The eaters of copper

We now know that the copper produces by the indigenous smelters of the Katanga arrived already to the XVI e century until the Atlantic coast of Angola and of there in Europe: << twasabikile kumpuani >>, << we pierced until the sea >>, said an old that had made the journey: a journey of one year and half! Northbound, one recovers the trace of it since the Coast of Ivory and Ghana until Sudan. To the East and to the southeast, he/it had reached the ocean Indian for a long time and one pretends that he/it would have been exported until the Indies. Since one imprecise time, the croisette katangaise acted as currency on a vast tropical Africa market. The power of purchase of the copper was hardly lower to the one of ivory: a big croisette of 50 kg (mwepu) represented a woman's price, but the precise tradition that it was necessary to add a small croisette to the big when the woman offered exceptional qualities! One tried to encode this historic production. Of the time of the Bayeke invasion (1850) to the definitive stop of the indigenous exploitation in 1903, does one value between 10 to 15 tons per year, either about 700 tons for this half century of activity. But since when the soil katangais did he/it have delivered his/her/its secret? No one knows it.

Smelter's PROFESSION was a sacred profession imprinted of a mysterious size. The profession was a "bwanga", a sect, what supposes an admission and an initiation. One recovers here the law of the work division and the spontaneous organization in corporations of professions similar to the one of the Middle Ages European, containing masters, mates and apprentices and propertied code, status, privileges and duties. The corporation had, his/her/its professional secrets, his/her/its traditions, his/her/its rituals superstitieuxs that himself mélaient closely to the technique of work. The wizard had, understandably, his/her/its word to say: the instant when the beautiful ore of emerald changes itself mysteriously in liquid not dazzling yours it not of the magic? It is the one where the minds of the mountain show their power: they touch the stone and pull wealth of it: the precious liquid, the water of copper, "even has mukuba!" The songs to their paroxysm protest in the night: "On the summit of Kalabi stands up in high furnace a high furnace to the large stomach inheritance of our father Lupadila, a high furnace where the copper trickles and ripple. Oh, my mother, oh, my mother! "

THE CAMPAIGN of copper organized itself to the dry season, after the harvest of sorghum, toward the mid-May. The chief of the village gave himself of it the signal: "tuye tukadie mukuba", "let's go, he/it said, to eat the copper! ". Because to eat that eat, to develop itself/themselves, to become richer. The mines were, as the cultivated earth, collective property of the tribe, only the dug wells or the open career belonged in essence to the individual or to the group of individuals that there worked. Everybody left to the harvest of ore: the women and the children gleaned in surface the malachite, only ore kept for his/her/its wealth and named "lutete". The men dug to the peak. Certianes excavations reached until 35 meters of depth but generally they didn't pass 10 to 15 meters, the most extended galleries went until 20 meters.

THE actual metallurgic OPERATIONS only began toward the mid-August after three months of extraction. The fusion continued until October. In high flying or permanent furnaces, prepared with the help of the earth of termitière - this precious recalcitrant matter so providentially répendue in the Katanga - supplied in buchettes and in coal of wood, and activated by bellows in skin of antelope, the" amgeurs of copper" first of all conducted then the wire fencing to the reduction so-called propement of ore and finally, in another furnace to the refinement of the raw copper and to the stream of the ingots. The ingots of the west zone flowed in the shape of cross of Saint-André, the "croisettes", served as is of currency. The Bayekes, in the region of the center, transformed their copper in thread, hoes and bullets of rifles. This wire-drawing was of a big ingenuity. He/it made himself/itself several operations. An ingot of 15 cm first stretched by martelage to hot on an anvil of stone could be then tréfilé in one path made of iron (dikombe) until 15 m, giving the big thread (kiumba) of which one made the bracelets serving to the exchange. But it could be reduced again until a thread of 2 mm (kwebele) and even of 5/10 of mm (msambe) for the confection of the famous "mutuga", bracelets of thin thread of copper rolled up on a soul of flexible fibers.

THE MAIN Basangas are the most former "eaters of copper" knew. All as today, there was in the Katanga three main centers of exploitation, but that were flourishing to different times: the one of the southeast, the one of the center between the Lufira and the Lualaba, the one of the west. numerous mines of the Mining union were exploited thus previously by the "eaters of copper" before being abandoned by them in the beginning of the century, to start with the famous mine of the star. And where sound today the mechanical incantations of the powerful modern industry, in Kipushi, Shituru, Kambove, Kakanda, Kolwezi, Musonoi, one can, while closing the eyes, to imagine one instant passed it,: "the wizards pronounce the magic words. The ritual songs rise in the mysterious night. The dances rhythmize the work that takes place like an office... ", and the invocation of the forebears kept all his/her/its significance: "You preceded us... "