The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon

Punu is the language of the Bapunu, second largest ethnic group in Gabon in terms of population. It’s a Bantu language, spoken in the Tchibanga area. The increasingly important movement of Bapunu people towards larger urban areas is causing a gradual loss of their language and cultural knowledge.

What’s the Mumbwanga?

The Mumbwanga is one of the main founding narratives of the Punu ethnic group (whose language, Punu, is a Bantu language mainly spoken in the south-west of Gabon). This epic relates the adventures of Mumbwanga, a young man on a quest to find his sister, Marandu, who has been married to a monster. Mumbwanga encounters many obstacles which he succeeds to overcome, eventually freeing his sister from her husband’s hold.

The difficulties met upon recollection of this narrative in several Punu villages along the summer of 2009 showed how fast the ethnic group’s founding tale is disappearing from collective memory. Nowadays very few storytellers are able to produce the Mumbwanga epic in its full version.

Our team met Tchibanga mayor Kwenzi Mickala during the shooting sessions. He told us about the decline of the Punu traditional epic and how important he considers its preservation for future generations.