Chibale Zambia: history

Chibale Zambia: history. Some knowledge of Chibale history is useful in order to understand the developments in music, and in religion, in Chibale. We present a short overview of historical periods and a short analysis of the way changes worked in the area.

Historical periods

Locally eight historical periods are discerned. People sometimes use the following names for these periods. I have provided them with approximate dates.

1. Before the coming of the Lala.
2. Bamafumu: area divided in clan territories, clan struggles.
3. Bamfumu (<1800-1870): prosperity under chiefs of one clan, trade.
4. Mapunde (1870-1900): raiding by the Ngoni, Chikunda and Bemba, rinderpest.
5. Mwana kubuta (1900-1935): arrival of the British, hut tax, migration labour, witchcraft eradication movements, prophets, rise of Moba possession.
6. Fetulo (1935-1970): migration labour, beginning of cash-crop farming, strive for Independence, rise of christian denominations.
7. Sambia (1970-1995): village regrouping, money economy, mixing of different people(s), resurgence of possession cults through the rise of Mwami possession, (cash-crop) farming as an alternative to migration labour.
8. No particular name yet (1995- ): emergence of a local economy, predominance of christian cults, relapse of spirit possession cults, setting up of cultural heritage/identity festivals, rekindling of girls’ initiation, arrival of portable and mobile media and electricity near the main road.

The meanings of the periods’ names are the following. Bamafumu: leaders (of old) – bamfumu: chiefs – mapunde: foreigners, enemies – mwana kubuta: white man – fetulo: ‘federal’.
The Fetulo and Sambia periods do not coincide exactly with the historical facts their names refer to. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (now Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi) only came into existence in 1953. The Republic of Zambia gained independence in 1964. But it was from the beginning of the 1970s that the social reality, to which Sambia refers, took form.

Historical period 1: Before the Lala came

Chibale Zambia: history. ‘Before the Lala’ means before any of the people from the area now known as Congo arrived. There is a tradition of finding small-statured people in the area¹Also in Brelsford (1965: 121) and Roberts (1976: 65)..

Story 2 ∵ The story about the small ones with the big bellies

Utunyukamafumo, yes, the small ones with the big bellies. They softened their belly skin, so that it would protrude and even could be used as a loincloth. They slept in anthills and were famous for the phrase with which this story²Doke (1927, 202: story CX). ends: ‘Eating you have eaten, unfold your belly and sleep in it’.
When a tall person met them, they would ask: ‘Where did you see us?’. If you would answer ‘Just here’, they would immediately kill you. But if you said: ‘I saw you from very far away’, they would give you much food and start dancing. ‘We’re tall! We’re tall!’
These small people lived in the Lala region before we arrived but had already left when we came.
Mika Mwape Chungwa ∵ personal communication, 1986.

In spite of the last sentence of the story³That contains a problematic ‘we’, see the next section., one cannot help thinking that this passage suggests that the short-statured inhabitants had a cultural encounter of some sort with the first people to come from Congo. The passage may refer to some or all of the following.
They were rather different: their height, the belly-skin loincloth and sleeping in the anthill. The latter contrasts with the former Chibale habit of burying in the anthill. When you ate with them, they expected you to be like them. Eating their food, that is profiting from their relationship with the area and its spirit world, implied following their cosmology. Only when the differences were emphasized, they became problematic. When not, it would lead to profit from their relationship with the area and its spirit world. And, to singing and dancing, maybe a ritual that bridged the differences.

Historical period 2: Bamafumu (<1800) – clan polities

Chibale Zambia: history. People in Chibale say that ‘the Lala’ came from Kola (or Kalwena or Kalunda). An area somewhere north of the region where Zambia, Congo and Angola meet. This may be true in a faint general sense for a part of the people who arrived in the Lala region, notably in the last two and a half centuries. However, some of the implications that this statement might have must be denied.
They did not come in one trek or within a short period. Not all of them came from an area with a Lunda link. Note for instance the parallels indicated at some places on this site between Chibale and Luba music and religion. They did not all come with other groups, for instance with the Bemba or the Luapula Lunda. In fact, the whole concept of a ‘they’, when referring to the past, does not seem to be appropriate.

Sparse local oral tradition refers to competition between clans in the region and the coming of new stronger clans. For instance with a better trading position, better agricultural methods or better iron technology.
What is important for this period is the picture of the continuous influx of people from the north/north-west and the clan as the prime political factor.

In that time the bamafumu (leaders) were the mfumu (political leader), the cilolo (advisors of the chief), the shing’anga (healer), the nkombalume (big hunter) and the ing’omba (musician/ritual leader). Together they led the taking care of the land (kusunge calo), both spiritually and politically.
Mika Mwape Chungwa ∵ personal communication, 1986.

Less detailed memories of the past

The historian Langworthy states: “Some peoples, such as the Chewa, Lala, Bisa and Lenje, have less detailed memories of the past”.⁴Langworthy (1972: 3). He gives three possible reasons.
A break in continuity of their history in the 19th century.
The lack of an extensive and centralised political system to reinforce the remembering of details.
Or, ‘lack of serious conflicts’.

This ‘lack of a history’ probably explains why the history of most Zambian peoples seems to begin with the coming of the chiefs from Congo, even though people may have lived in some of these areas long before. This is also the case for the Chibale area. Historical information becomes less sparse when gradually the clan struggles led to the leadership of one clan, coming from Kola.

Historical period 3: Bamfumu (<1800-1875) – chiefs of the Nyendwa clan

Chibale Zambia: history. The clan struggles resulted eventually in the supremacy of the bena Nyendwa, the Vagina clan. That was before the beginning of the 19th century. The chief (mfumu), credited for this is called Malama.⁵Compare Munday (1940: 436). Malama may have been the name of an office, possibly the political leadership because –lama means to guard, to keep.
It was also the praise-name of Malama’s successors: Kalunga Kabonde, the first chief to have traded with the Chikunda (c.1800-1820⁶The Chikunda visited Kazembe, the Nsenga region and the Lenje region at the end of the 18th century (Isaacman 1972: 456). Until around 1820, they were middlemen for the Portuguese prazos (a feudal system of traders with private armies) along the Zambezi under Zumbo. Later, groups of them started their own expeditions and many settled near the Luangwa river. They were elephant-hunters, traders and ironworkers. See the description of the way this trade was conducted.) and Nkata Kabonde (Nkata Yombwe pa nkondo).

Oral tradition relates how Malama, possibly also referring to his successors, installed buffer chiefdoms with Nyendwa chiefs around Ilala for protection. Ilala is the central area in the Lala region, laying within the present Chibale and Muchinda chiefdoms.⁷The area formed by Ilala and all these buffer chiefdoms, some sixty thousand square kilometres, coincides with the area referred to as ‘Lala of Kankomba’ drawn on the map ‘East Central Zambia 1700-1835’ in Roberts (1970: 117) which presumably is based on Munday (1961: 20).
One should not overestimate the centripetal force of this structure and the dominance of the Nyendwa clan. The power of a chief depended on the number of villages, clan polities, he could manage to ‘keep’.

Historical period 4: Mapunde (1870-1900) – continuous raids

Chibale Zambia: history. Before the raids started the area had already had its problems with Arab and Arab-related slave hunters. Many people –especially girls and women– from the Lala region ended up being traded at the slave market of Bagamoyo. That is some 1600 kilometers north-east of Chibale, on the coast opposite Zanzibar.
The raiders mostly came from the southeast, apart from an occasional Bemba raiding. Firstly the Chikunda started doing more than trade alone. And more importantly, the Ngoni, a people resulting from the great dispersal of peoples that the coming up of the Zulu, some 2500 kilometres south of Chibale, had caused, started raiding the area. They arrived after the harvest with one or more bands of young men who were primarily after livestock, food and slaves.

Illustration from Munday (1950:1).

Their recurring raids drained the area. And then there were the diseases decimating the cattle.⁸According to Munday (1942: 48), Edme (1944: 103), Lambo (1946: 277) and Marks (1976: 35) rinderpest killed most of the cattle in the Lala region in the last quarter of the 19th century.
The chiefs in this period were Chiboli and Kunda Mfwanti. Kunda Mfwanti was the first chief Chibale. He is said to have bought this name from a hostage or slave. He died around 1900.

A break in continuity

The break in continuity that the raiding brought did not strengthen the position of the leading clan. At the beginning of the 20th century in the area of present-day Chibale chiefdom existed fifteen villages. Only one (the village of chief Chibale) was dominated by the Nyendwa clan. Three by Chibale’s sons and one by one of his wives, all of course, of different clans. The other villages had headmen or headwomen not related to the Nyendwa clan.

Song 66

A Moba song, presumably from the beginning of the 1920s, commemorating the raiding in the last quarter of 19th century. The song was brought by Moba spirits through Koni Mafuba. He was headman of Koni village, now in chief Shaibila’s area, formerly Chibale’s. In 1981, Mika Mwape Chungwa brought this song as an example of an old Moba song.

Text of Song 66 ∵ A moba song with historical references

Lwiso lupili ulu naluba
Cinonenone canonenepo mapunde pa kufwa bantu

Which hill is that over there I have forgotten?
‘Sharpening Place’ where the enemies whetted for people to die

In this song the people are reminded of the total disorientation the raids brought. This is exemplified here by the fact that the name of an important hill – which stands for the whole area around it – is forgotten and that it has to be renamed.
A less literal translation of the text reads: ‘What is that hill over there I have forgotten the name of? Let us call it ‘Sharpening Place’ where the enemies whetted their spear blades before they killed our people’.
The enemies referred to here most likely are groups associated with or incorporated by the Ngoni.⁹See Lambo (1941: 56), Lane Poole (1949: 10), Langworthy (1972: 92) and Verbeek (1983: 2).

Historical period 5: Mwana kubuta (1900-1935) – arrival of the British

Chibale Zambia: history. The British arrived just before the turn of the century. Though the Pax Britannica stopped the raids and the total exhaustion of the area, this period was also disruptive. Quite soon the British introduced a hut tax that could only be paid in cash, not in kind. As cash could not be earned in the Lala region, migration and all the resulting disruptions began. One of the expressions was that people became extremely preoccupied with witchcraft and there were quite some witchcraft eradication movements and prophets. This also had to do with the juridical denial of witchcraft by the British. In this period, we see the rise of Moba possession, a type of spirit possession suitable for coping with the changes brought about by the raiding period and the arrival of the British.

Chiefs Chibale

Kunda Mfwanti was succeeded by his sister’s son Mwape Mondwa, nicknamed Chilonda (Ulcer). After Chilonda’s death, in 1925, came his younger brother Kasubika Mondwa, nicknamed Mutende (Peace).¹⁰The list of chiefs that chief Mutende gave to Pope Cullen (1940: 267) around 1930 mentions: Mwapetembe, Malama, Kalunga, Mawonde, Nkata, Chiwoli, Chiwali the first and Chiwali the second” as the predecessors of Mutende (“Chiwali the third”). According to some Mwape Ntembe was the same person as Malama. In 1946, he was followed by his younger brother, Mushili Mondwa, nicknamed Kabinda (the Youngest).

Historical period 6: Fetulo (1935-1970) – relative prosperity

Chibale Zambia: history. Fetulo is remembered as a relatively quiet and prosperous period in which mushila (rules of life) were still followed.¹²A similar view was encountered in the Nkoya region by van Binsbergen (1981). “One of the most shocking aspects of my fieldwork in a newly-independent country was to hear peasants, as a standard turn in their everyday conversation and certainly not prompted by interviewing praise colonial conditions and the economic and political security they had implied, in contrast with the situation after Independence.”

Chiefs Chibale

In 1947 Kabinda resigned, less than a year after he succeeded Mutende. His sister’s daughter’s son Teneshi Njipika Mukosha succeeded him. He was chief for a long period, dying in 1996. He was followed by his sister’s daughter’s son, Joshua Musonda Chipolo. For each of the deceased chiefs mentioned in this article a shrine is kept at the place where they died. For instance, the cishala (“what is left”) or kabungo (place to do kupupa) of chief Chibale Mwape Mondwa, ba Chilonda, is near the river Milombwe where he died in 1925, see Photos 2 & 3. These shrines are used for kupupa in times of crisis in the area, like drought or much crime.

Historical period 7: Sambia (1970-1995) – decline

Chibale Zambia: history. Sambia is associated with forced village-regrouping, the mixing of people from different regions with different habits and diseases, the gaining of control over money by young people, a decline in the standard of living, the forgetting of the rules of life and the vulnerability resulting from the staining this produces¹³To be stained (kukowela): to have a heightened risk of misfortune, to be with ishamo because of an uncontrolled contact with the spirit world..

Historical period 8: [No particular name] (1995- ) – opening up

In this period the area opened up in various ways. A local economy emerged and portable and mobile media arrived as well as electricity near the main road. Christian cults became dominant and the possession cults diminished. There was a growing self-awareness resulting in the setting up of cultural heritage/identity festivals and the rekindling of girls’ initiation.

Opening up to outside economies

Before the 20th century

The region slowly opened up to outside economic systems, possibly from the early 17th century.¹⁴Roberts (1976: 91): “Some Lala chiefs were probably established by the early 17th century, for the Portuguese on the Lower Zambesi heard at that time of ‘Kankomba’, which is a praise name used by several Lala chiefs”. This name, however, was not exclusively used by Lala chiefs. Moreover, one cannot deduce from Roberts’ information any association of this Kankomba with the Nyendwa clan or the ruling of these chiefs over a Lala ‘nation’ in the early 17th century. It is more likely that the Nyendwa clan took the praise name Kankomba from the people/clans they subjugated at the end of the 18th century.
And it opened up more rapidly as from the beginning of the 19th century through trade (iron work, ivory and slaves for guns and cloths), especially with traders for the Arab slave trade and the Chikunda, and later from around 1870 through the raiding by the Ngoni and Bemba.

In the 20th and 21st centuries

The migration labour that the men had to perform to pay the hut tax formed further links with larger economic systems. As well as the christian mission that arrived in the second decade of the century but took up to the 1940s to gain ground. The number of people involved in migration labour gradually increased to reach a peak in the 1960/70s. From the beginning of the 1950s small cash-crop farming and government intervention in agriculture became a new form of contact with national and international economy, especially for men. When cash-crop farming became less dependent of urban investments through returned migrants, women also gradually started having some control of the capital generated from agriculture.

Old and new interlock

Chibale Zambia: history. Features prominent in previous periods could still be relevant in the 1980s and later. Revival, reinterpretation, and rekindling of older features, as well as invention can all be ways to cope with change from the outside as well as from within. These reactions often do not replace older features but come to exist next to, or above, them making complex patterns of interrelation, dominance and dependence. Older features or their reconstructions seem to become more prominent in times of crisis.  A hypothetical reconstruction of ‘consecutive’ cults in Chibale may serve as an example of the complexity involved. On this site we present several examples of the old and the new interlocking in music and ritual.

Elaboration D: Old and new interlock, examples

To give an impression of the coexistence of old and new in Chibale in the 1980s. Food production was still often organised on a kinship basis. Certainly not all people cultivated cash crops. The newly-wed husband in many cases would still live at and work for his parents-in-law for a few years. Elders still could exert power in certain situations. The clan still had an influence on one’s life. Forms of the ecological, ancestral and chiefly cults were still of importance, also for the members of christian groups and even more so than they had been thirty years earlier. Many still believed that the chief’s condition and behaviour related to the area’s condition.
On the other hand, children were increasingly becoming the most important kin. Many men publicly expressed the wish that their children would inherit their assets (while matrilineal inheritance practices had not yet disappeared). Some people became ‘independent’ (having their own farm) at a young age. More than 85% of the people had been a member of a christian denomination at one time or another. Practically all people at one time or another had cultivated cash crops. More than 80% of the people had stayed in town for a period of more than two years.