at the ISP Gombe, and in planning long-term research strategy proposals with several colleagues in the DRC.

While out in the field, the team focussed on acoustic data collection, saliva sampling for molecular anthropological research, organising conferences at the local ISPs, and furthering contacts with the local Twa communities. Data were collected on more than 20 language varieties, with special focus on Sakata (esp. Kingingia, Kinzinzale, Kingingele, Kitere, Kibayi), Mpe, Nunu, North Boma, Nunu Bobangi, and several Lotwa varieties. As for BantUGent’s collaboration with Uppsala’s Human Evolution Programme within the Department of Organismal Biology, saliva samples were also collected and then shipped to Sweden.

The research perspectives for this fieldwork mission are extremely promising. For a phonetician and phonologist, the Mai-Ndombe represents a fruitful field of enquiry, as a number of arguably uncommon phenomena can be found there. The first analytical steps should be oriented towards: (i) retroflex consonants in North Boma, Nunu, and, to a lesser extent, Mpe; (ii) Sakata labial-velars; and (iii) Lotwa trill/retroflex consonants. Subsequent steps include: phonological descriptions of the sound systems at hand, wider-range acoustic surveys of the same sounds, aerodynamic and articulatory studies.

Guy Kouarata’s BantuFirst fieldwork mission in the DRC and Congo

From April 16 to June 16, 2021, Guy Kouarata carried out a BantuFirst fieldwork mission in the territories of Mbandaka, Maluku, Kwamouth, and Kinshasa of the DRC and in the area north of Brazzaville in Congo. His mission had two main objectives:

Collecting linguistic data, mainly comparative vocabulary lists, in 7 poorly described Teke languages
Gathering genetic data to contribute the demographic history of West-Coastal Bantu speakers and neighboring speech communities.

The linguistic fieldwork was guided by the linguistic map of Teke varieties below, which Sara Pacchiarotti established through a thorough literature review.

Linguistic fieldwork

In the end, Guy collected comparative lists of 650 words in 11 different Teke varieties, i.e. Tswaara, Kisi-Nzali, Kitiimi, Kinkuu, Bakikimi, Kikaan, Esinginyi, Engungwel, Ibua-yuo, Ibuu-mbakana and the variety of Boku. He first traveled by car from Kinshasa to the towns of Mbakana, Yuo and Boku in the DRC. However, due to the poor road conditions and engine failures, he went back to Kinshasa and continued his journey by boat using the river network to reach Nkaana, Ibali, Bokala, Ngandambo, Ngaliem and Camp Bankuu, all in the DRC. Back again in Kinshasa, he crossed the Congo River to take the Brazzaville-Ngo road, then Ngo-Mpuya before crossing the river again to reach the locality of Tshumbiri in the DRC. On his return, taking advantage of his proximity to the town of Gamboma, he also collected Engunwel data. Back in Brazzaville, he also gathered Kidondo data for ongoing research by Heidi Goes and Koen Bostoen (BantUGent).

Genetic fieldwork

The collection of genetic data involves taking saliva samples from the speech communities targeted. Hair, fingernails and saliva are the keys to a person’s life in Africa. Whoever owns one of these owns your life. Convincing people to donate saliva is therefore not easy, even less in a pandemic when there is much speculation and rumor. Guy therefore had to create awareness by explaining well the scientific purposes of the interdisciplinary BantuFirst research. The sensitization campaign involved the close assistance of local chiefs, pastors, and other opinion leaders. In the end, through 9 sampling sessions, Guy succeeded with the help of his assistants in obtaining 597 samples in total, 246 from women and 351 from men.