[1][2] It split from Mwene Muji in the early 17th century, with tradition holding its founder as Maluma Bieme.

By the end of the 19th century, Boma surpassed Mwene Muji to become the major power in the Lower Kasai region.

[3]: 36 Boma oral traditions, collected in 1926, detail how the Boma people have come to inhabit the region, following a group of leaders south down the Kwango River to escape their elders forcing them to work in mines.

They settled in three waves, creating subdivisions in the group.

The tale then goes on to detail the conquest of the region by the Ngeli, one of the elders they had fled from, thus giving the leaders of the Boma Kingdom, ngeliboma, legitimacy by being elders of the original founders, the Ntote of Mwene Muji.