True Adventure in Kariba, 1959 (Jack Dee)

Here is a story from a magazine article written in 1959 for the "Wide World" magazine [1] - "The true adventure magazine for men". It's one of those slightly unbelievable stories you hear, such as might have turned up in 'Jock of the Bushveld'.

The author, Jack Dee (no, not that one) looks quite the part in his beret. He says

"The white man builds a dam, and the Ba-Tonga must move to another home... How will this simple and happy people fare, now that they are come more and more into contact with the outside world?"

 I won't  tell the story of the building of Kariba Dam, which is told many places already.You can see some film clips made at the time online at the excellent Pathé News website. There are some good books on the subject, such as Operation Noah, by Charles Lagus [2].

By 1959, many of the people have been moved off their land already.

"Many of them believe that they will later return to their lands of the Valley and the white man's magic will fail"   I've seen the same thing said elsewhere, relating to how the river god, Nyami Nyami, would never let the river be dammed.

At this stage the operation is proceeding apace, trees are being felled by chains tied between massive iron balls, dragged behind heavy vehicles. Animals are fleeing the waters and being trapped (hence 'operation Noah').

"They grew maize and millet, pumpkins and melons. For their meat they went digging for the fat and juicy rats in their burrows along the high banks.... That was the time when hippo were wont to come out and create havoc among the mealie patches.

A story of these people concerns a woman who was taken by a crocodile and left in its larder, just under the bank... she was half drowned, as well as suffering in dreadful pain from her injuries, when the creature left her there for dead. For crocodiles like their meat to be well on the way to decomposition and the larder is a repository for the purpose. 

However, as she was lying in that vile den, the woman thought she could see light through the top earth. Dementedly scrabbling at it with her hands, she managed to break through.... From there she struggled back to the village, to collapse outside one of the huts.

By this time, the drums were already sounding the dance for the dead, for her people were sure that the Great Spirit of the river had claimed her for his own.

Mournfully the women danced, throwing the white ash of the fire over themselves. The drums throbbed, the men sang, and the chief watched, together with the old witchdoctor. 

Suddenly, someone came screaming into their midst. As they all ran forward they saw the 'dead' woman rise, and stagger towards her husband. 'It is not she,' they cried.

The witchdoctor demanded that the men take her and throw her back into the river, claiming that it was no longer the same woman, only a body possessed by evil. This must have been so for never had a human come back from the world of the Great Spirit.

And so the poor soul was thrown back into the water".

Apparently this story was recorded by the Northern Rhodesia Police.

A rescued sixteen foot python [2]

When the Tonga left their ancestor's graves behind they touched them with brushwood, and then dragged the staves, without losing contact with the ground, until they reached their new homes. Those old graves are now under water, along with many others of early missionaries, police and hunters.

"May the metamorphosis they must now undergo be not hurtful to them, and may they find, in the new way of life, compensation for the loss of one in which there was much beauty."

Of course, it was not an easy thing for the Tonga to move their homes in this way. The BBC does well to remember this in their Witness programme [3] which points out that even now electricity has not come to many people in the area, and that the hurt of the displacement is not yet forgotten.  Mwiindachi Siamwiza speaks eloquently about the scar that the displacement of his village left.

Those massive balls can still be seen at the museum in Choma, which is worth a stop on your way to Livingstone if you're travelling from Lusaka. In any case it is a place to break your journey, stretch and have a picnic. They also have a great old engine...

References

[1] The Wide World Magazine, January 1959, "Notice to quit for the people of the river", (b/w photos, quotes)
[2] Operation Noah, Charles Lagus, William Kimber, London, 3rd Edition, 1960 (python picture)
[3] BBC Witness, The Building of Kariba Dam, Fri May 15 2015

Lusaka 1935

The prince, the governor and the architect

I feel quite fortunate to have picked up a copy of this slim volume about the establishment of the city of Lusaka, as there don't seem to be a lot of them around.  It was published in 1935 to commemorate the official opening of the new capital of Northern Rhodesia, during jubilee week. There are some interesting observations and a number of drawings of the government buildings constructed, as well as an alternative, rejected plan of the city.

"To plan a city on virgin land, to build the nucleus of a capital for a country, is essentially an act of faith, a looking forward to the increase that the years will bring."

So begins this short account of Professor Adshead's plan of the city, and the matter is very much in this vein, about how to cater for the expansion of the city in future, and where to site various facilities so as to benefit residents most. There is a short history of African exploration and we hear the story of how Livingstone's initials 'can still be faintly seen' on a tree on an island on the brink of the falls, carved on the day he reached the falls in 1855. I wonder if there are earlier mentions of this story, which lately seems to be regarded as apocryphal. We are told that the inscription on the tree in Chitambo's village where Livingstone was buried reads LIVINGSTONE - MAY 4 - 1873 - SOUZA - MNIASERE - YCHOPERE. The last three the unnamed author says are 'probably names'. 

An early prospector party

'From Tanganyika to the Zambezi the country was overrun with Arab slavers, and the warrior tribes ... were fast exterminating those few survivors who the Arabs left.... We are sometimes accused of having with our rapacity ruined and commercialized a golden age of Africa. That age was red with the blood of a carnage that would not have ended as long as a potential slave remained.'

 Lusaka, he says, is intended to be both a commercial and administrative capital, succeeding Fort Jameson as capital of N.E. Rhodesia and Kalomo as capital of the North West (up to 1907), and Livingstone, which had become capital in 1911.

The first secretariat building in Kalomo, 1899

'The prevalent idea that the building ... was thought of during the governership of Sir James Maxwell in 1929 is not correct.' because Livingstone was only ever a temporary choice. It was unsuitable due to its distance from large parts of the country (1000 miles from Abercorn in the north, present day Mbala) and its less temperate climate, before the development of the copper belt reinforced the argument.

Government House, designed by Walcot

Given that much of the existing development that had taken place was simply along the railway at regular intervals where sidings had been made it was felt necessary to call in an expert, Professor Adshead of London University, and a firm of water engineers, Sir Alexander Binnie Sons & Deacon. As a result of their report the ridge lying to the east of Lusaka  was chosen for the important buildings. (The old town of Lusaka at this time lies to the west of the railway station, along the Great North Road.)

The original Lusaka airport, in the town centre,
designed by Norman, Muntz & Dawbarn of Heston.
'If someone arrives at the wrong aeroplane
there is another path'

Although Lusaka has no river supplying it, the engineers believed bore-holes would be sufficient.  And, although we may pine for the beauty of the river in Livingstone, the author explains, Kafue will soon be within easy reach.  There is already a landing ground for aeroplanes there.

Gymkhana club ('Lusaka Club')
designed by Flutter

The area covered by Lusaka is unusually large for its time and population, allowing for growth, and separates civic activity from residential and commercial - 'no untidy mingling'. The chequer-board design of many modern cities is rejected in favour of the crescent and circus.  Of course, there are also separate accommodation and trade areas for Africans and Europeans. The shopping area is not yet built, but planned on the site of an old golf course.

The Ridgeway is to be the main artery, only one mile of which has been constructed. The new streets will be 120 feet wide -- not, as some might imagine, to allow an ox cart to turn around, but to allow for cars to park. A site for the cathedral has been set aside at a place where it would 'probably appear as the most important building'. Houses are also being planned to deal with the extremes of temperature as well as mosquitoes, with 'glassed in sleeping porches'. Even built-in garages are provided in officials' houses, one of which is known as the Yodel house, because it is based on one in the Austrian Tyrol.  The

The Secretariat (?)

Garden front Government House

 tiles and bricks were made from clay dug near Lusaka, with wood features constructed from local mukwa and Rhodesian mahogany.

The African population is catered for by two classes of accommodation: personal servants and others, in separate compounds. 'Quarters are only provided for one unmarried boy on each plot... Thus not only is the residential area freed from picannins and other manifestations of domestic untidiness and noise, but an opportunity is afforded to provide these families with a life of their own'. The 'boys' are considered to have reached a higher standard of culture and civic behaviour and will prefer to associate with their fellows. The layout of the compounds hopes to preserve the best features of the African village, with family accommodation in clusters of four units, 'looking into itself and divided by an appreciable space from its neighbour.... The modern village housewife... makes her husband build her a separate kitchen a few yards away', but they can't quite manage that, so subdivided communal kitchens were a compromise. We are told that some women have already made formal paths from their huts to their kitchens.

The governor's village

It is very much easier to keep a round hut clean than one with corners and to thatch one. The question of windows was rather more difficult .. because the African ... does not share the Englishman's passion for fresh air, and if you put an ordinary window in his hut he will inevitably keep it shut or stuff it up with a sack....but many huts in the villages are now being built with very small windows high up in the wall. The compound huts are built to mimic this. Thatch is used for roofs but brick is chosen rather than mud for walls, as more durable.  Floors are concrete rather than clay and dung.

Any visitor to Lusaka will have noticed the trees, and much thought was given to them at this time. Adshead had imagined banana trees and palms, but at this height they were not easy to grow. The majority of roads were lined with double rows of trees, some jacaranda, African Flame Tree, or the yellow flowered Markhamia, some mangoes, or wild fig or mahogany, Pride of India, cypress, yellow tecoma or oleander and so the list goes on (see lower down). Even the moringa 'which is said to provide horse-radish from its roots, spinach from its leaves and a flavouring for curries from its pods' is there.  And whilst they cannot see the benefits of all this in 1935, we can now enjoy their efforts in many parts of the capital.

The King's birthday in 1935 was chosen as the date of completion. The project, which had been budgeted at £435,000, came in at just £400,000, ahead of schedule.

The adopted plan

The original plan

It's worth having a look at this photo stream at the national archives, which shows aerial shots of several of these buildings. They appear to be taken at about the same time. It's a far cry from our city of over 2 million inhabitants today, with 2 hour traffic jams. Lusaka certainly needs an overhaul of its road system now, as well as its water supply.

Here are those plants and trees in full, from the appendix, some indigenous, some imported. I must admit I can't ever recall seeing a sausage tree in Lusaka. I wonder how many of these can still be found.  You'll notice also that lantana is on the list, which is now considered a weed by most.

Names in this book: 

Most of these are brief mentions. There are a couple of nice tales.

Adshead, Professor
Baker, Sir Herbert
Chaka (Zulu)
Chitambo (Chief)
Chitanda
Chitimukulu (Awemba)
Coillard, Francois (Revd)
Codrington, Robert
Coryndon
Dawbarn, Graham
Flutter, Mr A. T. (A.R.I.B.A.)
Gamitto, Captain
Heal, Messrs of London
Hoogterp, Mr J.A. (F.R.I.B.A.)  architect
Johnston, Harry
Kazembe (Chief)
de Lacerda e Almeida, Francisco Jose Maria 
Lewanika
Livingstone, David
Lobengula
Mackinnon
Maxwell, Sir James
Moffat, Dr
Monteiro, Major
Mpeseni (Ngoni)
van Oost (Pere)
Pauling, George
Rhodes, Cecil
Sebotoane (Chief)
Sharpe, Alfred
Thomson, Joseph
Uzwangendaba (Ngoni leader)
Walcot, Mr (F.R.I.B.A.)
Williams, Sir Robert
Young

References

Lusaka 1935, Jonathan Cape, private circulation, 1935
North of the Zambezi, Anthony, L.F. G.,  Northern Rhodesia Information Dept, 1953

What's in a Name?

I've seen many books explaining the meanings of European names, but until recently I hadn't seen one discussing Zambian names. Digging through various papers I discovered I had a slim book with no attribution apart from 'For M with thanks', and apparently signed 'Batyo'. It would seem to have been produced for Zambian sale (in churches?), though it also discusses European names.

I guess it must be 40 years old, but it's hard to say. It's quite cheaply produced, and 20 pages long, with a nice cover; more of a pamphlet than a book really:

I confess to ignorance about Zambian names, so this was interesting to me. The author suggests that last names are only coming into use in Zambia at the time of writing, because so much more is being written down. 

A man has the name Nchimunya (same) because the one born before him was also a boy. Now that this man is married he takes Nchimunya as his family name and his children will also be called Nchimunya.

Other names relate to circumstances at the time of birth:

Milimo (work) - a child born at harvesting time
Mainza (rains) 
Imasiku (night) 
Mabvuto (troublesome birth)

Another pattern common in many cultures, and also present in Zambia, is to use the name of a deceased or living ancestor. Perhaps this was sometimes done to invoke the protection of the ancestor (if deceased).

There are also many clan names (as the author calls them). It gives solidarity within the clan and is exogamus, i.e. marriage within the clan is forbidden.

Examples of clan names are:

Bemba  Bowa, Bwali,  Mbulo, Mfula, Ng'andu, Ng'oma, Nsofu,
Lozi  Inambwae, Neta, Namuchoko, Nasiba, Nalikando, Naluya, Ndandula
Tonga  Moono, , Mudenda, Muleya, Muzyamba, Mweetwa, Muntanga
Tumbuka  Kaluba, Kumwenda, Njovu, Nyirenda, Nyirongo, Phiri, Zimba

Recognising that naming these days is much more open to borrowing from other cultures, the author also lists a number of non-Zambian names. One worth a mention is Lwanga, after the Catholic martyr Charles Lwanga (died 1886).

One of the 22 African martyrs of Uganda. Lwanga was in charge of the royal pages and baptised four of them, including Kizito, aged 13, whom he had saved from the evil intentions of Chief Mwanga.  Mukasa, Kizito, Mulumba, Kagwa, Mawaggali were some of the others who died for their faith. Mukasa was beheaded and the others were wrapped in reed mats and burned to death at Namugongo. (Feast day 3rd June.)

And here are some common names in Zambia from different provinces:

Western

Ilishebo - born at a time of hunger
Imasiku - born at night 
Kachana - small but precious
Lubasi - likes relatives, family
Mangolwa - born in the morning 
Masiye - left behind, an orphan
Mubiana - hold something, drop something ... transient
Mundia - he has come, he will depart
Sibeso - a plaything, born during festival time
Sililo - born at the time of a funeral

Eastern

Chidano - hatred, born at a time of quarreling
Chiluba - a flower, a sign of happiness
Mabvuto - trouble at the time of birth
Mavunika - difficulty at birth
Masuzyo - at a time of trouble
Misozi - tears, because previous children have died
Panji - doubting because of certain problems that may occur 
Pereka - a gift
Tionenji - what shall we see, as a result of problems with the family
Wezi - he has come as a gift

Southern

Beenzu - born when there are visitors in the village
Buumba - a time of mourning
Busiku - born at night
Chilala - if the birth is overdue 
Mazuba - born in the evening
Mucala - the mother dies after two weeks
Munzya - a newly born child goes with the mother to another father
Mutinta - a child of a different sex to the previous three
Nchimunya - the same sex as the previous one
Nzala - a time of famine

Northern

Bupe - a gift
Chibeka - the shining one
Chola - one who follows twins
Chongo - the mother made a lot of noise while pregnant
Kasonde - part of the family (universe)
Katwishi - if previous children had been sickly or perhaps died, what will happen to this one?
Mpundu - a twin
Muchemwa - the child was longed for, so to be looked after
Ntandimbanene - if the pregnancy was a secret
Waikunda - if the parent was selfish and kept to her/himself

Do you know any others?

A postcard from Lusaka

Just a quick postcard from Lusaka dated July 1964

Scenes around Lusaka

June, Pat, Colin and David write to the Henshaws in Derbyshire  

Quite a lot of the buildings in town centre have been built recently so are very modern. There is plenty of parking space near the shops so you don't have to carry shopping very far. There is no bus service so most people have one or two cars.

These days you would struggle to find parking in Lusaka. Most people wouldn't do their shopping in the town centre and would rather use one of the out of town supermarkets. One lane of Cairo Road is pretty much used for parking places, and parking wardens collect parking fees as well. There are plenty of minibuses and taxis, though not much used by expatriates. Even now, 'most people' do not have one or two cars.

Apart from Cairo Road (and Greatermans store, I don't remember that) you can see the old airport, the Ridgeway Hotel, the cenotaph in front of the secretariat building and the railway station.