{"id":7202,"date":"2009-11-23T10:33:55","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T09:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/?p=7202"},"modified":"2011-03-28T15:53:04","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T13:53:04","slug":"the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Punu <\/strong>is the <strong>language<\/strong> of the Bapunu, second largest ethnic group in<strong> Gabon<\/strong> in terms of population. It\u2019s a <strong>Bantu language<\/strong>, spoken in the Tchibanga area.\u00a0The increasingly important movement of Bapunu people towards larger urban areas is causing a gradual loss of their <strong>language<\/strong> and <strong>cultural knowledge<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h5>What&#8217;s the Mumbwanga?<\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Mumbwanga is one of the main founding narratives of the <strong>Punu <\/strong>ethnic group (whose <strong>language<\/strong>, <strong>Punu<\/strong>, is a <strong>Bantu language<\/strong> mainly spoken in the south-west of <strong>Gabon<\/strong>). 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\u2019s hold.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The difficulties met upon recollection of this narrative in several <strong>Punu<\/strong> villages along the summer of 2009 showed how fast the ethnic group\u2019s founding tale is disappearing from collective memory. Nowadays very few storytellers are able to produce the Mumbwanga epic in its full version.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Our team met Tchibanga mayor Kwenzi Mickala during the shooting sessions. He told us about the decline of the <strong>Punu traditional epic<\/strong> and how important he considers its<strong> preservation <\/strong>for future generations.<\/p>\n<h5>Save the Mumbwanga<\/h5>\n<p><object width=\"610\" height=\"370\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/vwCRLf2rUz8?fs=1&amp;hl=fr_FR&amp;rel=0\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/vwCRLf2rUz8?fs=1&amp;hl=fr_FR&amp;rel=0\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"610\" height=\"370\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<h5>The Mumbwanga &#8211; 1st part<\/h5>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"610\" height=\"370\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/ljqFiJ0qIBY?fs=1&amp;hl=fr_FR&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"610\" height=\"370\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/ljqFiJ0qIBY?fs=1&amp;hl=fr_FR&amp;rel=0\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<h5>The Mumbwanga &#8211; 2nd part<\/h5>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"610\" height=\"370\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/C_uv7Saslp4?fs=1&amp;hl=fr_FR&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"610\" height=\"370\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/C_uv7Saslp4?fs=1&amp;hl=fr_FR&amp;rel=0\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 10px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Linguist<\/span> : Jean-Marie Hombert<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 10px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Image<\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> and sound<\/span><\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: none;\"> <\/span>: Luc-Henri Fage<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 10px; margin: 0px;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Montage<\/span> : Caroline Laurent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Punu is the language of the Bapunu, second largest ethnic group in Gabon in terms of population. It\u2019s a Bantu language, spoken in the Tchibanga area.\u00a0The increasingly important movement of Bapunu people towards larger urban areas is causing a gradual loss of their language and cultural knowledge. What&#8217;s the Mumbwanga? The Mumbwanga is one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-of-the-week"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon - Sorosoro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon - Sorosoro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Punu is the language of the Bapunu, second largest ethnic group in Gabon in terms of population. It\u2019s a Bantu language, spoken in the Tchibanga area.\u00a0The increasingly important movement of Bapunu people towards larger urban areas is causing a gradual loss of their language and cultural knowledge. What&#8217;s the Mumbwanga? The Mumbwanga is one of [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sorosoro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-23T09:33:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-03-28T13:53:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rozenn Milin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rozenn Milin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rozenn Milin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd9df1e0efca59879d3133588ff0dfc1\"},\"headline\":\"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-23T09:33:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-28T13:53:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\"},\"wordCount\":234,\"articleSection\":[\"All the videos\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\",\"name\":\"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon - Sorosoro\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-23T09:33:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-28T13:53:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd9df1e0efca59879d3133588ff0dfc1\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Accueil\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/\",\"name\":\"Sorosoro\",\"description\":\"Pour que vivent les langues du monde !\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd9df1e0efca59879d3133588ff0dfc1\",\"name\":\"Rozenn Milin\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/author\/rozenn-milin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon - Sorosoro","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon - Sorosoro","og_description":"Punu is the language of the Bapunu, second largest ethnic group in Gabon in terms of population. It\u2019s a Bantu language, spoken in the Tchibanga area.\u00a0The increasingly important movement of Bapunu people towards larger urban areas is causing a gradual loss of their language and cultural knowledge. What&#8217;s the Mumbwanga? The Mumbwanga is one of [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/","og_site_name":"Sorosoro","article_published_time":"2009-11-23T09:33:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-03-28T13:53:04+00:00","author":"Rozenn Milin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rozenn Milin","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/"},"author":{"name":"Rozenn Milin","@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd9df1e0efca59879d3133588ff0dfc1"},"headline":"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon","datePublished":"2009-11-23T09:33:55+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-28T13:53:04+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/"},"wordCount":234,"articleSection":["All the videos"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/","url":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/","name":"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon - Sorosoro","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-11-23T09:33:55+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-28T13:53:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd9df1e0efca59879d3133588ff0dfc1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2009\/11\/the-mumbwanga-of-the-punu\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Accueil","item":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Mumbwanga : an epic of the Punu in Gabon"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/","name":"Sorosoro","description":"Pour que vivent les langues du monde !","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/dd9df1e0efca59879d3133588ff0dfc1","name":"Rozenn Milin","url":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/author\/rozenn-milin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}