The history of man in Northern Rhodesia dates back to ancient days and some scholars consider Central Africa to be one of the cradles of the human race. Ape men once roamed through the Zambezi valley and along the Kalomo river, and from these lowly beginnings here and elsewhere, man gradually evolved, learning how to make improved stone implements. The earliest of these aboriginal craftsmen probably preferred the narrow belts of forest fringing streams and rivers, where they found protection against wild animals, where fresh water was available, and the woodland gave them cover for stalking their prey. For a period of 400,000 years, early Stone Age man lived by killing game, scavenging for meat left over by savage beasts, and gathering roots and berries. In the olduvai Gorge of Tanzania, Dr Leaky found the remains of a human being scientifically called Homo habilis, who was living about 1.8 million years ago. This primitive man, who was about four feet tall, used pebbles for hacking up bones and stripping meat from the animals.
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The Legends of the Tribes
Zambia by Richard Hall
There are more than seventy recognised tribes in Zambia. It is difficult to separate legend from fact when investigating the origins of the tribes, but it is certain that legends were related reverently, with much detail, even amongst the smallest tribes.
The Lamba people, who live in the area of the Copperbelt (and also across the border in the Congo) say God (Lesa) came down to earth with the name of Luchyele, he arrived from the East. Strange markings on sandstone near Ndola are said by the Lamba to be footprints of Luchyele and his assistants. When there is thunder and lightning, the Lamba say: 'God is scolding us'! From heaven, Lesa sent a chameleon with a message to the earth; the message said: 'When people die, they will live again.' But the chameleon walked very slowly, and Lesa then sent another messenger, the lizard, saying: 'When you die you die for ever.' so the quick lizard reached the people first and cast them into despair with his grim tidings. That is why the chameleon is a hated creature - for failing to bring Lesa's good news in time. After Luchyele, say the Lamba, a man came to visit them called Chipimpi. He came from the West and with him was his sister Kawunda. She was also his wife. Kawunda is credited with having obtained vegetable seeds for the people by hiding them in her long hair while planting for a Luba chief by the Lualaba River. Chipimpi had a son, also called Kawunda, who killed his father and became ruler of the Lamba in his stead.
The neighbours of the Lamba, the Lala to the north-east, tell the story differently. 'There was a woman with only one breast to suckle two children; it was this woman who caused the human race to fill this world. From her were born two children, Mushili, a woman, and her brother, Lesa.' The brother and sister were married and from their incestuous union sprang good and evil. They had two children, Luchyele and Kashindika. It was Luchyele who went to the home of his father to be given two packages containing the sun and the moon.
There is also a Lala story of how God (Lesa) called all the animals to be given tails to brush the flies away. All the animals went except the coneys and the georychus mice. The coneys said: 'Let somebody who is going get our tails for us.' But nobody brought tails back for them and after a while the coneys grew anxious and complained, 'Surely somebody must be bringing tails for us - perhaps they cannot find any to fit us!' At that, the mice grew alarmed and rushed off to Lesa. They found all the tails had gone and had to be content with stumps. Then the coneys went to Lesa and said, 'Where are the tails for us?' And Lesa replied, 'You did not come when all the rest came. It is because you are a conceited. Hit them, somebody-send them off!' So the coneys went off in anger to a thicket, peering to see if anyone was coming; and they still have no tails!
All the tribes have their own myths and fables. These are part of the country's heritage even through today they are being lost in the rush of modern life. They can sometimes provide clues to origins of Zambia's people, especially the recurrent theme of incest in the creation. This theme even appears in the mythology of the Lozi; the Lozi tell the story of the Great God Nyambe, whose wife was his daughter, Mwambwa.
It is reasonable assumption that all the tribes who posses the 'incest-myth' are harking back to a common ancestry in some misty past. Anthropologists look for the answer in the 'Sudanic States' which existed more than a thousand years ago in the northern parts of black Africa. Some look even further back to the royal incest of ancient Egypt. In the Sudanic States, the roles of Queen Sister and Queen Mother were deeply revered. They still are in Barotseland. It is interesting to note in this connection that the elders of the Lunda of the Luapula valley begin their written tribal history with an emphatic sentence, 'The Lunda are a tribe of the Bantu who came from the north, from Sudan'.
Lamba
According to the present record we have from Prof Clement Doke the missionary who came and settle among the Lambas in the early days. It is recorded that the Lamba kingdom was established in the 1587. The woman by the name of Chembo Kasako Chimbala who was the youngest wife of the great King mwata Yamva, was not happy with the polygamous marriage she was in. So she left with her son to settle in the land called Ilamba or Lambaland. The expansion of the kingdom took alot of time from 1600 to 1800 at that time the kingdom covered the now known province of the copper belt zambia and the part of the Katanga province in the DRC.
The written record about lambas took place in the year 1798 when the Portuguese explorer talked about the Lambas engagement in the mining and trade in copper with other tribes.
Due to the mining activities which took place in the province for decades now, the Lambaland is the second urbanised province in zambia next from the nation's capital Lusaka.
Despite the urbanisation the Lamba people have continued to maintain their customs and traditions known as ubulamba.
THE KALIMBA OF THE LALA TRIBE, NORTHERN RHODESIA
A. M. JONES
The word ' Kalimba ' (pl. Tulimba) is a general term embracing all those musical instruments commonly called Kaffir Pianos. Their general form is a soundboard with a metal bridge over which are fixed a number of carefully tuned metal prongs. The soundboard is placed over a calabash held in the hands, and the notes are played with the two thumbs.
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The Lunda Empire
Zambia by Richard Hall
As early as AD 900 there had been a powerful Luba kingdom along the Lualaba river. The people were skilled coppersmiths and used copper ingots as currency. Further west, near the Kasai river, the matrilineal
Lunda people lived in a country they called Nkalanyi? Little is known of the Lunda until about 1500, when they had their headquarters at Kapanga, a little to the east of the Kasai. The empire became great after a merger between the Lunda and Luba shortly before 1600. The cause of the merger we are told, was a love-at-first-sight meeting between Luweji, chief-tainess of the Lunda, and Chibinda Ilunga, a chief of the Luba. This is how the Mwata Kazembe’s tribal elders relate the story in the records of Zambia’s Lunda people :....Continued...
ETHNOGRAPHIC SURVEY OF AFRICA
Volume 27
The Southern Lunda and Related Peoples (Northern Rhodesia, Belgian Congo, Angola)
MERRAN MCCULLOCH
The preparation of a comprehensive survey of the tribal societies of Africa was discussed by the Executive Council of the Institute as far back as 1937, but the interruption and restricting of its activities caused by the war resulted in the postponement of the project.
The Institute, therefore, in 1944, applied to the recently established British Colonial Social Science Research Council for a grant from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund to finance the preparation of an Ethnographic Survey of Africa, and a grant was allocated for a period of five years from 1945. A committee, under the Chairmanship of Professor Radcliffe-Brown, was appointed to consider the scope and form of the survey; and collaboration was established with research institutions in South Africa, Rhodesia, East Africa, French West Africa, Belgium and the Belgian Congo.
The aim of the Ethnographic Survey is to present a concise, critical and accurate account of our present knowledge of the tribal groupings, distribution, physical environment, social conditions, political and economic structure, religious beliefs and cult practices, technology and art of the African peoples.
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The Coming of the Bemba
Zambia by Richard Hall
The migrations into the ‘northern wing of the Zambian butterfly’ in most cases involved a crossing of the Luapula river, now the boundary with the Congo. The Luapula valley itself is densely populated and the river is rich in fish. The first people in the valley are said to have been the Bwilile and Shila who lived by fishing and were not averse to catching a hippo with harpoons if the need arose.
Various small groups crossed the river until in the seventeenth century the
Bemba appeared. The exact reason for their migration is not clear, although there is a probability that the stimulus of contact with the Portuguese played a part. Bemba tradition says that the Mukulumpe (tentatively identified with Chibinda Ilunga who married the Lunda chieftainess Luweji) punished his sons Chiti and Nkole for causing many deaths through some scheme of theirs....Continue....
Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia
An Economic study of the Benba tribe by Audrey I Richards, 1939
THE LOZI ENTER THE VALLEY
Zambia by Richard Hall
Well before 1700, another group detached itself from the Lunda-Luba empire. Unlike the Bemba and their associates, this people did not cross the Luapula river but headed south and then south-west to the upper regions of the Zambezi. There are indications that it was a slow journey, extending over as many as twenty years, until the migrants established themselves in the flood-plain beyond the Luena confluence. These were the nucleus of the
Lozi people, destined to become as supreme in the south as the Bemba in the north.
Continued...
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FIRST WOMAN ON THE NALIKWANDA
By Eugene Makai
As the country celebrates its cultural heritage by enacting yet another successful Kuomboka ceremony of the Lozi speaking people, it is an opportune moment to share some important trivia about an important element of the traditional ceremony - The NALIKWANDA.
The Nalikwanda is the official royal barge of the Litunga that carries his standard and his main official river transport during the Kuomboka ceremony and the kufuluhela.
It carries the royal war drums (MAOMA), the Mutango royal drums and also the royal xylophone (SILIMBA).
Boarding of this barge is bound in ceremony and traditional myths that includes the exclusion of female passengers.
Just for clarity, the female royals have their own barges. The Queen (the Mooyo Imwambo) has a barge called the MBOLYANGA, which fulfills her transport needs during the Kuomboka ceremony and kufuluhela.
The Queen Mother also has a barge for the ocassions called the SABELELE which meets the same needs.
On Thursday, 19th May, 1960 the Litunga Sir Mwanawina III Lewanika was the host of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother the former Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and mother of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Litunga on this occasion welcomed her aboard the Nalikwanda, as part of the ceremonies to receive her. It must be noted that the Litunga was a Knight of the British Empire (hence Sir Mwanawina KBE) and the only monarch in Southern Africa to wear the uniform of a British Admiral (a practice which continues to this day).
The Nalikwanda that day flew both the standard of the Litunga and the Union Jack (British Flag). To this effect, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother became the first woman to board the Litunga's official transport.
She is seen here aboard the barge with the Litunga, and also being helped to alight from it.
The Rain Goddess
The Rhodesian (and Central African) Annual, 1962
By JONAH WOODS
The traditions and customs of the many African tribes in the Federation are dying out in some places, but in others they continue though perhaps with less elaborate ceremony.
The villages of Chief Mukuni’s area which stretches from the Victoria Falls to about 40 miles north still hold rain ceremonies. One is to call for rain and for good planting, one is a thanksgiving and the third is for enjoy ment after the crops have been harvested.
The ceremonies are arranged by Bedyango, the Rain Goddess, but, although he attends. Chief Mukuni does not take part as he is a Christian.
Three drums, one large and two small, arc beaten for hours to call the villagers before Bedyango makes her appearance. They first are played near the revered burial ground of the Chiefs. Then the largest of the drums is moved to various points on the village’s perimeter, finally- moving to the outskirts of the village where, about the 17th or 18th century. Chief Sichichelo was buried alive.
The story is told that this was a very old Chief who had gone blind and grown quite incapable but still hung on to life. On the pretext that his nephew was dead, he was lured to a place where had been dug a large hole as a grave. He was pushed into this with some of his court and many of his cattle and all were buried alive. I he legend goes that for a month afterwards the cattle could be heard lowing from their communal grave.
Bedyango, clad in black, preceded by the drummer ans escorted by a large crowd, then moves through the village to the burial grounds. After dancing before the drum she parades round the graves, dipping a calabash scoop into the gourd of beer carried by an old crone and scattering the liquid over and round the graves.
In the old days the Bedyango wore black goat skins — black to represent the black clouds she was calling or for which she was giving thanks. Nowadays she wears black cloth. Also in days gone by, a black goat was sacrificed at the rainmaking rites but this practice has been discontinued. The drumming, dancing and the beer drink which follows the ceremony are still carried on as before.
The present Bedyango is about 70 years old. She is an aunt of the present Chief. The Rain Goddess can be the daughter of the previous Bedyango, or a Chief's daughter or a Chirf's sister.
The position of the Bedyango in earlier years was one of great importance. Her rank was equal to that of a Chief and her duties were to advise the Chief on land questions,, to distribute gardens and delegate powers to the village headman to distribute gardens equally to the people living in their villages. Death reports were brought to her before the burial took place and also she received information about, births.
When disease, such as smallpox and measles, broke out Bedyango had to cleanse the people so afflicted at a particular place at the Victoria Falls. This was about a quarter of a mile above the Eastern Cataract. When people went for this occasion they were ordered to carry spare clothes with them which they had to leave behind some distance from the river down to which they had to run to dip themselves. Aller dipping themselves they had to leave their clothes in the waler, come out running and pick up their spare clothes and continue their run until they reached the appointed spot. So great was the belief in these cleansing riles that, it is understood in many cases the people were actually cured of their afflictions.
Bedyango, because of her important duties, was much respected by the people of her tribe. It was the custom of the Loya people that when able-bodied and strong young men went out to meet their enemies they had lo gather themselves in a special hut waiting for Bedyango to come and stand against the doorway with her legs apart. She then gave her order “Come out of the hut and go to meet your antagonists, defeat them for they have all been brought up by a woman like me. do not turn back else you would die like a woman”. Then each of them had to pass crouching between her legs and march off angrily without turning back.
The present Chief Mukuni. who is known as Siloka II. has been in power since 1943. lie has written a short history of the BaLeya people which has been handed down from one generation to another by word of mouth.
A list of the Chiefs who were born and died in the present Chief Mukunfs capital shows that the first Chief Mukuni must have settled here between 1400 and 1500.
The history of the BaLeya people also records the visit of Dr. David Livingstone in 1855 and in I860 when the explorer asked the Chief to find him twelve able and strong young men lo accompany him on his way up north. Tradition says that seven of them safely returned home and that five of them did not return, having died from malaria or having been killed in tribal wars.
Lewanika
The multi-talented man who designed the Freedom Statue
Zambia's Bulletin & Record, Volume V, Issue 3, June 2015
For the late Akwila Thompson Simpasa. the artist who drew the original designs for the famous Freedom Statue in lusaka that was later sculpted in bronze by British sculptor James Butler, the prefect turned out to be a mixed blessing.
Akwila was talented in both visual art and music, and in his earlier years he was also a politi cal activist. In 1973, shortly before the Freedom Statue work, he held a solo exhibition of protest against the Vietnam War at the American Cultural Centre. At the time he was a lecturer at the Evelyn Hone College.
Unfortunately, the circum stance of his involvement in the Freedom Statue project were not satisfactory and brought the artist some misery.
According to his friend Michael Siegel. 'After Akwila won the na tionwide competition to make the sculpture, he was supposed to consult with Mr Butler on how to make it in bronze. Akwila had only worked previously with wood and stone. However, that arrangement did not take place, instead the people in charge of the prefect turned the dealings over to Mr Butler.
"It was devastating for Akwila after all the time he had put into the project. I spent weeks watching him develop the sculpture from ev ery angle with great passion, love, sweat and tears. On the day he came back to the flat slumped in sadness holding a letter written by Mt Butler. . he nearly lost it trying to hold ack hbis fury...”
According to Siegel the letter stated: 'As a fellow artist I will do my best to put the spirit you in tended into the sculpture " It didn’t help much that £50,000 was the amount paid for the commision, and although Siegel doesn't say so it assumes that because the commis sion went to someone else. Akwila missed out on the payment. Akwila felt that there had been a theft of his ideas.
Now based in Washingto. MichaelSiegel reminisces about his time working with Akwila Simpasa. We were close brothers from mid-1973 to late 1974 when I was working in Zambia. I was hired tostart a school of physical therapy. During the time Akwila was painting in a studio suupplied by USAID and in mid-1973 a big article of his work was published in Lusaka newspaper. I went to his studio and bough a large painting that I felt was a rival to anything ever done bu Picasso.Two weeks later he moved his studio to my flat and during that time he produced one of his most important works... the Freedom Fighter statue.
When he lived in my flat our place became a beehive of energy - sculpting, painting, drawing and drumming....
Soon after the disappointment over the Freedom statue project, Akwila gave up his job with Gabriele Ellison's graphic design unit in the Ministry of Information and headed off to London.
It wasn't the artist's first experience of London;in fact it was in the British capital that earlier, Akwila has furthered his education and also became an accomplished musician.
Akwila Simpasa was born in Isoka district in 1945 and moved to te Copperbelt in 1952. He has hardly stepped into Wusakile's primary school when he started “messing up” walls with charcoal drawings of cowboys. Later, as a peer tutor at the township's welfare centre he earned £6 a month working in the afternoons and public holidays, and in 1962 after completing Standard Six he was taken on by the UNIP campaign team to illustrate posters and other party publicity material.
The next year he bacame the first Zambian to study at the newly opened Africa Literature Centre ALC at kitwe Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation.His father and the World Council of Churches who paid £60 each jointly sponsored him. At ALC he specialised in graphic design, and book illustration in particular. After graduation Akwila briefly joined Zambia Daily Mail but shortly headed back at Mindolo as Assistant Director at ALC.
In 1966 he won first prize in the World Christmas Painting competition that was conducted at the World Fair in New York. By then he had moved to the Zambia Publications Bureau (now ZEPH) under the Ministry of Education.
The, in 1967, came his first jurney to London where Longman and Green publishers sponsored him to the University of London. He spent four and a half years studying for his first degree in Fine Art, and also studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, a private college.
During his stay Akwila mingled with some of the world's top music stars including Wilson Pickett, Jinger Johnson, The African Drummers, and Osibisa. He also met the Rolling Stones whose bandleader Mick Jagger gave him his leather coat as a souvenir.
Akwila furthered his education in Italy at the University of Perirya where he was awarded his masters degree. While in Italy he played organ during the golden jubilee of one of the Vatican catholic churches, an event beamed live across the world.
Back in London, Akwila spent two years with Eddy Grant of the Equals. The two had met earlier in Zambia when the British pop group came on their 1970 tour that saw Grant stating on longer due to his affair with a Zambian Airways hostess.
Akwila's rapport with Eddy Grant culminated in the solo Message Man albumbeing dedicated to him. One of the popular tracks on the record Hello Africa even carries the ciBemba lyrics: “Jambo, abana ba Afrika abe no ubuntungwa”..
Akwila is reported to have recorded an album titled Akanezala but it was never made commercially available to the public.The album included I'll tell god, mukwalima and Lwakupzya ( spiritual song). Akwila further intented to get permission to adapt some lyrics from Dr Kenneth Kaunda's book A letter to my children for one of the songs on the album.
In art, starting off as a realism painter during his youth, Akwila converted to bending abstract and cubism styles where drums, beads and masks were prominent symbols. In other drawings figures were rhythmically curvy and superimposed, leaving viewers to decipher hidden meanings. In Michael Siegel's collection are The Freedom Fighter (original sketch for the Freemon Statue), Iliana Moonlight (a tribute to his Italian wife) and the Picasso-like painting called The Family Tree. Among his famous sculptures was Madonna, done in wood and commissioned by the Vatican where it is believed to be resting.
Interestingly, Akwila experimented with literature through a satirical novel The President of New Mutumwa but the book was never published.
The only official honor bestowed upon Akwila was having the Ngoma Award for Best Young Artist named after him. He died in 1988 after a long battle with chronic menta illness, and was quietly laid to rest in Lusaka.
Fanagalo is a pidgin (simplified language) based primarily on Zulu, with English and a small Afrikaans input. It is used as a lingua franca, mainly in the gold, diamond, coal and copper mining industries in South Africa and to a lesser extent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Although it is used as a second language only, the number of speakers was estimated as "several hundred thousand" in 1975. As with India, once the British went, English became the lingua franca enabling different tribes in the same country to communicate with each other, and Fanagalo use declined.
Fanagalo is the only Zulu-based pidgin language, and is a rare example of a pidgin based on an indigenous language rather than on the language of a colonising or trading power.
The variety in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) is known as Chilapalapa and is influenced by Shona, while the variety in Zambia (Northern Rhodesia), called Cikabanga (pronounced, and sometimes spelt, Chikabanga), is influenced by Bemba.
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