During a visit in the summer 1970, Jacques Hymans, professor of History at San Francisco State Univeisity, found discarded papers strewn over the floor of an abandoned European-style house at Mushenge (Nsheng), the capital of the Kuba kingdom, zone Mweka, West Kasai, Democratic Republic of Congo. He salvaged them and then kept them at home. After his death Ms Kelley Hymans gave the papers to the collections of Memorial Library of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. To this a notebook, which Wisconsin obtained through the good offices of Professor Mary Douglas, has been added. This contains a census of the capital for 1939-40 carried out by Jules Lene (Lyeen) as tribute collector for the Kuba king.
Since early colonial times the Kuba people were well-known in Europe for their sculpture and their artistic textiles, and because they formed a single kingdom headed by a “divine” king. This was also the only territory in the Belgian Congo where “indirect administration” was officially practiced after 1920. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the Kuba capital Nsheng, known as Mushenge, eventually became a minor tourist attraction for amateurs of their arts. After independence, travel in Congo became difficult and the prestige of Mushenge declined, but some of its fascination remained, and Hymans was one of the persons still attracted to it. His last visit to Mushenge occurred in 1970, not long after the death of king Bop Mabinc maKyeen. It is on that occasion that he salvaged the papers now in Madison.