Annual report on the social and economic progress of the people of Northern Rhodesia.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1938]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the social and economic progress of the people of Northern Rhodesia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/48 (page 4)
    date. Though the story of these invasions has passed into oblivion, their traces remain in the extraordinary number and diversity of races and of languages in the country. At the present time the population of the Territory has been classified into 73 different tribes, the most important of which are the Bemba, Ngoni, Chewa, and Bisa in the north-eastern districts, the Rozi, Tonga, Luvale, Lenje, and Ila in the north¬ western districts, and the Senga, Lala, and Lunda, sections of which are resident in both the eastern and western areas. There are some 30 different dialects in use, but many of them vary so slightly that a knowledge of six of the principal languages will enable a person to converse with every Native in the country. Nyanja is in use as the official language of the police and is probably the language most generally spoken by Europeans; it is in reality a Nyasaland language—the word means “ Language of the Lake ”—but it is also spoken to some extent round Fort Jameson. In many instances the tribes overlap and encroach upon each other, and it is not uncommon to find a group of villages of one tribe entirely surrounded by villages of another tribe. Many of the tribes on the borders extend into neighbour¬ ing territories; in some instances the paramount chief resides in a foreign country and only a small proportion of the tribe lives in Northern Rhodesia. The chief invaders of the early part of the nineteenth century were the Arabs from the north, the Ngoni, a branch of the early Zulus who fled from the oppressive tyranny of Tchaka and who settled in the north-east of the Territory, and the Kololo, an off¬ shoot of the Suto family, who in the beginning of the nineteenth century fought their way from the south through Bechuanaland and across the Zambesi under the noted Chief Sebitoani; they conquered the Toka, the Subia, and the Lozi and founded a kingdom which was distinguished by a comparatively high degree of social organization. The duration of the Kololo kingdom was short, lasting between 20 and 30 years. Soon after the death of Sebitoani, the Lozi rebelled and massacred the Kololo to a man, keeping their women. As a result of this the influence of their occupa¬ tion is still to be seen in the Kololo language, which is largely spoken amongst the tribes near the Zambesi. The Lozi under Lewanika enlarged their kingdom, by conquering several sur¬ rounding tribes, such as the Nkoya, the Lovale, and the Toka. Beyond these limits their authority was both nebulous and ephemeral. In the year 1891 Lewanika was informed that the protection of Her Majesty’s Government had been extended to his country as he had requested that it should be, and on 17th October, 1900, the Barotse Concession was signed by him and his chiefs