Barotse Trails Route

The Barotse Trails Route is a community-based tourism route in south-western Zambia which roughly follows the Zambezi River from Victoria Falls in the east, to Ngonye Falls in the west. The route’s gateway is Livingstone in the east or Katima Mulilo if approached from the south and it meanders through Mwandi and Sesheke before heading into the rural areas of Lusu and Sioma. Apart from being able to delve into Livingstone’s rich history, the route provides visitors with the opportunity to interact with local communities in the untouched charm of their rural surroundings alongside the Zambezi, one of Africa’s greatest rivers. The first thing one notices upon arrival in Zambia is the gentle and friendly nature of its people. It is this aspect that stays with you long after you have forgotten the natural beauty which the country has to offer. Zambia offers much in terms of natural beauty, highlighted by the fact that it has 19 national parks, 37 game-management areas and two bird sanctuaries. Wildlife is abundant in many parts of Zambia and you could spot endemics to the region like Kafue lechwe, Thronicroft’s giraffe and Cookson’s wildebeest. Birders will not be disappointed, with 740 different bird species recorded in the country so far.

The appeal of the route lies in the combination of African remoteness and westernised infrastructure. The remoteness of some of the areas means that villages have not yet been influenced by western standards, yet on the other hand, one is somewhat surprised that a lot of the area is accessible by tarred roads. This makes it an ideal opportunity to visit one of the seven natural wonders of the world combined with the experience of visiting the as yet unspoilt areas further inland. There is currently a yearning for people to return to their roots and to connect with their natural environment. This route gives visitors the opportunity to revitalise the soul as only the African bush can, and to connect with the people of this area.

The history of Zambia is well documented through the travels of legendary explorer David Livingstone. Few people however are aware of its history before the arrival of Livingstone. Zambia’s present population lives on lands that have been inhabited by ancestors for millions of years. Archaeologists have established that the human civilization process got under way 3 million years ago, and crude stone implements, similar to some of that age found in Kenya, have also been found alongside the Zambezi River.

The history of Zambia:

Early Stone Age sites have been excavated in many parts of Zambia, the most significant being at Kalambo Falls in the North and at Victoria Falls in the south. There is evidence that during the middle Stone Age, modern man probably emerged in Zambia around 25 000 years ago.

About 15 000 years ago, the Late Stone Age commenced and people began to live in caves and rock shelters, the walls of which they decorated with paintings. Very few of these have survived Zambia’s seasonally humid climate, but a surviving drawing of an eland at Katolola in the Eastern Province suggests that this art was more than decorative, that it had a ritual or religious meaning. It has been documented in South Africa that the eland was sacred to the Late Stone Age people.

Technology of the Iron Age prevailed, not merely because metal made good strong weapons, but because the how, axe and the knife allowed agriculture to establish itself and to expand through the forests. 'Slash and burn' (chitemene) is the prominent system of agriculture in parts of Zambia to this day. Besides iron, copper began to be mined and refined around 350AD, when it was used to make jewellery and as currency. Copper is today Zambia’s largest industry in a country that has been mining for at least 1 600 years.

The centuries between 1 500AD and 1800AD saw many of the peoples of Zambia organised into chieftaincies or monarchies, including the Chewa in the east, the Lozi in the west, and the Bemba and Lunda in the north. By the 18th Century the empire was trading with the Atlantic Coast, and other states on the eastern seaboard. Copper, ivory and rhino horn had a ready market, as did slaves.
 
The wealth of Indian Ocean trade and the spread the Gospel in the 15th Century were factors that inspired the Portuguese to embark on their bold 'Voyages of Discovery'.

By 1515 the Portuguese had, through a force of arms, seized the Indian Ocean trade route and established themselves on the coasts of Mozambique and Angola. Although the Portuguese happily bought the ivory and copper that central Africa produced, the slave trade rapidly became – and for centuries remained – a major commercial venture.

Beside the influence brought to bear on Zambia by the Swahili and the Portuguese, the effects of the Dutch (and subsequent British) colonisation of the Cape and its hinterland from 1652 onwards, would also be felt.

Perhaps as a response to foreign intrusion in southern Africa, Shaka, king of the Zulu nation and Nguni clan, set about creating a centralised militaristic state in the early 19th Century. Surrounding peoples who did not voluntarily agree to absorption into the growing Zulu empire had no option but to flee for their survival. Three of these groups were to make a forceful impact on Zambia, 1 500km to the north of the Zulu heartland in eastern South Africa.

One of these was the Sotho clan, living today in the Orange Free State of South Africa. Its leader was Sebitwane and he named his people Kololo, after his favourite wife. Another was Mzilikazi, one of Shaka’s generals who quarrelled with him and moved away. After being defeated by the Dutch settlers in the Transvaal, he and his Ndebele invaded and conquered Western Zimbabwe. The third, like Mzilikazi an Nguni, was Zongendaba. He led his followers out of Shaka’s domains in the 1820s. These Ngoni (as they are known today) crossed the Zambezi in 1835 and went northwards as far as Lake Tanganyika where they settled for a while among the Bemba people. In 1865, under Zongendaba’s successor Mpenzeni I, they established themselves permanently in what is now Zambia’s Eastern Province.

Mzilikazi conquered Zimbabwe in 1837, while Sebitwane had crossed the Zambezi a few years previously and taken over territory just north of the Victoria Falls. From there he marched west to conquer the Lozi kingdom of the Upper Zambezi and founded his Kololo state.

It would be a mistake to talk of Zambia at this time as a country. The area defined by the present boundaries was occupied by various kingdoms, for example the Bemba, the Lunda, the Kololo, the Chewa, the last much weakened by Ngoni pillaging. It has been argued that these entities, if left alone, could have developed into 20th Century nation states – central African Bhutans or Swazilands.

In 1840, David Livingstone, a 27 year old Scottish doctor and ordained minister, sailed from Britain to the Cape, to work as a medical evangelist with the London Missionary Society. He was set to open central Africa to the gaze of British imperialists. Meanwhile, Portugal was planning to consolidate its African territories by uniting Angola and Mozambique across the central plateau. Unlike the Portuguese, the British knew next to nothing about the interior of this part of Africa.

Livingstone was to give the true picture. He started his activities at the LMS station at Kuruman (in today’s Northern Cape province of South Africa), but soon moved north to found his own mission at Kolobeng, near Gaberone, Botswana, where he stayed for a decade. He made only one convert, Chief Sechele, who soon lapsed. Livingstone grew bored with conventional missionary work and started going on longer and longer journeys of exploration, receiving help from a wealthy Englishman named William Cotton Oswell. The two of them were the first Europeans to visit Lake Ngami in the middle of the Kalahari, led there by Tswana guides.

In 1851 Livingstone and Oswell crossed the Kalahari to visit Sebitwane. Livingstone was equally impressed and thought it a sign of God’s blessing that the Kololo language was similar to the Tswana in which he was fluent. But at Sebetwane’s he had his first sight of the slave trade – the Kololo nobles were wearing Manchester cloth obtained from the Portuguese in Angola in return for ivory and slaves.

He and Oswell, who was also a staunch abolitionist, concluded that the only way to stop the trade would be through a new type of mission where a combination of Christianity and commerce would lead to civilisation: in fact a sort of Christian-development programme under which slaving would be replaced by legitimate trade in for instance cotton, which grew in the area and for which there was a large market in Britain. The scheme would be managed by carefully selected Scottish settlers.

Sebitwane, though scarcely interested in Christianity itself, agreed that Livingstone could establish a mission in his country, if only because it might afford him protection against his enemy Mzilikazi of the Ndebele, whose warrior kingdom bordered his own. Although Sebitwane died shortly after coming to this agreement, his successor, Sekeletu undertook to honour it, and Livingstone promised to establish the mission himself. All that remained was to find a suitable outlet to the sea. The most economical passage for anticipated cotton (and ivory) exports might be through the Portuguese port of Luanda on the Atlantic, so Livingstone decided to see if there was a feasible route from Barotseland (as the Kololo kingdom is called).

The journey was financed by Oswell and Sekeletu, and after an interlude at the Cape to get supplies, Livingstone set off from the upper Zambezi in 1853. The return journey of over a year was a nightmare, the route proving totally unsuitable for the export trade.

Livingstone then convinced himself that the Zambezi could be 'God’s Highway' to the Indian Ocean. Again with support from Sekeletu, Livingstone marched off eastwards down the river. He 'discovered', and named after Queen Victoria, the great waterfall, which the Kololo had already called Mosi oa Tunya ('The Smoke that Thunders'). To the Leya, who lived right beside it and held it sacred, it was called Shongwe (Rainbow).

The Victoria Falls – A Scene “gazed upon by angels in their flight”

In early November 1855, Livingstone travelled down the Zambezi River to see for himself the area the natives called 'smoke that thunders'. Approaching the spot in canoes, the party could see the columns of spray and hear the thunderous roar of water miles away from the falls:

“After twenty minutes’ sail from Kalai we came within sight, for the first time, of the columns of vapour appropriately called 'smoke', rising at a distance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass are burned in Africa. Five columns now arose, and, bending in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees, so the tops of the columns at this distance appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below, and higher up became dark, simulating smoke. The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of color and form … no one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight. The only want felt is that of mountains in the background. The falls are bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400feet in height, which are covered with forest, with red soil appearing among the trees.

When about half a mile from the falls, I left the canoe by which we had come down thus far, and embarked in a lighter one, with men well-acquainted with the rapids, who, by passing down the centre of the stream in the eddies and still places caused by many jutting rocks, brought me to an island situated in the middle of the river, and on the edge of the lip over which the water rolls. In coming hither there was danger of being swept down by the streams that rushed along on each side of the island; but the river was now low, and we sailed where it is totally impossible to go when the water is high. But, though we had reached the island, and were within a few yards of the spot, a view from which would solve the whole problem, I believe that no one could perceive where the vast body of water went; it seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the fissure into which it disappeared being only 80 feet distant. At least I did not comprehend it until, creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi, and saw that a stream of a thousand yards broad leaped down a hundred feet, and then became suddenly compressed into a space of fifteen or twenty yards.

The entire falls are simply a crack made in a hard basaltic rock from the right to the left bank of the Zambezi, and then prolonged from the left bank away through thirty or forty miles of hills. If one imagines the Thames filled with low, tree-covered hills immediately beyond the tunnel, extending as far as Gravesend, the bed of black basaltic rock instead of London mud, and a fissure made therein from one end of the tunnel to the other down through the keystones of the arch, and prolonged from the left end of the tunnel through thirty miles of hills, the pathway being 100 feet down from the bed of the river instead of what it is, with the lips of the fissure from 80 to 100 feet apart, then fancy the Thames leaping bodily into the gulf, and forced there to change its direction, and flow from the right to the left bank, and then rush boiling and roaring through the hills, he may have some idea of what takes place at this, the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in Africa.

In looking down into the fissure on the right of the island, one sees nothing but a dense white cloud, which, at the time we visited the spot, bad two bright rainbows on it. From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapour exactly like steam, and it mounted 200 or 300feet high; there condensing, it changed its hue to that of dark smoke, and came back in a constant shower, which soon wetted us to the skin …

On the left of the island we see the water at the bottom, a white rolling mass moving away to the prolongation of the fissure, which branches off near the left bank of the river … The walls of this gigantic crack are perpendicular, and composed of one homogeneous mass of rock. The edge of that side over which the water falls is worn off two or three feet, and pieces have fallen away, so as to give it somewhat of a serrated appearance. That over which the water does not fall is quite straight, except at the left corner, where a rent appears, and a piece seems inclined to fall off. Upon the whole, it is nearly in the state in which it was left at the period of its formation … On the left side of the island we have a good view of the mass of water which causes one of the columns of vapor to ascend, as it leaps quite clear of the rock, and forms a thick unbroken fleece all the way to the bottom. Its whiteness gave the idea of snow, a sight I had not seen for many a day. As it broke into (if I may use the term) pieces of water, all rushing on in the same direction, each gave off several rays of foam, exactly as bits of steel, when burned in oxygen gas, give off rays of sparks. The snow-white sheet seemed like myriads of small comets rushing on in one direction, each of which left behind its nucleus rays of foam.”

Source: Livingstone Discovers Victoria Falls, 1855, EyeWitness to History, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2000)

With the conflict in South Africa finally resolved and the region politically more stable, tourism is developing rapidly. New activities are constantly emerging and the industry is becoming more and more sophisticated. Rafting the wild rapids below the Falls was the first innovation more than ten years ago. Now the list of organised, commercial activities has expanded dramatically. Visitors can kayak, canoe, fish, go on guided walking safaris, ride on horseback, lunch on Livingstone’s Island and in addition to the well-known “flight of angels”, for the more adventurous, there is microlighting with stunning views of the Falls.

After reaching the port of Quelemaine, Mozambique, towards the end of 1856, Livingstone sailed to Britain by way of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. He was welcomed in triumph as the greatest explorer of the age.

Livingstone put his 15 months in Britain to good use. He wrote and published Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (1857), a detailed and ideologically loaded account of his experiences, which became an inspirational best seller. He made speeches up and down the land promoting his idea of a cotton-exporting Christian venture in central Africa, with the Zambezi as its 'highway'.

He resigned from the London Missionary Society, but arranged for them to send a mission to the Kololo (thus by not going himself, breaking his promise to Sekeletu). Meanwhile, the Church of England backed a Universities Mission to Central Africa, which Livingstone would have under his auspices.

To crown his glory he was appointed leader of a government-sponsored expedition to the Zambezi, the secret objective of which was to found a British colony on the 'healthy highlands' (Livingstone’s phrase) near the present town of Mazabuka in southern Zambia. There would be a port for steamers nearby at the confluence of the Zambezi and Kafue Rivers.

But the whole grand scheme collapsed in ruin and recrimination when it was found that the Cabora Basa gorge in Mozambique, which Livingstone had not inspected, made God’s Highway totally un-navigable. The LMS mission to the Kololo was likewise a complete failure as most of its members died.

After the Cabora Basa fiasco, Livingstone turned his attention to the area around Lake Malawi (which he falsely claimed to have discovered) and placed the Anglican mission at the foot of the highlands to its south. Its personnel suffered deaths and disasters and the remnants were soon withdrawn.

At the end of 1863 the mandate of the Zambezi Expedition expired. Livingstone returned to Britain under a cloud of failure and disappointment with nothing seemingly accomplished.

By the end of 1865 he was off to Africa again, seeking another place for his colony and searching in vain for the source of the Nile. He was apparently lost in the heart of Africa when his much-dimmed reputation was suddenly restored by the newspaperman HM Stanley in his reports and in his book, How I found Livingstone (1872).

Livingstone died, his ambitions unfulfilled, at Chief Chitambo’s village near the southern shore of the Bangweulu Swamps in Zambia in 1873. Stanley had convinced the world that Livingstone was a hero-saint, and his embalmed body was carried to the coast by his servants and shipped to Britain, to be entombed with royal honours in Westminster Abbey, London. A memorial has been erected on the spot in his honour.

Livingstone’s new reputation however, did not crumble to dust with his remains. Within a year it had inspired Scottish missionaries to begin work in Malawi in his name. Also in his name the French Huguenot Francois Coillard established himself in Barotseland a decade later and other Protestant missionaries were moving into Zambia. Not to be outdone, the Roman Catholics sent Henri Dupont of the White Fathers to convert the Bemba.

With considerable help from both Coillard and Dupont, the British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes’ British South African Company (BSAC) had been able to take over the whole of Zambia by the end of the 19th Century. In 1911 the territory was named Northern Rhodesia, its capital the town of Livingstone, overlooking the Victoria Falls. Only in 1935 was the seat of government moved to Lusaka.

By 1923, Company rule had become an objectionable anachronism for the British government, and in that year, the Colonial Office took over the territory, proclaiming it a Protectorate where African interests would be paramount.

As far as Africans were concerned, Colonial Office rule may have been more benign, in a paternalistic way, than the Company’s, but it was a form of apartheid under which they were subject to racial discrimination including pass laws and restrictions on the occupation of land, with their political aspirations expected to be fulfilled through a revamped tribal system. Whites meanwhile were a privileged elite with a protected economic position and the beginnings of representative government. Persons of mixed blood and immigrants, mainly traders, from what are today India and Pakistan, held an ambivalent place under this regime.

The discovery and opening up during the late 1920s and 1930s of the rich underground ore bodies along the Zambian Copperbelt were soon to make that small region – 120km long by forty kilometres wide – one of the world’s most concentrated and renowned mining areas.

The nationalist movement was given impetus in the early 1950s when the Colonial Office agreed to have Northern Rhodesia joined in a federation with Nyasaland (Malawi), a British 'protectorate', and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Southern Rhodesia, under White settler rule, was bankrupt, and saw Northern Rhodesia with its copper wealth as the answer.

Zambian opposition to Federation, in which few Whites and Asians were prominent, was not strong enough to prevent its imposition in 1953. During its ten years of existence, as Zambians had anticipated, hundreds of millions of pounds were siphoned off to Southern Rhodesia. The White settlers there built up an impressive economic structure while the north remained without a single decent tarred highway, let alone a university or even an adequate school system or health service.

In the mid- fifties, the failed campaign against Federation became a struggle for full independence. When battle-weary Nkumbula seemed inadequate to the task, his ANC split. Younger and more dynamic nationalists formed first the Zambia African National Congress (which was banned and its leaders imprisoned) and then in 1958, the United National Independence Party. When he came out of detention, Kenneth David Kaunda, a charismatic activist who had been a school teacher, was given the leadership of the new party. UNIP engaged in a continuous and largely peaceful campaign for independence (though there was a violent uprising in the north of the country, put down by the Federal Army).

The Federation was dissolved in 1963, its only enduring monument being the Kariba Dam built across the Zambezi, intended by the federalists to bind northern and southern Rhodesia forever. In January the following year Zambia’s first universal adult suffrage elections were held and though the ANC performed well in a few substantial areas, UNIP won convincingly, and Kaunda became Prime Minister. Then at midnight on October 24, 1964, Zambia became an independent republic with Kenneth Kaunda as president.

Kaunda remained in office for 27 years until the one-party state was abolished and free elections were held in October 1991, when Frederick Chiluba became Zambia’s second president. He abolished foreign-exchange controls, passed new investment laws, set up a stock exchange, and embarked on a privatisation programme that at one point was dubbed by the World Bank as the best on the continent.

In 2001 Levy Mwanawasa succeeded Chiluba as Zambia’s president.

The route covers part of the area commonly referred to as Barotseland. The ancient kingdom of Barotseland, located in what is western Zambia today, had its traditional heart in the fertile plains annually flooded by the Zambezi. Since Zambian independence in November 1964, the heart of this land was known first as Barotse Province and, from 1968, as Western Province. Before 1964, however, Western Province was known as Barotseland, home of the Lozi nation, whose influence spread north from Botswana and Caprivi to the present day border between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and from south-eastern Angola west to the Kafue. The nation comprised over 25 different peoples united by culture and ecosystems.

Barotseland and the Lozi People:

The word Lozi means ('plain') in the Makololo language, in reference to the Zambezi floodplain (also called the Bulozi Plain) on and around which most Lozi people live. It may also be spelt Lotse or Rotse, the spelling Lozi having originated with German missionaries in what is now Namibia. Mu- and Ba- are singular and plural prefixes in Bantu languages, so Murotse means 'person of the plain' while Barotse means 'people of the plain'.

The Barotseland region of Zambia represents a large autonomous kingdom in the Western Province. The earliest known tribe of Lozi people to settle in the area, the Luyi, migrated from Katanga in the Congo. A long line of female rulers ruled them until their settlement on the Bulozi flood plain. The earliest of these rulers was named Mwambwa, who was succeeded by her daughter, Mbuymamwambwa. According to legend they both married Nyambe, the “maker of the world, the forests, the river, the plains, all the animals, birds and fish”. In reality, Mwambwa and Mbuymamwambwa, probably bore children by several different consorts.

Mwanasolundwi Muyunda Mumbo wa Mulonga aka Mboo, the son of Mbuymamwambwa, was chosen as paramount ruler of the Lozi, becoming the first male ruler in their history. Thereafter, all his successors, as Litunga, have been males.

A revolution in 1840 removed the ruling dynasty from power. The whole of Barotseland then fell under the rule of the Kilolo, led by Sibitwane, brother of the great Moshesh of Lesotho, for the next 24 years. The Lozi dynasty continued to oppose them wherever possible, and maintained its leadership and traditions in exile. A rebellion in 1860 enabled Lutangu Sipopa, a son of Litunga Mulumbwa, to seize his chance to establish his claim to the throne. He defeated and virtually exterminated the Kilolo four years later and restored the fortunes of the dynasty. During his reign, European explorers, missionaries and travellers began to enter the region in numbers.

Litunga Sipopa’s assassination by his bodyguard in 1876 triggered a contest for the succession. Although his nephew, Mwanawina II, secured the throne, he was deposed in favour of his popular cousin, Lubosi, two years later.

Litunga Lubosi I or more popularly Lewanika, succeeded on the death of his cousin in 1878, was himself deposed and driven into exile in 1884. He escaped to Angola, collected an army and regained the throne in late 1885. Highly intelligent and keen to modernise his kingdom, he embraced the missionaries as a means of educating his people. He also recognised the risk of white settlement and arranged to accept a British protectorate in 1890 in order to protect his people and lands from encroachment. His sons and daughters were given a modern education, several being sent to the Cape or Britain for further study. He abolished slavery in 1895 and bonded labour in 1906. He died after a long reign in 1916, hailed amongst Europeans and Africans alike as one of Africa’s greatest rulers.

Yeta III, the eldest son of Lewanika, succeeded in 1916 after a long apprenticeship under his august father. The first ruler of his line to receive a modern European education, much of his reign was spent expanding education while preserving traditional customs and ways of life. He abdicated in favour of his younger brother, just shy of a reign of thirty years in 1945.

Litunga Imwiko succeeded in 1945, but died three years later, being succeeded by yet another brother, Litunga Mwanawina III. The latter had already had a distinguished career in various subordinate posts under his father and brothers. He had served during the Great War and had been educated at Lovedale College in South Africa. His reign was to be one of the most momentous in the history of the Lozi, culminating with the rising tide of nationalism in Zambia. He saw out the short-lived and unpopular federation of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, with the white-dominated Southern Rhodesia then renounced the protectorate agreement in favour of integration with Zambia on 17 May 1964. He died four years later.

Litunga Godwin Mbikusita, succeeded his brother in 1968, and was almost immediately faced with difficulties. Relations with the central government deteriorated as Kenneth Kaunda sought to impose one-party centralised rule throughout the country.  The large measure of autonomy enjoyed by the Lozi did not fit into these plans, so the Zambian government unilaterally abrogated the 1964 agreement in October 1970. The government renamed Barotseland the Western Province, even forbidding any references to the term in parliament. Despite these trials, the Litunga, whose interests were scholarly, continued to maintain the traditions and culture of his people, against considerable odds. At his death in 1977, the throne devolved on the next generation, after being held by the powerful sons of Lewanika for 60 years.

Litunga Ilute, nephew of Mbikusita and son of Yeta III, succeeded in 1977. He faced just as many difficulties with the central government as his uncle. The added burden of a deteriorating economy, worsened by the centralising policies of Kaunda and the blockade arising from the war in Southern Rhodesia, made matters worse. Nevertheless, his previous life as a diplomat stood him in good stead to navigate a careful path between different forces, and enabling him to preserve the traditions of his people, while recovering a small amount of autonomy. His death in 2000 caused a succession crisis amongst several candidate princes, two of whom were leading opposition politicians in Lusaka. Eventually, the succession was decided in favour of Prince Lubosi Imwiko, the surviving son of Litunga Imwiko II, and he was installed with great pomp in October of that year.

Litunga Lubosi II continues to maintain the traditions of his office and to act as a focus for the Lozi people. Disagreements with the central government have surfaced over the control of lands. Some compromises have been reached, but the issues have not been entirely resolved. Nevertheless, the Litunga remains a popular figure amongst his people, and the post Kaunda democratic governments have generally supported and maintained the cultural traditions of the people.

Today’s king of the Lozi is still a Lewanika.  He is known as His Royal Highness the Litunga Ilute Yeta IV.  Many generations of the Royal family have been educated in England.

The annual Kuomboka ceremony, in which the Litunga journeys in state from his summer residence to his winter palace, has become a popular tourist attraction. It is perhaps the best-known public event in Zambia and is attended by all the important public figures. It used to be around February or March, often on a Thursday, just before full moon. The precise date would only be known a week or so in advance, as the Lozi king would decide on the exact date. Now that the ceremony attracts more visitors, it is usually held at Easter. If water levels are not high enough however, it will not take place at all.

The Kuomboka Ceremony:

The Lozi kingdom is closely associated with the fertile plains around the Upper Zambezi River. When dry, this well-defined area affords good grazing for livestock, and its rich alluvial soil is ideal for cultivation. It contrasts with the sparse surrounding woodland, growing on poor soil typical of the rest of western Zambia. So, for much of the year, these plains support a dense population of subsistence farmers.

However, towards the end of the rains, the Zambezi’s water levels rise. The plains then become floodplains, and the settlements gradually become islands. As a result of this, the people on the margins of the floodplain must leave their settlements for higher ground. The king or Litunga himself traditionally leads this retreat from the advancing waters, which is known as the Kuomboka. The word kuomboka means “to get out of water” in the Silozi language. The king and his court move from his dry-season abode at Lealui, in the middle of the plain, to his high-water residence, at Limulunga, on the eastern margins of the floodplain.

The Litunga’s departure is heralded by the beating of three huge old royal war drums – Mundili, Munanga, and Kanaono. These continue to summon the people from miles around until the drums themselves are loaded above the royal barge. The barge is known as the nalikwanda, a very large wooden canoe built around the turn of the century and painted with vertical black-and-white stripes. The royal barge is then paddled and punted along by 96 polers, each sporting a skirt of animal skins and a white vest. Their scarlet hats are surmounted by tufts of fur taken from the mane of a lion.

The royal barge is guided by a couple of 'scout' barges, painted white, which search out the right channels for the royal barge. Behind it comes the Litunga’s wife, the Moyo, in her own barge, followed by local dignitaries, various attendants, many of the Litunga’s subjects, and the odd visitor lucky enough to be in the area at the right time. The journey takes most of the day, and the flotilla is accompanied by an impromptu orchestra made up of local musicians.

John Reader’s book, Africa: A Biography of the Continent, comments:

“When the Litunga boards the nalikwanda at Lealui, he customarily wears a light European-style suit, a pearl-grey frock coat and a trilby hat; when he leaves the barge at Limulunga he is dressed in a splendid uniform of dark-blue serge ornately embroidered with gold braid, with matching cockade hat complete with a white plume of egret feathers”.

When the royal barge finally arrives at Limulunga, the Litunga steps ashore in the ambassador’s uniform to spend an evening of feasting and celebration, with much eating, drinking, music and traditional dancing.
 
Zambia has one of the lowest population-to-land ratios in Africa. Only 10 million people live in a country half the size of Europe. The employment opportunities offered in the post-independence era in the copper mines and associated industries, led to a strong rural-urban migration. The result has made Zambia one of the most urbanised countries in Africa. About one-fifth of the population lives in the Copperbelt to the north of the capital, but the biggest concentration of people is in Lusaka itself with an estimated population of over two million. This has resulted in massive tracts of uninhabited land across the country.

Zambia’s contemporary culture is a blend of values, norms, material and spiritual traditions of more than 70 ethnically diverse people. Most Zambian tribes moved into the area in a series of migratory waves a few centuries ago. They grew in numbers and many travelled in search of establishing new kingdoms, farming land and pastures.

Before the colonial period, the region now known as Zambia was home of a number of free states. Each had comprehensive economic links with the other and with the outside world along trade routes to the east and west coast of Africa. The main exports were copper, ivory and slaves which were exchanged for textiles, jewellery

Useful Links

http://www.barotseland.com

Suggested Reading List

Vaughn R, (ed) 2000. Zambia. CBC Publishing.
McIntyre C. Zambia, 3rd: The Bradt Travel Guide. Guildford: The Globe Pequot Press Inc.

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