BATS ET CONTROVERSES JOHN THORNTON Résurrection for thé Jaga In an earlier issue of Cahiers tudes africaines Joseph Miller sounded Requiem for thé Jaga .1 While work on separating fact from fancy in both the loth-century and the 20th-century literature on number of Central African population movements is welcome addition to the historiography there are some issues that remain unclear in full understanding of the Jaga phenomena in African history In particular it seems Miller has gone bit too far in removing the Jaga from history as he has replaced the ferocious cannibal warriors described by Pigafetta in 1591 with an internal rising of one ormore Kongo prov inces aided perhaps by some ambitious external powers Tyo and Matamba are suggested in the defense of lucrative trade routes.2 work is beneficial in that it clearly separates the Imbangala movement from that of the Jaga in Kongo and clears up great deal of confusion about Imbangala and Jaga in Angola region where Miller is clearly expert.3 On the other hand work opens up number of questions about Jaga in Kongo which need to be examined in the same light and with the same critical approach he applied to Angola even if we cannot accept his reconstruction of the 1568 invasion of Kongo Miller has suggested that the presence of Jaga in Kongo is more product of European mythology than of actual historical fact He has suggested that they represent species of punishing barbarian common to the Old Testament and inserted by Filippo Pigafetta as an object lesson to Christian nations into the only near contemporary source that describes the Jaga invasion.4 There cannot be any doubt that Pigafetta does not refrain from employing moralistic object lesson idiom throughout his description of Kongo history In several other instances Pigafetta suggests that the sins of the Kongo in turning from Chris tianity were punished by various disasters from civil wars to plagues.6 However the fact that we may not necessarily accept the cause of these events as divine punishment does not mean that we should doubt the reality of the civil wars plagues or invasions Surely no modern historian will accept that the Jaga invaded Kongo as divine punishment but this does not permit us to doubt the essential recon struction of the events of 1568 as follows group of rootless warriors who lived like shepherds without permanent abode invaded Kongo from the east passing through Mbata province then proceeding to Mbanza Kongo and sacking the city forcing the king and his court to flee and seek Portuguese aid The Portuguese came with large body of soldiers under Francisco de Gouveia and combined Kongo-Portuguese military force eventually succeeded in driving the Jaga out

Cahiers tudes africaines 69-70 XVIII-l-2 pp 223-22