The Chokwe people, known by many other names (including Kioko, Bajokwe, Chibokwe, Kibokwe, Ciokwe, Cokwe or Badjok), are a Bantu ethnic group of Central and Southern Africa.

This weather had a huge impact on village life; the Chokwe farmed, hunted, fished, and built houses according to the changing of the seasons.

The Chokwe have many neighbors that consist of the Lunda, Pende, Mbangani, and Kete to the North; Minungu, Lwena, Luchazi, Mbwela, and Mbundato the East; Holo, Mbundu, Imbangala, Songo, and Ovimbundu to the West; and the Kwanyama to the South.

Reacting to this changing status quo, civil unrest amongst the Chokwe grew into violence; by 1961, a war broke out in Angola, which ultimately ended in 1975 when the Portuguese left the country.

[8][9] The Lunda nobles of Angola employed the Chokwe as soldiers to counterattack the new colonial influence acting against the old political powers.

Once the Chokwe people had weaponry, however, they overthrew the Lunda nobles and enslaved foreign tribesmen on their own plantations following the second half of the 19th-century and the early decades of the 20th.

In the upper Zambezi river and Kasai regions particularly, they were once a victim of well-armed Portuguese or Belgian raids from the West and Arab-Swahili raids from east (such as by Tippu Tip also known as Hamad bin Muhammad el Murjebi[10]); later, the Chokwe people joined the violence and victimized others by capturing and shipping out a substantial number of captured slaves for financial gains, as well as purchasing and keeping slave women in their own homes from the profits of their craft work.

[13][11] European explorers who visited the Chokwe villages in early 20th-century reported that a majority of the women there were slaves in polygamous households and likely acted as a cause behind their population boom.

[13][14][15] The Chokwe are regionally notable for their crafts work, including baskets, pottery, mask carvings, statues, stools, and other handicrafts.

The Cikungu art personifies the collective power of Chokwe's ancestors, while Mwana po figurines depict the guardians of fertility and procreation.

The Ngombo figurines have been traditionally a part of divining spirits who are shaken to tell causes of illness, misfortune, infertility, and other problems faced by a family or a village.

[16][17] The chiefdoms of the 18th- and 19th-century eventually began to decline due to smallpox and other diseases, which disrupted large regions of central Angola.

Village courts consist of chiefly male elders that oversee cases involving land ownership, family quarrels, theft, and disputes in which witchcraft is suspected.

[2]: 17–18 Since the Chokwe farm, areas around the village are cleared at the beginning of the dry season where they will grow corn, cassava, and millet.

To prepare an initiate's body for birth, an elder scars her abdomen and lower back by cutting and flaring the skin and applying ashes into the wound.

Some images include birds, bats, rabbits, baboons, lions, aardvarks, and pangolins (anteaters), as well as domestic dogs and pigs.

Prayers, sacrifices, and offerings are sent to these representations of these spirits in return for protection within everyday life and comfort them if any follower of the cult has angered them or there was a dispute that happened among the descendants.

The cimbanda induces a possession to happen within the victim and will rub white clay over the body, which symbolizes innocence, as medicine to rid the spirit.

[21]: 41 Most of the masks are painted in three basic colors, black, red, and white, and are typically made from vegetable fibers and pieces of cloth and paper.

[23]: 41 Chokwe masqueraders have a belief that by spitting into the ritual mask that they are about to put on, it is considered a purification, an offering, and also a way of presenting a request to the ancestorial spirit.

[23]: 41 The makishi wa Cikunza is a mask that is associated with the mukanda circumcision ritual and is referenced as a grasshopper which is known for its procreative powers therefore symbolizing fertility.

It is believed that back in ancient times, this mask was used as a tool for justice and could accuse spectators of crimes that were ultimately punishable by death.

Similar to the Cinkunza, this mask is a hamba and can also be a makishi as well and can cause infertility in women, sickness in men, or unsuccessful hunting if it is displeased.

[4] In groups where chiefs exist, they are considered the representative of god Kalunga or Nzambi, therefore revered and called Mwanangana or "overseer of the land."

There is sometimes perceived to be a spiritual connection between works of arts such as handicrafts and carved objects and ancestors, as well as god Kalunga or Nzambi.

[4] They have, for example, continued their spirit-rituals from pre-Christian era, as well maintained their elaborate rites-of-passage ceremonies particularly to mark the entry into adulthood by men and women.

These objects that are placed within the ancestral shrines are meant to contain or represent the spirits as well as serve as a point of contact between the living and the spiritual forces.