BAROTSELAND:
EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE BAROTSE PEOPLE
[Illustration: Lewanika
Late Paramount Chief of the Barotse Nation
_Frontispiece._ Photo by Mrs. Marshall]
BAROTSELAND:
Eight Years among the Barotse
BY
D. W. STIRKE
Native Commissioner Northern Rhodesia
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER BY
SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.
At one time H.M. Commissioner &c., for Northern Zambezia
LONDON:
JOHN BALE, SONS & DANIELSSON, LTD.
OXFORD HOUSE
83-91, GREAT TITCHFIELD STREET, OXFORD STREET, W.1
PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR.
In presenting this book to the public I would like to register my
appreciation of the kindness of various friends who have materially
assisted me in its production. My brother-officials Messrs. Helm and
Palmer and my friend the Rev. V. Ellenberger, of the Paris Huguenot
Mission, have greatly assisted me with advice and information, while my
sincere gratitude is due to Mr. Coxhead (Secretary for Native Affairs),
Mrs. Marshall, Mr. Walton (Assistant Native Commissioner), and Mr. Thomas
(Vice-Principal of the Barotse National School) for photographs.
The greatest care has been taken in checking and rechecking any and all
portions of the book and several items have been deleted as lacking
confirmation, which was unavoidable in handling such a mixed race as the
present day Barotse.
I would also wish it to be fully understood that this work has been
compiled by me, aided by my friends as mentioned before, but with no
official assistance from the Administration, and this work must in no
way be considered “Official” or “Approved by the British South African
Co.” The information to be found in the book is however fairly accurate,
in spite of not being written under the ægis of the Administration.
Since finishing the book the death of the Paramount Chief Lewanika has
occurred, and he has been succeeded in his position by his eldest son,
Yeta, who has taken the title of Yeta II.
Lewanika was a man of about 70 years of age, and had a hold on his people
that no Murotse chief will ever have again. He will, for generations,
be remembered as the chief who did most for the improvement and
consolidation of his people. Lewanika travelled to England for the late
King Edward’s coronation, and it was always a great delight to him to
talk about the friends he made and the sights he saw while going to,
staying in, and returning from England.
Early in his reign he was deposed by a relative of his named Tatila; but
Tatila had not the grip over his people nor the statesmanship to hold
the chieftainship, with the result that Lewanika was reinstated after a
couple of battles. To the surprise of all he showed great clemency and
pardoned most of the rebels. A notable example of his clemency is the
induna Noyōō, who was very prominent in killing off Lewanika’s women and
children during Tatila’s brief rule. Lewanika told me himself that his
reason for sparing Noyōō was because he and Noyōō had herded cattle
together when very small boys.
Lewanika led many successful raids against the neighbouring tribe of the
Mashukulumbwe, and he was the first Barotse Chief who accepted their
homage and counted them as a portion of his people.
He had a great belief in acquiring knowledge of other native races and
chiefs, and sent embassies to Chitimukulu the Awemba Chief and to Khama
the Bamangwato Chief (the Bamangwato being better known nowadays under
the general term Bechuana).
Lewanika was a man of most charming and courteous manners and had always
a very sincere regard for Europeans, while his loyalty to the Empire has
repeatedly proved itself, more especially since the beginning of the
German War. A visit by a European, accompanied by his wife, was always
considered a great compliment by the late chief.
Missionaries always received support from Lewanika, and were given
grants of land for their stations and many other privileges. The Chief
himself never professed Christianity, but set an example to his people by
attending church services and by supporting the Missions generally.
D. E. C. S.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface by the Author v
Introductory Chapter by Sir Harry Johnston 1
CHAPTER I.
The Barozi and their Origin 37
CHAPTER II.
The Administration of Barotseland 42
CHAPTER III.
Native Administration 46
CHAPTER IV.
Barozi Industries 55
CHAPTER V.
Customs (Mikwa) 61
CHAPTER VI.
Riddles and Conundrums 80
CHAPTER VII.
Barozi Songs and Dances 85
CHAPTER VIII.
Barozi Legends 93
CHAPTER IX.
Barozi Laws 108
CHAPTER X.
General 115
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
_To face p._
Lewanika, late Paramount Chief of the Barotse Nation _Frontispiece_
The Skull of _Homo rhodesiensis_ from the Specimen at the
British Museum 1
The Giant Sable Antelope of Eastern Angola 28
The Mokwai Mataŭka of Nalolo with her husband (standing) and
interpreter (sitting) 37
One of Lewanika’s Aunts with Attendant 40
Lewanika’s Band (Mirupa and Silimba) 40
A Lujazi Village 44
Lewanika’s Head Paddlers 44
Arrival of the Nalikwanda 52
The Secretary for Native Affairs and the late Paramount Chief 52
The Nalikwanda 56
Government Messengers and a Post-runner at Nalolo 56
Crossing Cattle over the Zambezi 58
The Mokwai’s House and Fence at Nalolo 58
Capture of a young Crocodile 62
Arrival of Lewanika’s Subsidy at Lialui: carried by British South
Africa Company’s Messengers 62
Tax-payers 66
Royalty travelling by Boat 66
Mankoya Women dancing 70
“Well in swing” 70
Mambalangwe “Nuts” 74
Mat-makers, with Mats for Sale 78
A Mambalangwe Family 78
Gang of Natives proceeding to the Mines in Southern Rhodesia 82
Shooting Rapids 86
Ngonya Falls at Sioma, Barotseland 86
Food for Sale 88
The End of the Day’s Journey 88
“Liyumbo,” or Food-tribute 92
Travelling in Barotseland 92
The Author and the Mokwai of Nalolo 100
A Mrozi Boat and Crew 100
The Author and Lewanika 104
A Mumbunda Witch Doctor telling Fortunes 106
A Barotse Village 106
Start of a River Trip 110
Interior of Lewanika’s Dining-room 110
A Mambalangwe Belle 114
A Mankoya Chief and Retinue 118
A Traveller on the Zambezi 122
The Mankoya Chief, Mweni-Mutondo, and Band 122
Village School Boys, with Parents in foreground 128
Hauling Boats through Rapids 128
Portion of a Lubale Village 134
The Lunda Chief, Sinde, and Harem 134
[Illustration: The Skull of an ancient North Rhodesian Type of Man (_Homo
rhodesiensis_).
(From a photograph kindly lent by Dr. SMITH WOODWARD, British Museum).
_Face_ p. 1]
INTRODUCTION.
BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.
_Sometime H.M. Commissioner, &c., for Northern Zambezia._
Barotseland at the present day is mainly defined as the kingdom of the
recently dead Lewanika which lies both to the east and west of the Upper
Zambezi, north of Sesheke, the Katima Rapids, the “Caprivi” boundary
line of former German South West Africa. The western boundary line
of Barotseland is the east bank of the Kwando river up stream to its
intersection with the 22nd degree of E. longitude; the northern boundary
is the 13th degree of S. latitude; and the eastern limit is a line
drawn from the 13th degree of S. latitude to the upper waters of the
Kabompo-Lulafuta, and then southward to the Majili river and along the
Majili down to its union with the Upper Zambezi near Sesheke.
The master people, still, in this Upper Zambezi state are the A-luyi, who
seem to have entered the lands of the Upper Zambezi from the direction of
Eastern Angola, if vague tradition be anything to rely on. At any rate
the A-luyi became the dominant tribe in this region some three hundred
years ago, if not much earlier. Prior to their dominancy the Upper
Zambezi regions had been invaded by terrible armies of cannibals, the
“Bazimba” of Portuguese East African records and the “Giagas,” “Jaggas”
of Portuguese Congo and Angola history. The term “Jagga” seems to have
been derived from the title Jaga, which they gave to their chiefs;
amongst themselves this tribe or congeries of tribes which played such
an amazing part in the history of Central Africa in the latter half of
the 16th century was known either as the “Imbángala” of the middle course
of the Kwango river or the Va-chibokwe, Va-kioko, Va-chokwe, Bajoko
(according to Livingstone), or Ba-jok of South-west Congoland and the
Kasai sources. This boiling over of the Va-chokwe—as they are nowadays
termed in their original home—caused terrific, population-destroying
raids to be made across Northern Angola into Luango and the Congo coast
region, and southwards over Barotseland, Central Zambezia, Southern
Nyasaland and Moçambique, and northwards up the East Coast to the
surroundings of Mombasa. The Va-chokwe were known by several names in the
Portuguese records, the Jagga, Ba-zimba, and Bambo (_sing._ “Mumbo.”)
“Ba-zimba” seems to have died out as a tribal name, but the Bambo still
inhabit the region through which the Lower Shire flows, and the original
Va-chokwe, Va-kioko, Va-chibokwe, or Ba-jok are prominent inhabitants
in the basin of the extreme upper Kasai, and come into Barotseland
or Angola on trading expeditions. They are a singularly independent,
quarrelsome, warlike people, not unlikely to give trouble yet to the
Belgian controllers of Congoland, to the British peace-keepers in
North-West Zambezia, or to the Portuguese in Eastern Angola.
But though Upper Zambezia was traditionally overrun by the Va-chokwe
three hundred and fifty years ago, the A-luyi seem soon afterwards to
have absorbed the invasive quota of peoples and to have settled down as
the rulers of Upper Zambezia till their land was first invaded from the
south about one hundred and twenty years ago.
This invasion took place from the direction of Lake Ngami and the
invaders seem to have been a section of the Ba-hurutse division of the
Bechuana people. They reached the Upper Zambezi—traditionally—at the end
of the 18th century, whether as friends or foes, tradition does not say;
probably in small numbers and with no racial feud against the A-luyi.
Their descendants may be the “Njenji” or “Zinzi” tribe who still speak a
dialect of Sechuana and are settled rather high up the Zambezi. They seem
however to have long retained the tribal name—Ba-hurutse—which became
shortened into Ba-rotse.
These Ba-hurutse colonists of the Upper Zambezi valley apparently
preserved some slender connection with the remainder of the great area
of Bechuanaland, and had allowed news to reach the Fatherland of
their tribe regarding the well-watered region in which they had made a
new home. At any rate Sebituane, the son of an erratic woman chief in
Basutoland, who in the second decade of the 19th century led her people
forth on a mad excursion, gradually found his way to the north-west, and
finally at the close of the eighteen-twenties had crossed the Zambezi
and brought his followers—now called the Makololo—to the conquest of its
upper valley.
By about 1840, he had conquered the A-luyi, whom he and his people
called the “Ba-rotse” (Ba-hurutse), by the name of the earlier Bechuana
colonists. Livingstone found him a fine-looking, copper-coloured man.
“He was far and away the finest Kafir I ever saw,” wrote W. C. Oswell at
the time—1851; and many years afterwards (in 1890) he repeated the same
thing to me. “Sebituane is a gentleman in life and manner” exclaimed his
surprised guests in 1851, when they appreciated to the full his gracious
and thoughtful hospitality.
One feels on reading the remembrances of Livingstone and Oswell how
intense must have been their regret when a few days after their arrival
this great chief fell ill with inflammation of the lungs and passed
away. Sebituane’s last days of life were taken up with recounting in
a subdued voice (he was suffering from an old wound in the lungs) his
wonderful adventures since he had first reached the Zambezi and found
his way into Barotseland as a ruler. To the east of his moving horde of
Bechuana or Makololo, were the fierce Tebele Zulus under Umsilikazi or
Mosilikatse,[1] who likewise strove to conquer for themselves a state in
North Zambezia. The pressure of the Amandebele drove Sebituane to the
more swampy regions of “Barotseland.”
After Sebituane’s death Livingstone and Oswell left his country,
promising to return. His son Sekeletu—inferior to his splendid father
in height, physique, and appearance—was placed on the throne and ruled
Barotseland for some twelve years. Livingstone had returned to the Upper
Zambezi in 1853, determined then to discover the whole secret of its
course and of its main tributaries, and to follow up the trail of the
Ba-joko traders and the “Mambari” or half-caste Portuguese, who were
beginning to renew their trading enterprize with the Upper Zambezi, and
ascertain if through Sekeletu’s kingdom they could find their way “á
contra costa”—to Portuguese Zambezia and Moçambique.
Livingstone traversed Barotseland (or Uluyi, as it was still more
anciently called). Makololo porters and soldiers—some of whom were really
A-luyi subjects of Sekeletu—accompanied him to São Paulo de Loanda, and
turned back with him from Portuguese civilization to deliver him safely
again at Sekeletu’s capital, whence, after many adventures on the Tonga
highlands and along the cataract-strewn Zambezi, he reached that river’s
delta and the settled towns of the Portuguese.
He returned in 1858 and, accompanied by Charles Livingstone and John
Kirk, he once more entered Barotseland and sat with Sekeletu and his
subordinate chiefs. But Livingstone had become by then more deeply
interested in the problems, geographical and political, of Lake Nyasa
and the Shiré river, the ravages of the Yao and Arab slave-traders, the
courses of rivers west and north of the Nyasa watershed. Barotseland
simmered on; scarcely visited by any European—unless it was some stray
hunter who had found his way to the Zambezi. At last, in the year 1878,
the pioneers of the great French Protestant Mission—notably Monsieur
François Coillard—came into the Lake Ngami basin from Bechuanaland, and
thence travelled to Upper Zambezi.
They found this former kingdom of Sebituane and Sekeletu ruled
intermittently and disturbedly by a young chief of the old Aluyi
dynasty—_Lewanika_. Sekeletu had died in 1864, and a period of struggle
then arose in which the Aluyi and allied peoples, with possibly the
remnant of the old settlement of the “Barotse” (Ba-hurutse), overcame the
fighting caste of the Makololo, killed the males and married the females;
and at the end of the struggle—about 1870—-the former dynasty of Aluyi
chiefs was re-established.
The French Protestant missionaries (some of whom were Swiss) did much
to keep Lewanika and his people in touch with British South Africa,
after they were well-established in his country. He was made aware, at
the close of the ’eighties, of German ambitions, of Portuguese desires
to “protect” his territory—the journeys of Serpa Pinto and Capello and
Ivens (1878-1883) had kept him advised of this; and at the same time of
the formation of a great Chartered Company which had come to terms with
the Matebele Zulus and was extending British political influence over the
regions north of the Zambezi.
The “Barotse” people had heard something about the Arabs far back in
the 19th century, for Livingstone found an intelligent, enquiring,
civil-spoken Arab staying at or near the Barotse capital on the Zambezi
in 1855.
Lewanika came to hear of the war with the Arabs in Nyasaland and on
Tanganyika into which Germans and English were led, and his sympathies
lay with the Europeans. Though Sekeletu had been a slave-trader on rather
a considerable scale, Lewanika held such a policy in abhorrence. In
1891 he came to a preliminary understanding with the Chartered Company
which has been strengthened by later agreements. In 1902, Lewanika, who
had been born and brought up in the heart of Central Africa, travelled
_via_ Cape Town to England and was present at the coronation of King
Edward VII. He looked a fine and imposing figure in Westminster Abbey,
where I—recently returned from Uganda—was presented to him, after the
ceremony was over. He had, indeed, as the author of this book says in
his introduction, “most charming and courteous manners.” Further, it
should be added that in regard to the kingdom of the Barotse, the British
South Africa Chartered Company has taken no false step, has incurred no
unfavourable criticism, and has received praise for its control of native
customs and defence of native rights from the French Protestant and the
Church of England missionaries at work in this country and its neighbour
states.
* * * * *
The Barotse country, as defined on the sketch map accompanying this
book, includes a number of interesting and distinct Bantu languages. It
is even possible that a traveller who pushed his explorations to the
south-western limits of the kingdom and of the British sphere might
find in the valley of the Kwando river a few nomad Bushmen of more
normal stature than the stunted Bushmen of Cape Colony, but speaking
a tongue of Bushman and not Bantu affinities. The Bushmen were more
anciently inhabitants of this land than the Bantu Negroes; but not far
away, to the east of Barotseland, we have had a sensational discovery
within the last twelve months of a different and peculiar species of
man which once inhabited South Central Africa, prior to the penetration
thither of the Negro sub-species. This was _Homo rhodesiensis_, the
skull, jaw, and limb-bones of which were found in close association with
rudely-chipped quartz knives and scrapers, and with the broken bones
of antelopes still living in Rhodesia. The place of discovery was some
sixty feet below the surface in a cave at the Broken Hill Mine almost
in the middle of Northern Rhodesia. The bones found are attributable to
at least two personages, the limb-bones and the skull having belonged
to a tall man perhaps not less than six feet in height. He possessed
tremendously-developed brow ridges, a feature in which Negro man is as a
rule more deficient than the European. These, and the large flat face and
comparatively small front teeth and other features, suggest an affinity
with Neanderthal man (_Homo primigenius_) of Europe. Other points show
some resemblance to the black Australian. But the brain-case measured in
space only about 1,280 cubic centimetres—a capacity much inferior to the
ordinary brain-cases of the Neanderthaloids and Australoids, though, of
course, there are occasional examples of Australoid women’s skulls that
have a brain capacity of under 1,000 cubic centimetres.
These bony remains of Rhodesian man may have been living creatures as
much as forty thousand or as little as ten thousand years ago: there is
not enough surrounding evidence to fix the date of them more precisely.
All we can say is that the bones of the beasts they hunted and ate are
nearly if not quite identical with those of existing species. Probably
at the time when this big-browed, gorilla-faced man was alive, the Upper
Zambezi, which flows through Barotseland three or four hundred miles
westward of Broken Hill Mine, formed a great longitudinal lake in the
heart of the Barotse[2] country, the greater part of which still remains
very swampy. And when it issued from this expansion it joined the Kwando,
the Okavango, and the Zuga to form a vast lake in what is now the North
Kalahari Desert. The Guay river was then the Upper Zambezi and the Kafue
river joined it as now.
The Kalahari Desert which well nigh ruins the north-western part of South
Africa is probably “younger” as a desert even than the Sahara—and the
Sahara Desert is a thing of yesterday, possibly much more recent than
the existing human species. In the days when Rhodesian man with the huge
brow-ridges, long, ape-like face and poorly developed brain ranged across
all of Northern Rhodesia that was not under water, he might have passed
between the vast Zambezi Lake on the west and the sources of the Guay on
the east, and have wandered down into a green, tree-besprinkled South
Africa, where he was no doubt killed out by the smaller but far more
cunning Bushman or the intelligent Strandloopers who painted pictures
on the rock surfaces like their relatives of Europe, the Crô-Magnon
men. Long after these antecedent types of invaders had died away came
in the vigorous Negroes...? Two thousand years ago? ... who spoke Bantu
languages. Whether, between the Strandloopers, Bushmen and Hottentots who
invaded the southern portion of South Africa thousands—who yet can say
how many?—of years ago and the Bantu Negroes of yesterday (so to speak),
other races entered and dwelt in southern and South-Central Africa,
we do not know. I have given reasons elsewhere for premising that the
flocking south from Equatoria of the Zulus, Bechuana, Karaña, Nyanja,
Tonga, Luyi, Hérero, Angola, Luba, Lunda, Yao and Makua tribes and their
allies and embranchments was quite a recent episode in the history of
Africa, perhaps not more than two thousand years old. We have at present
absolutely no knowledge of the incoming of any other type of inhabitant
later than the Hottentot and before the Bantu; though there may have been
many Negro immigrants belonging to neither group linguistically.
Barotseland, as its recent past becomes revealed to us from the second
half of the sixteenth century, seems to have had as a dominant people
the _Aluyi_; and as other tribes of importance the _Tonga_ group
(Ila-Tonga-Subia) in the south and south-east, the _Luena_ or _Lubale_,
_Mbunda_, and _Lujazi_ tribes of northern Barotseland and the adjoining
parts of Angola, the _Nkoya-Mbwela_ peoples of eastern Barotseland; and a
section of the southern _Luba_ folk. Sporadically there has also occurred
a strong invasion of the _Lunda_ people (Ma-bunda) into the northernmost
basin of the Zambezi, but it is doubtful whether these immigrants
penetrate into the political limits of Barotseland. Similarly a section
of another vigorous South Congo people has colonized the Northern
Zambezi basin; the Luba, who are known in North-Eastern Barotseland
as the _Kahonde_ or _Kaondi_. Then again the enterprising, uppish,
cheeky _Va-chokwe_ or “Ba-joko” traders—once the slave-traders of South
Congoland and Eastern Angola—circulate through Northern Barotseland and
add yet another type of Bantu language to its markets and meetings.
The dominant language at Court and in trade to-day is an almost
artificially-manufactured tongue which had come into existence during the
last fifty years—_Si-kololo_. This will be found illustrated in its most
modern form in the first volume of my _Comparative Study of the Bantu
and Semi-Bantu Languages_ (Oxford, 1919). My information has been mainly
derived from the _Sikololo Grammar and Vocabulary_ published in London by
Dr. Stanley Colyer in 1917, and from a _Sikololo Phrase-book_ produced
two years’ earlier by Mr. Stirke, the author of this book, in conjunction
with a very noteworthy colleague, Mr. A. W. Thomas, formerly master of
the Barotse National School.
_Sikololo_ which has gradually displaced and superceded the Sechuana or
Sesuto language of the original Bechwana invaders of a hundred years ago,
is a far easier language to speak and pronounce than the difficult and
highly peculiar idiom of Central South Africa. To philologists, Sechuana
and its later southern specialization, Sesuto, are intensely interesting.
Sechuana entered South Africa at as ancient a date as any other Bantu
tongue—say sixteen or seventeen hundred years ago, coming thither from
South-East Africa. But since then it has become highly specialized.
The most specialized form of it was the southernmost, Sesuto, scarcely
distinguishable a hundred or more years ago from the Sepedi of the
Western Transvaal.
The chief Sebituane, born some hundred and twenty years ago, was a
Mosuto, the son of a great crazy woman-chief known as Mantatisi. He
carried his Sesuto tongue with him on the amazing journey he made with
half his tribe across Bechuanaland to Lake Ngami and the Zambezi.
Sechuana or Sesuto was the Court language in Barotseland when Livingstone
first reached the Upper Zambezi in 1851. As the years rolled by, and
after the Makololo (Basuto) dynasty had given place to a restoration of
the Aluyi chieftainship, the original Sesuto spoken by Sebituane and
well understood by Livingstone (who could converse in it freely) became
greatly changed. It has remained the governing language of Barotseland
and has succeeded almost in replacing and killing the remarkable Siluyi
of the old rulers; and neither of the beautiful languages of the
Tonga-Subia group of Southern and South-Eastern Barotseland has been
allowed to take its place.
In Sikololo the pronunciation is much simplified. The rough guttural
combination _kx_—of Sechuana-Sesuto gives way to the simple _k_; a hiatus
formed by a dropped consonant is filled by _h_; _ts_ is generally changed
to _z_; _e_ in the prefixes becomes _i_; _f_ which had become _h_ in
Sesuto is generally replaced; the uncouth _tl_, _tlh_ or the aspirated
_th_ and _kh_ return to the simple _t_ and _k_; and in general the
pronunciation of Sikololo is brought into conformity with the harmonious
phonology of the Zambezi languages.
A far more interesting tongue is _Siluyi_, the nearly extinct language
of the Aluyi; in its older form, that is to say, as it was spoken round
about Lialui (the original governing centre, near the left bank of
the Zambezi, in about 15° 15´). Here it was a stately language, using
preprefixes, and possessing all the seventeen customary prefixes of the
Bantu languages. The second (_Ba_-) and eighth (_Bi_-) of these were in
an abbreviated form, because the Luyi tongue had rather a dislike to an
initial _b_, though it turned the sixteenth prefix—_Pa_- into _Ba_-,
following a practice which recurs a good deal in the Angola tongues.
The principal form in which I have presented this language in the First
Volume of my _Comparative Study_ is derived from the studies of Luyi
(Siluyi) compiled some twenty to twenty-five years ago by the Rev. E.
Jacottet, of the French Protestant Mission. It was soon evident, when the
British South Africa Co. officials got to work, that there was at least
one separate dialect of Luyi spoken to the East and North-East of the
main Zambezi. This was the _Si-kwango_ or _Si-kwangwa_, a tongue in which
the preprefixes are dropped. Si-kwangwa seems still to be a living speech
among the people in the East-Central part of Barotseland; but the much
nobler Luyi of the Zambezi vicinity is dying out, even among the natives
of Luyi stock, dying out in favour of mongrel Sikololo.
Allied to Siluyi apparently, is the _Nyengo_ language of the Bampukushu
people, a scattered tribe living still (perhaps) in the South-Western
portion of Barotseland, on the banks of the Kwando or Linyanti river.
There has been no record of this speech since that which was compiled by
Livingston about 1853, and which I have reproduced (numbered 82) in my
_Comparative Study of the Bantu Languages_.
Still farther south, in the northern part of the basin of Lake Ngami,
there were, down to quite recently, the _Ba-yeye_ or _Makoba_ people,
whose language also seemed to show kinship with Luyi as well as with
the Subia-Tonga group. The imperfect record of this is numbered 81 in
my book. It may be extinct as a spoken tongue by now. But its existence
where it last lingered on the northern side of Lake Ngami would seem to
show that this basin of the shrinking lake (which received a vast but
diminishing tribute of water from the Okavango river, and earlier still
from the present “Upper Zambezi”) was colonized by the Bantu from the
north before it was found and peopled by the Bechuana tribes from the
south-east.
So much does Sikwangwa differ from Siluyi nowadays, that it is almost
a separate language. If this be so, the Western Zambezi group of my
formation would contain at least four languages, _Yeye_, _Nyengo_, _Luyi_
and _Sikwangwa_. I am also informed that Sikwangwa is not the only
existing dialect of Luyi, but that two others exist, and are spoken to
the North-West and North-East of Lialui and the Zambezi: _Si-koma_ and
_Si-kwandi_. These have only been recorded in name, and I have seen no
specimens of their vocabularies. It would be interesting to ascertain
whether, like Luyi, they retain the use of preprefixes; or whether they
have dropped them, as have most of the languages in the western half of
the Zambezi basin.
There is a tendency in Siluyi for _b_ and _p_ to take the place of _v_
or _f_ as the initial of the root, although in the prefixes _b_ and _p_
are inclined to drop out: so that _Aba_- becomes _Aa_-; _Ibi_-, _I_;
Ubu-, Uu-; and Apa-, Aba-. Thus we have -_pumo_ for “belly,” instead of
the familiar -_fumo_; -_bumu_ for “chief,” in place of -_fumu_; -_pumbu_
for “ground” (ordinarily -_vu_) -_buu_ for “hippopotamus” (-_vubu_),
-_bula_ for “rain” (-_vula_); and -_pi_ for “war” (-_vita_). The roots
for the numerals “six,” “seven,” “eight” and “nine” were in Livingstone’s
day, very peculiar and unlike those of any other Bantu tongue; though
to-day they are supplemented by paraphrases meaning “five-and-one,”
“five-and-two,” etc.
The Rev. Mr. Jacottet has shown how rich Siluyi was in folk-lore and
legends. It is a great pity this particularly interesting, expressive
Bantu tongue should be allowed to die out through the vogue given to the
artificial amalgam of speech known as Sikololo.
_Subia_, spoken in Southern Barotseland, on and near the Zambezi at its
bend eastward, is also a language of great interest, said likewise to be
dying out under the rivalry of mongrel Sikololo. It was first noticed
by Livingstone about 1851, and a grammatical sketch of it was given by
Jacottet in 1896. But in the present century, F. V. Worthington and C.
F. Molyneux, officials of the Chartered Company, supplied me with a full
vocabulary and grammatical information which has been reproduced in my
_Comparative Study_, Vols. I and II. Subia is spoken to the south of the
Zambezi as far eastward as Pandamatenka; but it belongs to the West
Central Zambezia Group, mainly in use on the north side of the great
river, and including the Tonga, Ila and Lenje tongues and their dialects.
This group is related to the Luba languages of Southern Congoland and
to the tongues of the Bangweulu basin and of the Luangwa valley. They
are all beautiful-sounding and expressive languages, representing Bantu
speech in an attractive form.
The _Tonga_ language is spoken in South-East Barotseland in one or
more dialects. The Tonga people are a series of vigorous tribes not
very likely to give up their expressive language in favour of the
bastard Sikololo or the crabbed Sechuana. They attained some degree of
civilization two centuries ago under the teaching of Portuguese Jesuit
missionaries. Their attitude towards Livingstone and later travellers,
down to the incoming of the British South Africa Company, was hostile.
James Chapman, the great explorer of Southern Zambezia and even of
Barotseland—in some senses the rival of Livingstone—suffered much from
attacks at their hands. So did F. C. Selous. They also warred incessantly
against the Zulu invasions under Umsilikazi and Lobengula, and checked
the Zuluizing of central Northern Zambezia, which, in default of similar
vigorous opposition, took place in the regions east of the Luangwa river.
Similarly related to Tonga and Subia are the _Ila_ (Shukulumbwe) and
_Lenje_ tongues, though both lie almost or wholly outside the limits of
Barotseland, in the central part of Northern Rhodesia. The Ba-ila tribes,
two divisions of which are also known as the _Ba-lumbu_ and _Ba-shala_,
are a splendid-looking folk in physical development, who were long
recalcitrant to European influence. In fact their healthy plateau country
has only been opened up to knowledge during the last twenty years. When
they were first seen in the latter part of the nineteenth century they
were found to be—the men especially—living in a state of complete nudity,
except in the case of the married women. But to make up for the complete
neglect of clothing the men devoted particular attention to their
head-hair. This was pulled up, greased, lengthened by the insertion of
ancestral hair pullings, and fastened to a supple arched, recurved whip,
so that it rose a foot to two feet above the occiput. Nowadays I imagine
that their complete nudity is modified. The mining surveys, motor roads,
and suggestions of railways, together with good and wise government,
in and out of the Barotse kingdom, have succeeded in taming the Ba-ila
and in drawing them into paid employment; though it is still feared by
watchful administrators that they tend to diminish owing to sexual vice
which causes the women to become infertile.
Another language of interest and importance is that of the _Nkoya_ and
_Mbwela_ tribes living in East Barotseland. It has affinities jointly
to the Luyi Group and to that of the North-West Zambezia languages.
Preprefixes are not used, but the seventeen prefixes-with-concords seem
to be fully represented in primitive forms, except that the seventh
prefix (_Ki_-) is represented by _Shi_-, which brings it near to the
_Si_- of Luyi. The tenth prefix is lisped as _Thi_-, _Thin_-, &c., a
feature reappearing in one or two other tongues of the Group. The eighth
prefix is _Bi_- and the locative prefix is _Pa_-. The root for ‘two,’
in the numerals is the East and South Africa form, -_bidi_ or -_biji_
(for -_bili_); not the -_bali_ root that obtains in the other members
of the North-West Zambezian Group. Another peculiarity that signalizes
Nkoya is the root -_mwa_- for ‘all,’ only to be met with elsewhere in
two of the Manyema languages of East Congoland. In Nkoya there is none
of that dislike to the consonant _p_, which recurs over and over again
in Bantu Africa. But in the other members of the North-West Zambezia
Group this obtains, and in these—Luena, Mbunda, Lujazi and Chokwe—the
16th prefix is given as _Ha_- or _A_- instead of _Pa_-. Otherwise they
are fairly orthodox, betraying little more “West African” affinities than
the use of the -_bali_ root for ‘two’ (instead of -_bili_), which is a
characteristic of West Central Africa.
The _Luena_ or _Lubale_ language only enters the north-western part of
Barotseland; _Mbunda_ is spoken in separate parts on either side of
the Upper Zambezi, also in the north of this state; _Lujazi_ extends
from South-East Angola to the western limits of Barotse territory; and
Chokwe comes in as a trading language in the extreme north. None of these
North-West Zambezia languages use preprefixes.
One other great Bantu Group may be met with in the northern part of
Barotseland. Here there are outlying dialects of Luba and Lunda which
have penetrated into Barotseland comparatively recently. The Luba tongues
of South Congoland are represented by _Kahonde_, a form of South Luba
illustrated in my Comparative Study under the designation of 105a. This
is spoken on the North-Eastern verge of Barotseland in the basin of
the Upper Kabompo river. Southern Lunda, introduced into the northern
part of this territory goes under the name of “_Ma-bunda_,” the root of
which—_bunda_—is the same as that of “Mbunda,” a quite distinct language
of the North-West Zambezia Group allied to Luena, Lujazi, Nkoya, and
Chokwe. “Bunda” is evidently a language and tribal name which in the
shapes of -_bundu_, -_bundo_, and -_bunda_ haunts Angola and Western
Zambezia without implying close relationship between the different forms
of speech thus termed. The “Ma-bunda” dialect of Lunda may represent
an older form of the latter name, which seems to be a contraction of
Lu-unda for Lu-bunda. The language (No. 111) which I have styled “Western
Lunda” in my Comparative Study was originally called by its discoverer,
the Revd. S. Koelle, “Ru-unda,” suggesting that _Ru_- (= _Lu_-) was the
familiar language prefix and -_unda_ or -_bunda_ the root. The loss of an
initial _b_ is a frequent occurrence in the Lunda languages.
* * * * *
The distribution of tongues southward from Angola and the Congo Basin
over the regions north of the main Zambezi river indicates no causes of
hesitancy, no interruptions in the north-to-south progress of the Bantu
peoples. But westward of the course of the Luangwa river, as far as the
Barotse country extends, or at any rate as far as the main stream of the
Zambezi flows, this great river seems to have been a very decided and
arresting barrier in the distribution not only of African tribes and
languages but of the larger or more remarkable mammals and birds.
With regard to man of course the barrier has not been so effective.
Evidently the Aluyi people of long ago crossed the Upper Zambezi and
penetrate to the Lower Kwando or Chobe, and across this stream to the
vicinity of Lake Ngami, though not much farther west; and in return,
immigrants of Bechuana stock entered Barotseland from Lake Ngami in the
last century. But there seems to have been a not easily explained halt
in human migrations between Western Zambezia and South-West and South
Africa. It would be comparatively easy to account for, if one could
presume that the present sterile influence of the Kalahari desert
prevailed two thousand or even one thousand years ago, and earlier still.
But on the contrary from the many indications we can collect and from
the legends of the natives in the regions south of the Zambezi, we are
inclined to believe that the present arid nature of the lands on the
western side of South Africa is quite a modern feature which has gone on
rapidly increasing. So rapidly that even I who made a journey in 1882 to
the Kunene river from Mossamedes can remember flowing streams (in the dry
season) and forests, where the rivers and rivulets are now dry and the
woodland is dead.
There seem, in addition, to have taken place in comparatively recent
times, changes in the disposition of water supplies, which have diverted
much useful moisture from inner South Africa into the Atlantic Ocean.
Not such a very long time ago the Kunene river, which brings an abundant
supply of fresh water from the great knot of highlands in Southern
Angola, bore this water into Lake Etosha in Ovampoland, and beyond that
towards the course of the Okavango or the great vanished lake of which
Ngami is the surviving vestige: Ngami, which even in Livingstone’s
day—the end of the ’forties, some seventy-two years ago—was twice its
present size. Into the same basin flowed the mighty Okavango (known much
farther north as the Kubango), the Kwando and the upper Zambezi, then the
outlet of another vast lake in the Barotse country. Quite possibly these
two shallow lakes of huge size sent their overflow of water through the
Guay river into the bed of the Zambezi-Kafue, and so out into the Indian
Ocean after all; for these waters of Central Africa were completely
hemmed in southwards by the plateaux of Damaraland, Bechuanaland and
Matebeleland. But in those days the ultimate source of the Zambezi would
have lain in the Benguela highlands near the Atlantic Ocean, and not in
the Luvale country near to the upper Kasai.
* * * * *
As regards the mammalian fauna and some of the more striking or peculiar
of African birds, Barotseland, east of the Upper Zambezi, appears, in
common with all the rest of South Central Africa up to the east coast of
Lake Nyasa and down to the main course of the Zambezi, to be deficient
as compared with Portuguese West Africa, South Africa, and (in a lesser
degree) Moçambique. It probably has more in common as a distributional
area with the southern part of the Congo basin outside the forest area,
and west of the Luapula-Lualaba streams. Down to recent times Barotseland
possessed great herds, enormous numbers of a few species of game animals,
but not such a great variety of species. Like South Congoland outside the
forest zone, it seems never to have had any example of the rhinoceros:
indeed, I have no confirmatory evidence of the existence of a rhinoceros
or a giraffe, west of the eastern rise of the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau,
or of the waters of Lake Nyasa. The rhinoceros begins to show itself
south of Lake Nyasa and east of the Shire river. It recurs in Southern
Angola and Damaraland, up to the vicinity of the Western Zambezi, and as
far north as the beginning of the lofty plateaux where the Kwanza river
rises.
The Kwanza, which divides Angola into two unequal portions, is very
noteworthy as a boundary. Its ultimate sources are in the Ngangela, Bihé
and Lujazi highlands (plateaus and mountains) which connect the mountain
ranges of Benguela on the west with the 5,000-feet-high plateau dividing
the Southern Congo basin from that of the Zambezi. This undulating line
of heights (rising on several peaks to nearly 8,000 feet) really marks
off Southern from Northern Angola; and zoologically Southern Angola
extends eastwards almost to the banks of the Upper Zambezi and covers the
western limits of Barotseland.
Here you have a remarkable extension of the South African area of
zoological distribution. East of this, from the Upper Zambezi to the
Shire river and the east coast of Lake Nyasa (with the Zambezi as a
southern boundary) there is an interruption in distributional area
which affects certain mammals and birds very curiously. For some the
interruption is complete. The Ostrich, the true Gazelles, the Oryxes,
the Secretary bird, certain types of Vulture, the Striped Hyena, the
Chita or Hunting Leopard, the Caracal Lynx, the Aard Wolf (_Proteles_),
the Big-eared Fox (_Otocyon_), the small Desert Foxes, the Black-backed
Jackal, the _Pedetes_ or Cape Jumping Hare, the Elephant-shrews, the
Mountain Zebras, the White Rhinoceros and, in a lesser degree, the Black,
are in a measure confined to north-east and eastern Equatorial Africa
on the one hand, and to Africa south of the Zambezi and to Southern
Angola on the other. Some of the examples cited stretch across to the
Bahr-al-ghazal and even Northern Nigeria from Abyssinia and the Eastern
Sudan; others reach Senegal and Western Nigeria beyond the forest zone.
But all of the examples cited (besides many more less well-known birds
and mammals) seem to be absent from North Angola, Northern Zambezia and
Nyasaland, and apparently also from Moçambique. In Moçambique, numerous
forms may have been exterminated by the white man and the black hunters,
who began shooting here in the 17th century. Yet it is difficult to
understand that they could thus have eliminated the Ostrich, Springbok,
Striped Hyena (represented in South Africa and Angola by the Brown
Hyena), Chita, Caracal, Aard Wolf, and _Pedetes_ rodent, or even the
Giraffe.
The Giraffe’s distribution conforms somewhat, but not so closely, to
similar restrictions. Its least specialized form, perhaps, is the
Reticulated Giraffe of Somaliland, whereon the original markings are
seen to be white stripes, horizontal and perpendicular, on a red ground.
From Somaliland the Giraffe radiates over the eastern Sudan to Northern
Nigeria and thence (with gaps) to Senegal. It entirely avoids forested
Central and West Africa, though it has a near relation, the Okapi, in the
forests of Equatorial Africa east and north of the main Congo river. The
distribution of the Giraffe continues south from Uganda and Somaliland to
the east of Tanganyika and Nyasa down to the neighbourhood of the Ruvuma
river. It has never been reported south of that stream, or until the
Lower Zambezi has been _crossed_. A hundred years ago and down to about
1900 it was found in various sub-species and varieties _south_ and _west_
of the Zambezi to Cape Colony and into Southern Angola. But it has never
been shown to exist between the Upper Zambezi and the Moçambique coast,
north of that river system.
On the other hand the range of the Sable Antelope does not leave out
Northern Zambezia and Barotseland. It begins in Eastern Africa, in the
latitude and neighbourhood of Mombasa (a fact first suggested in my book
on Kilimanjaro, published in 1885), broadens over what was formerly
“German East Africa,” passes round the south end of Tanganyika into
Southern Congoland and crosses Barotseland into Eastern Angola. Here, in
the south-eastern basin of the Kwanza, and possibly in north-western
Barotseland as well, it develops its most superb form—_Hippotragus
variani_, generally called the Giant Sable—with magnificently developed
horns, longer than those of any other type found elsewhere, and a longer,
narrower skull. It is possible (from heads I once saw, shot to the west
of the main Upper Zambezi and specimens of horns) that the Giant Sable
may be found just within the limits of Barotseland.[3]
North of the belt of dense forest between the Liba and Kabompo, on the
spongy plains near to the river, Livingstone noticed in the rainy season
large numbers of Buffaloes, Elands, Kudus, Roan Antelopes, Gnus, and
other game. He even avers that farther north he saw a White Rhinoceros.
It was on a Sunday and his encampment was almost surrounded by herds of
astonished Mpala antelopes, tsesebes (“bastard hartebeests”), zebras and
buffaloes. But although the Black Rhinoceros is undoubtedly found in
Southern Angola close up to the Barotse frontier, and the White has been
shot immediately south of the Upper Zambezi, no word has come from any
other quarter as to the existence of the monstrous White square-lipped
species in the direction of the Upper Zambezi and the Congo watershed; so
it is possible his eye-sight was deceived.
[Illustration: Giant Sable Antelope, from Angola
(From a specimen in the Museum of the New York Zoological Society
presented by JOHN JAY PAUL.)]
In general, Barotseland, east of the main Zambezi and of its great
north-western affluent the Lungo-e-bungo, seems to possess the mammal
and bird fauna of Northern Angola, Southern Congoland, Northern Rhodesia
and Nyasaland. Moçambique is richer—up to the Shire river—in possessing
the Black (I used to think also the White, and perhaps was not wrong)
Rhinoceros, and a few other creatures found also in Eastern Equatorial
and in Trans-zambezian Africa. Otherwise Moçambique remains rather an
unsolved problem, as to why and how it served as an interruption in the
spread of the vertebrate fauna of Pliocene and Pleistocene North Africa
down to South Africa, an extension which as regards West-Central and
Western Africa may have been barred by the former enormous area of dense
forest growth.
* * * * *
In botany, as in vertebrate zoology, Barotseland is part of the region
which lies between the Kwanza and Zambezi rivers on the south, and the
main-stream of the Congo on the north, from Lake Mweru to the Atlantic
Ocean. It has a sufficient rainfall, from 22 inches in the south-west
to 42 inches in the north-east, to maintain a fairly luxuriant flora as
well as powerful rivers. North of the confluence of the Kabompo and the
Liambai or Liba (the Upper Zambezi), there seems to have been seventy
years ago a luxuriant belt of forest stretching northwards and occupying
the mountainous region between the Liba-Zambezi and the Kabompo or
Lulafuta.
The average elevation of the Barotse Valley, south of this confluence,
ranges from a little under 3,000 feet at Sesheke to about 3,600 feet at
the juncture of the Zambezi and the Kabompo; but the forested country
between these rivers must rise in part to at least 4,500 feet. The
richness of this forest seems to have made an immense impression on
Livingstone in the middle of the ’fifties. Up till then, coming from
South Africa through Bechuanaland, he had at most seen scattered trees
with occasionally a fine solitary umbrageous specimen, or a palm thicket.
But above the confluence of these two rivers he evidently plunged (when
he had to land) into a woodland comparable with the splendid forests of
the Congo or the Cameroons. His _Missionary Travels_ contains some very
good word-painting of the grand growth of the trees, the deep gloom of
the forest depths as contrasted with the shadeless glare of Bechuanaland.
In spite of the incessantly rainy weather—and in this little-explored
region the yearly rainfall must be far in excess of the modest estimate
quoted by travellers in the Barotse park-land and plateaux—Livingstone
found considerable pleasure in here seeing—for the first time—the _real_
forest display of Central Africa.
North of the Zambezi-Kabompo junction Livingstone noticed the increasing
growth of the bamboo on the uplands, as a skirting of the great display
of tropical forest which so deeply impressed him as he followed the
northward course of the main Zambezi. This—or these—bamboos recur on the
elevated plateaux of Eastern Barotseland, and extend over a good deal
of the upland on either side of the Upper Kafue, as well as over the
five thousand feet crest of the Congo boundary. No doubt they may also
be observed within the north-western limits of Barotseland. They are
seemingly of the same types as the bamboos of Nyasaland and the elevated
portions of Northern Rhodesia south of Tanganyika, and in such case
belong to the _Oxytenanthera_ and _Arundinaria_ genera. The only other
genus of _arboreal_ bamboo in Africa is _Oreobambos_; but that, I think,
is confined in its range to Abyssinia and the Snow mountains of East
Equatorial Africa.
The forests of Northern Barotseland have one or more species of wild
plantain (_Musa_) and either wild or introduced examples of the oil palm,
where the rainfall is over fifty inches per annum. This may have been
introduced from Congoland or Northern Angola by the natives, who in the
north of the Barotse country are so closely connected with the peoples of
the Congo basin; or as in the case of North Nyasaland and Zanzibar Id.,
it may be a separate species or sub-species of the _Elaïs_ genus.
According to the reports of later travellers, there is much woodland
and scrub on the higher land—4,000 to 4,500 feet—on the west side of
the Zambezi, south of the Kabompo-Zambezi junction. This woodland is
also repeated, less markedly, to the east of the great river where the
land likewise rises. The Mankoya country (Eastern Barotseland) has a
larger, steadier rainfall than Sesheke and the southern regions; and the
Mashukulumbwe table-land, and the valley of the upper Kafue are said to
be well and regularly watered countries. The more scattered growth of
trees (occasional fine and large trees are common) seems due to human
intervention. The natives of the Lukona province, towards Angola, are a
wilder, less intelligent race than folk of Tonga kinship on the east, and
not so eager to promote tree planting. Bulovale (the region between the
Luena and Kabompo rivers) and north of the Kabompo up to the boundary of
the Zambezi watershed are well forested regions.
The central valley of the Zambezi—“Borotse proper,”[4] as it might be
called, the region which the Barotse (really the Aluyi) have so long
dominated—ranges from below the Zambezi-Kabompo confluence on the north
to the Gonye Falls on the south, and is about 150 miles long and 60
miles broad. It is the bed—most observers think—of the old lake of
the Upper Zambezi, and presents to-day an utterly flat and treeless
aspect. Then ensue from Gonye to Katima, some eighty miles of rapids or
falls. From Katongo to Mambova, past the now world-famed Sesheke, where
Livingstone and Oswell first “discovered” the Zambezi, there are fifty
miles of navigable river; then two more rapids at Mambova and Nkalata,
and then another navigable stretch of some sixty miles to the vicinity
of the Victoria Falls. (These lie well outside the political limits of
Barotseland, the boundary striking north along the Majili river, ten
miles east of Sesheke.) The plain of the extinct lake is much flooded
during the winter rains, when a good deal of central Barotseland is under
water. The rainy season seems, however, to be tending more and more
towards the spring months (the autumn of South Central Africa).
The geology of Barotseland may be summarized thus: In the north-west,
north, east and south-east the surface is a red laterite clay,
superimposed on granite which in the higher portions obtrudes itself in
mountains and hills. The central valley and most of the south-west has a
heavy, white, sandy soil, but with a good deal of alluvium laid down on
the sand by river courses or in the bed of the ancient lake. There is a
basaltic outbreak in the neighbourhood of the Victoria Falls, but this
lies outside Barotseland limits. In the eastern half of the country gold,
copper—connected with the copper deposits of Katanga—tin, lead, zinc
and iron have been discovered, chiefly in regions between four and five
thousand feet in altitude.
* * * * *
In this little book and in the first and second volumes of my
_Comparative Studies of the Bantu Languages_ (fed from much the same
source) our information concerning Barotseland and its peoples has
been greatly implemented. But that fact does not conceal from us that
the country, its zoology, botany, peoples, and even its geography (to
say nothing of geology) are still far too little known. The portions
that lie to the west and south-west of the main Zambezi remain almost
_un_known and undescribed, or are only made known to us in works of
travel fifty, sixty, seventy years old, which even if accurate in what
particulars they give were written at a much lower level of knowledge
than exists concerning Africa in general to-day. We know more about
Eastern Angola than we do of Western Barotseland. Recent discoveries
concerning Angolan Antelopes, Zebras, Rhinoceroses, and other mammalian
types make us eager to ascertain how these discoveries affect Barotseland
_west_ of the Zambezi. How far do the Bushman tribes extend into Western
Barotseland? Are they of normal human stature, like those of South-East
Angola? Do they speak languages akin to the Bushman tongues and use
clicks? Have they greatly projecting brows like certain Bushmen of the
Northern Kalahari, or are they without brow projections at all but very
prognathous in the lower part of the face? What is the full tale of the
Bantu tribes of Western Barotseland? Are there still unrecorded Bantu
languages on the Kwando river? Do the tongues recorded south-west of the
Upper Zambezi by Livingstone, seventy-two years ago, still exist?
Does Livingstone’s great forest between the course of the Upper Zambezi
and that of the Kabompo still maintain itself, in spite of the reckless
spirit of destruction inherent in all uneducated Negro tribes, who since
the imposition of peace by the white man have been largely increasing the
area of their settlement in Northern Barotseland? If the forest is still
there, in whole or in part, why are no botanical reports and collections
available? The botany of Barotseland, in common with its zoology, has
never been efficiently explored and reported on since the land was first
entered. Cattle apparently prosper in the whole country; yet the tsetse
fly exists seemingly everywhere. Does it, north of the Zambezi and west
of the Luañgwa, convey no germs? The time—it seems to me—has come when
the British Empire, from London or from Cape Town, should have this
country examined scientifically from west to east and north to south; not
with anything but benevolent intentions towards its natives—Aluyi and
Batonga, Basubia and Mabunda, Batonga and Baila, Bankoya and Kahonde,
Valujazi and Valubale—but with the earnest endeavour to make fully known
its resources and defects, its wonders and survivals, and the relation
that Western Barotseland bears to the growing menace of South Africa:
the spread of the Kalahari Desert, the drying up of once fully habitable
land, the cause of ruin in South Angola, in Eastern Damaraland, and the
vast, dead region north, east, south, and west of Lake Ngami.
H. H. JOHNSTON.
[Illustration: The Mokwai Mataŭka of Nalolo with her husband (standing)
and interpreter (sitting)
Photo by Mrs. Marshall]
BAROTSELAND:
EIGHT YEARS AMONG THE BAROTSE.
CHAPTER I.
The Barotse and their Origin.
The origin of the Barotse is a matter of conflicting conjecture. It has
been suggested by the Abarozwi of Southern Rhodesia that the Barotse
are descendants of theirs and that Lewanika is a direct descendant from
their royal house. The Barotse of Barotseland deny this _in toto_. They
aver that they came south from the Congo Basin and found the Alunda and
Balubale living in their country (_vide_ map). The Alunda and Balubale
confirm the statement of the Barotse, and it is known that the Barotse
lived for some years among the Lunda, gradually working south till they
left the forest country on the Zambezi and came out on to the flat swampy
country known to-day as the Barotse Valley.
They were then sometimes called by foreigners the Barozi or Barotse, but
were better styled the A-luyi and spoke Siluyi and in our days Sirozi or
Sikololo.
During the chieftainship of Mbukwano, the A-luyi were conquered by
Sebituane, a roving Mosutu with a band of warriors. Sebituane not only
re-christened the A-luyi as “Makololo,” but forced Sesuto as a language
on them. Sebituane and his followers were not called Basuto by the
A-luyi but Makololo, which name, according to the Rev. E. Smith, once of
the Batonga-Baila mission, was derived from the fact that Sebituane’s
favourite wife was a Makololo woman.
Sikololo (a mongrel form of Sesuto) is the lingua franca of the
Barozi to-day. The greatest difficulty is found in getting any
well-authenticated information from the Barozi as to their past history.
The origin of the name “Murozi” (a native of the Barozi country) is
peculiar. The true name of the people is the A-luyi; the prefix _A_ or
_Ba_ being the plural of _Mu_ and applied to mean “people.” When the
Makololo under Sebituane first invaded the southern portions of the
country, they found a subordinate tribe called the Masubia living near
Sesheke. These people told the Makololo that their overlords living to
the north were the “A-luyi.” The Makololo converted this into “Ba-luizi,”
“Ba-ruizi” (L and R being interchangeable) and finally “Ba-rozi.” Why
the foreign missionaries decided to call it “Barotse” is best known to
themselves; certainly no one else can imagine or find any reason for it
at all. There is no possible reason for mistaking the “z” in Barozi for
“ts”.[5]
Whether from the vicissitudes of their southern trek or from natural
laziness is unknown, but they have no system of record, nor, as is
the case in many native tribes, have the village elders ever acted as
historians and handed their knowledge on from father to son. The Barozi
themselves say that owing to their numerous raids and their intermarriage
with the aboriginal tribes and with women raided from other tribes, they
have lost all purity of race and incidentally all remembrance of their
former history. They certainly are to-day a very mixed race, and nearly
all their songs, dances, customs and legends are either borrowed wholly
or in part from other tribes. They are quite positive that the Abarozwi
of Southern Rhodesia are related to them, but they state that these
people are a branch that left them and trekked south into Matebeleland
where they settled. If this is correct it must have been previous to the
Matebele settling in Southern Rhodesia under Mosilikatse, as the Barozi,
though fond of raiding weaker or more divided people, were too canny to
try conclusions with a powerful and warlike people like the Matebele.
Besides the raid of Sebituane and his Makololo, several raids by the
Matebele are known of, and although the Barozi certainly suffered at the
raiders’ hands, they generally got rid of them by strategy and cunning.
Their own successes over people like the Bashukulumbwe and Batonga were
nearly always gained by treachery, superior numbers, superior weapons, or
else by internal dissensions amongst the people they raided.
The Barozi were very fortunate in the class of people they found
occupying the country they settled in; the more timid tribes were at
once enslaved, while more powerful people were propitiated and gradually
absorbed. Unfortunately, the conquerors readily acquired all the vicious
and degraded habits of the conquered, and are to-day, both physically
and morally, a far poorer type of native than they were on entering the
country, always providing their statements are true. Natural laziness and
the rapidity with which they acquired the demoralizing customs of their
subject people have practically eliminated the true Muluyi nature in so
much that the real Sirozi or Siluyi language is gradually dying out and
to-day is known to but a few of the blood royal, sons of Indunas and the
like. Sikololo, which is a mongrel Sesuto, is the commonest language
in use in the country and even amongst the outlying tribes such as the
Alunda, Balubale, Bankoya, Batotela, Bandundulu and others, it is always
possible to find one or more persons in every village with a slight
knowledge of Sikololo. The missionaries possibly made a mistake in not
working up Sikololo on their arrival in the country, but having Sesuto
text-books and grammars to hand they commenced to teach Sesuto. Sikololo
is now being reverted to and this should simplify matters to a great
extent. Many pure Siluyi words are in use in Sikololo, for which there
are no equivalents in Sesuto. For example, river work such as paddling
and other matters connected with boats are unrepresented in Sesuto, as
there is no river work in Basutoland, and the words in use in Sikololo
are practically all Siluyi.
[Illustration: One of Lewanika’s Aunts with Attendant
Photo by J. C. Coxhead, Esq.]
[Illustration: Lewanika’s Band (Mirupa and Silimba)
Photo by J. C. Coxhead, Esq.]
Siluyi itself is doubtless a corruption of an older Siluyi language, but
this is hard to prove owing to the lapse of time and lack of authentic
records.
The Bambowe, an aboriginal tribe on the Zambezi, living south of the
Balunda, corroborate the statement made by Alunda and Balubale, that the
Barozi or Aluyi lived amongst them while coming from the Congo Basin.
The Bakwangwa, another aboriginal tribe living east of the Zambezi, say
the Barozi found them there and absorbed them, and yet Sirozi (Siluyi)
is clearly the language of which Simbowe and Sikwangwa are dialects. Any
one conversant with one of these languages, understands and is understood
by speakers of the others. Some idea of the composition of the Barozi
people of to-day can be gained when one realizes that they are composed
of Bambowe, Bakwangwa, Bahoombi, Bakoma, Makololo, Bandundulu, Bambunda,
Bankoya, Bashasha, Alunda, Balubale, Bambalangwe, Batonga, Basubia,
Mashukulumbwe, Bakwande, Batotela, Bakwangali, Bakwengo, Balojazi,
Vachibokwe, Basanjo and other tribes. Many of the above tribes were, so
far as can be gathered, aboriginal owners of the Barozi country, others
were raided from time to time and slaves (chiefly women) taken back to
the homes of the raiders, where they in time intermarried and became
Barozi.