The decade of the 1960s was a tumultuous period of political and social change throughout south central Africa. Malawi, Zambia, and Botswana were newly independent, aspiring states with black nationalist governments, surrounded to the east, west, and south by other countries still in revolutionary ferment. In those independent states for the first time in his century, black Africans were responsible for their own national affairs and occupied the positions of heads of state.
However, many older traditional leaders, who had occupied special places under the colonial regimes, felt threatened by the idea of nationhood and the new centralization of power. The period was marked by considerable tension between tribal politics and the political concerns of the emergent national governments. Sometimes, as in Uganda, Burundi, and Nigeria, this tension erupted into violent suppression of traditional authority or into civil strife. But elsewhere, it was dissipated to other more subtle ways. In Zambia, the kuomboka--the annual ceremonial voyage of the Lozi Litunga (paramount or king) across the flooding Zambezi Valley to his dry land capital--was notable in 1969 for bringing these tensions into focus. It was, in retrospect, a unique and pivotal historic event.
The first years of Zambian independence had passed. The fabulous copper-covered dome of the parliament building in Lusaka still gleamed untarnished in the sun, but unbridled optimism had given way to more sobering considerations of international politics and economics. A plunge in copper prices on the foreign markets had left Zambia's economy on shaky ground. The British blockage against Rhodesia had interrupted the supply of food, gasoline, mining machinery, and other necessities normally transported to landlocked Zambia over Rhodesian rails. Meanwhile, the Rhodesians continued to trade with neighboring South Africa. Zambia thus was effectively isolated.
Within the Zambian government it was proposed that the attraction of tourism would solve some of the country's foreign exchange problems. Consequently, great interest developed in the promotion of traditional arts, crafts, and ceremonies. Without doubt the most existing and colorful traditional ceremony in Zambia is the kuomboka held in Bulozi, the central but isolated Barotse portion of the upper Zambezi valley, in the Barotse province--and this annual event did not escape the notice of the Zambia National Tourist board. For this and other reasons, the government made plans to pave the Great West Road to Mongu, the administrative center of Bartose Province. Thus, by 1969, it was apparent that Bulozi was to be profoundly affected by the changes in the political environment of southern Africa.
A Trip To The Kuomboka
In March 1969, we had been living in Zambia for nearly three years when we decided to travel to Bulozi to observe the kuomboka. The old Lozi king had died since the previous year's kuomboka, and the new one had only recently been installed. Furthermore, the rural population was disappointed by a lack of progress in development programs in the country areas. As a result, the ruling party (the United National Independent Party) had suffered a rebuff in the southwest during the Zambian general elections in 1968, as tradition-minded Lozi had joined the equally recalcitrant Tonga of the south in support of various opposition groups. It was widely believed that the new Litung would seek the help from the
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