die, their souls leave their bodies to travel to the realm of the dead, but can still be contacted or called upon by means of prayer. The dead talk to the living through dreams, omens or through shamans. Similar characteristics are seen in the Baluba religion, where priests can also serve as intermediaries between the natural and supernatural world. The traditional religious beliefs of the Luba people included the concept of a Universal Creator, a Leza or the Supreme Being, a natural world and a supernatural world. The supernatural world was where ancestral spirits lived, and what one joined the afterlife if one lived a righteous life. The Bakuba people from the Kingdom of Kuba believed in a single creator deity, named Bumba or m'Bombo. He is said to have originally existed alone in darkness, in a universe consisting of nothing but primordial water. The creation took place when he vomited the sun, moon, animals and then humanity. Cannibalism The attitudes towards cannibalism in the Congo region varied significantly, with certain cultures practicing cannibalism in certain contexts while in other cultures cannibalism was either only practiced by certain individuals or shunned altogether and its practitioners dehumanized. A personal indigenous first-hand account of ritualistic cannibalism can be found in the life story of Disasi Makulo, as written down by his son Akambu Makulo. Disasi, an indigenous traveller from the Eastern Congo region reported that upon his return to his native village after years of travel the villagers proposed a large feast in celebration of his arrival. They meant to take two slaves and have them slaughtered and served as part of the celebration meal. The specific practice of sacrificing and consuming slaves could be found among other cultures as well, such as the Azande, Lufembe, Bangala, Basongye, Batetela and Ngombe. The slaves were normally war captives, acquired through inter-communal warfare. These slaves could either be used for labour or human sacrifice, or sold in the Arab slave trade. Another type of cannibalism centered around the (partial) consumption of fallen enemies during conflict. This type of cannibalism was for instance practised by the Manyema, Bukusu and Basimba militias and slaves from Congo, Uganda and Tanzania used by Arab slave traders like Tippu Tipp, who had claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and Sultan Bargash bin Said el Busaidi. The most infamous militia were the so-called Zappo Zap, a subgroup of the Basongye