Lusona

What it is

Sona is the name for a set of ideographic drawings, and one of them is a lusona. Ideographic here means that a figure carries an idea rather than a sound or a letter. The drawings work as memory aids. A single figure can bring to mind a proverb, a fable, a riddle, a game or an animal, and that is how knowledge is passed on. The dots in a figure may stand for trees, people or animals; the lines may read as paths, rivers, fences, walls or the outline of a body. The Chokwe and the Luchazi are the peoples most closely associated with the tradition, which belongs to the east of Angola, the north-west of Zambia and bordering parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Origins and history

Ethnologist Gerhard Kubik places the tradition far back and well before colonial times. Observers working separately gathered the same figures among peoples who had lived apart for generations, which suggests the drawings were not recent inventions. Rock carvings point the same way. Petroglyphs in Angola's Upper Zambezi area, and others at Citundu-Hulu in the Moçâmedes Desert, share structural features with lusona figures. The cingelyengelye and the interlaced loops known as zinkhata both occur in Upper Zambezi rock art that José Redinha recorded. Those carvings belong to the final centuries before the Common Era. A connection is possible, but no direct evidence proves it, beyond the resemblance and the shared region.

Trade and records

One of the simplest figures is called katuva vufwati. It sometimes appears on trade goods from the kingdoms of Matamba and Ndongo, and Antonio Cavazzi de Montecuccolo, an Italian missionary, drew such objects in watercolours for a book about those kingdoms. What the figure meant to each person who used it is not recorded. In the twentieth century, ethnographers and anthropologists began to write about sona. One of the first was Hermann Baumann, whose book Lunda came out in 1935. Later writers took up the geometry of the drawings, and that body of study is how most readers outside the region meet lusona.

Mathematics in the sand

Researchers who measured the collected figures report that roughly four fifths are symmetric, and that roughly three fifths are drawn with a single line. The practice has been described as an example of a coordinate system in use, and of geometric algorithms. Paulus Gerdes sorted the drawings by the method used to build them and identified six algorithms. The one he found most often he named the plaited-mat algorithm, and it looks as though it took its idea from the weaving of mats. The same studies suggest that drawing experts worked with known rules rather than by improvisation, building complicated figures in an orderly way.

What the experts knew

Written studies suggest that drawing experts used rules of chaining and elimination when they built monolinear figures, those made with a single line. They seem to have understood why those rules held. Accounts of their own theorems are hard to find, because the tradition was secret and was already near its end when people began recording it. One principle they appear to have held is that a rectangle whose sides share no common factor produces a drawing of one line; three quarters of the thirty smallest rectangles of that kind appear among the documented figures. They may also have known that adding a square of dots to a one-line lusona leaves it monolinear, which they seem to have discovered by testing two-by-two squares.

How Lusona is kept

A drawing expert starts by clearing and smoothing a patch of ground, then presses evenly spaced dots into it. A line is drawn among the dots and does not stop until the figure is complete. Usually the ground is the medium, though some figures are painted on walls as murals. People gather while the expert works, and the finished figure prompts a proverb, a fable, a riddle, a game or an animal. Later researchers wrote down the figures they could still collect, and grouped them by the method used to build them.

When and where

There is no fixed day or season for lusona. A drawing is made when someone wants to teach, to remember or simply to decorate, and the ground has to be cleared and smoothed first. Most figures are traced in sand and last only a while; others are painted on walls as murals.

The tradition belongs to west-central Africa. It is strongest in the east of Angola, among Chokwe and Luchazi communities, and it reaches into the northwest of Zambia and the parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that border them. Early rock carvings in the Upper Zambezi area, and at Citundu-Hulu in the Moçâmedes Desert, share features with the drawings.

What Lusona means

For the people who keep them, lusona hold knowledge rather than describe a scene. A figure gives a teller a place to start, and from it come proverbs, fables, riddles, games and animals that belong to the community. This is how the drawings help knowledge pass between people and between generations. Some figures appear on everyday objects as well as in the sand, and they carry that store of sayings with them. The drawing is a prompt: those who know the tradition see the shape and remember what goes with it.

Questions people ask about Lusona

See also

Kuba textilesElaborate raffia cloths from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known for their complex geometric embroidery and velvKizombaA close, slow couple dance from Angola, named after a Kimbundu word for partyKuduroAn energetic Angolan music and dance style born in Luanda that mixes African rhythms with electronic beats.SembaA traditional style of music and partner dance from Angola

Good reading and sources

• Lusona on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.