Chibados

The sources do not supply a mythic or legendary origin story for the chibados. Ethnohistoric documentation places the emergence of the chibados as a recognized social and ritual category in the pre‑colonial period of the Kingdom of Ndongo and its environs; Portuguese observers first recorded their presence during the 16th and 17th centuries (the era of Queen Nzinga, 1583–1663). Modern scholars argue that the category was institutionally embedded—part of court households and political life—and that colonial expansion and legal regimes later undermined the social institutions that sustained them, leading to their disappearance from colonial records.

Contemporary and later historical descriptions emphasize female dress and public feminine presentation: chibados are repeatedly described as men who "walk dressed like women" and who "lived as women." They appear publicly in court households — for example, multiple accounts note Queen Nzinga kept a large number of chibados in her court — and elders among them took matriarchal honorifics (reported as self‑designation such as "Grandmother"). Specific details of costume, ornament, or material culture are not provided in the supplied sources beyond their feminine dress and comportment.

The primary described functions of chibados are social and ritual rather than supernatural monstrosity: they are attested as diviners, shamans, psychics, and "spiritual arbiters" who performed burials and participated in political and military decision‑making. They were institutionally recognized ritual specialists within court and community life and could marry men with social sanction. Some modern secondary summaries report beliefs that chibados "carried female spirits" and that those spirits could be transmitted through anal sex; the supplied materials treat that specific motif as a claim recorded in later commentary rather than as a verbatim primary ritual text. Portuguese colonial observers and later scholars also report that chibados could serve intimate or concubinal roles in royal households (notably Nzinga's court).