In the Kongo Kingdom and its vassals (Loango, Kakongo, Ngoyo), the woven arts were emblematic of kingship and nobility. The coarse filament stripped from the fronds of the raffia palm tree served as the foundation of the Kongo weaving arts. This material imposed constraints that were overcome to produce varied and ingenious textile formats and structures. Raffia cloth (singular : Lubongo, Libongo, plural : Mbongo; also called Mpusu) was used as currency.[1][2][3][4]
- ^ P. Edoumba, Aperçu sur les monnaies d'Afrique, p. 111, Revue-Numismatique, 2001
- ^ Phyllis M. Martin, Power, Cloth and Currency on the Loango Coast, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986
- ^ Alain Anselin, Résistances africaines sur la Côte d'Angola au XVIIIe siècle, Présence Africaine, 2006
- ^ M. Yandesa Mavuzi, Histoire et numismatique des monnaies du Congo du XVe siècle à nos jours ou Les monnaies du Congo - L’histoire et la numismatique, Weyrich Edition, 2015