The Archives of The Zone de Bulungu and The Sous-Region du Kwilu (Region de Bandundu, Zaire)

In the summers of 1971, 1976, and 1979 I visited the archives of the Zone de Bulungu, and in 1979 those of the Sous-Région du Kwilu. Both are located in the town of Bulungu, in the Région de Bandundu of Zaire. These archives have had a checkered history. The Zone de Bulungu was named Territoire du Moyen-Kwilu during much of the colonial period, with headquarters first at Niadi (about seventy kilometers north of Kikwit), then at Kikwit, and finally at Bulungu. The capital of the Sous-Région du Kwilu has been transferred several times--from Kikwit to Bandundu (ex-Banningville) to Kikwit to Bulungu. After a look at the archives in Bulungu, I was not satisfied that all of them had been transferred there from Kikwit, but when I was in Kikwit in April of 1979 I could find nothing more, and officials of the Sous-Région de Kikwit (the city) insisted that they had all been transferred to Bulungu in 1968. I did not get into the archives of the Région de Bandundu, but since Robert Harms drew a blank during his visit to Bandundu, I will pass on unconfirmed and indirect information that these archives were never transferred to Bandundu, and are still at Kikwit, at the Service de Sous-Région: Cultures et Arts, whose office is next to the main marketplace in Kikwit. But I also suspect that materials generated before 1962 will be found in Kinshasa, where the archives of the Province de Léopoldville are located, for it was in 1962 that the Province de Léopoldville was broken into five smaller provinces

Archaeology · Art · Capital (architecture · Ethnology · Geography · Humanities · Nothing · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · History

• Objects of Love and Decay

  Open Access•Liam Buckley•Cultural Anthropology•2005

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• Some Archives in the Bandundu and Equateur Regions of Zaire

  Open Access•Robert Harms•History in Africa•1977

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