Bemba

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Bemba

PRONUNCIATION: BEM-bah
LOCATION: Northeastern Zambia
POPULATION: 3,600,000 Bemba or Bemba-speaking
LANGUAGE: Bemba; English
RELIGION: Protestantism; traditional beliefs; Roman Catholicism; African Christianity; Islam
RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 1: Chewa; Tonga; Zambians

INTRODUCTION

The Bemba are a matrilineal group that occupy the northeastern part of Zambia, an area of about 51,800 sq km (20,000 sq mi). The language and culture of the Bemba are very similar to those of other ethnic groups that live around them, for example, the Bisa, the Aushi, the Tabwa, and various subgroups in Luapula Province. The Bemba and the related peoples belong to the wider group usually referred to as the Central Bantu. The Bemba came to their present location from west of the Luapula River in the Congo as offshoots of the great Luba peoples during the great Bantu migrations of the 16th and 17th centuries. Once they were well established in their present habitat, the Bemba organized themselves into an expansive but loosely united state under a paramount chief, known as Chitimukulu (the Great Tree), and subchiefs belonging to the royal Crocodile clan. They were characterized as a warlike and fearsome people by early European travelers and explorers, such as David Livingstone. Zambia was colonized by the British in the early 1890s when the British South African Company, under the direction of the British-born South African business tycoon and politician Cecil Rhodes, began to expand into the area. The former name of Zambia was Northern Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes and his company that won concessions by signing treaties with local chiefs to mine the rich copperbelt area.

Zambia obtained independence in 1964 under the leadership of President Kenneth Kaunda, who ruled Zambia for 27 years under a one-party state. After unrest in 1990, multiparty politics were instituted. President Kenneth Kaunda lost the presidential elections held in 1991 to Frederick Chiluba, a former trade unionist and leader of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). By the end of Chiluba's first term as president (1996), the MMD's commitment to political reform had faded in the face of re-election demands. In the presidential and parliamentary elections held in November 1996, Chiluba was re-elected. Kaunda had been barred from running in these elections and his United National Independence Party (UNIP) boycotted them; the elections were also deemed neither fair nor free by non-governmental organizations and international observers. In the elections held in 2001, Chiluba was constitutionally barred for running again although he attempted to change the constitution to allow him to run again for a third term but this failed under pressure from the electorate. The 2001 elections saw the MMD presidential candidate Levy Mwanawasa declared the victor by a narrow margin. During his rule Levy Mwanawasa has been credited with attempting to root out corruption unlike the Chiluba's government, which was largely seen as corrupt. Under Mwanawasa's leadership, Chiluba was arrested and charged with several counts of embezzlement and corruption, crimes he was said to have committed during his tenure in office as president of Zambia.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

The Bemba and related groups live in the northeastern high plateau of Zambia, an area with elevations ranging from 1,200 to 1,500 m (4,000–5,000 ft) above sea level. Although the area is well watered, the soils are generally poor and are covered by bush, scrub, and low trees typical of an African savannah environment. Lakes Mweru and Bangweulu are prominent geographical features on the plateau. Tall grass grows around the lakes, mixed with remarkable patches of dense evergreen thickets, which are eventually replaced by savannah woodlands as one moves away from the lake basins. Because of the presence of dense tree cover and unbroken savannah forest, the Bemba have been described as a forest people. The climate on the central plateau is quite pleasant with temperatures ranging from 13°c to 29°c (55°–84°f), and the area gets an adequate rainfall of about 114 cm (45 in) per year. Although the Bemba proper are a small group, their influence is visible in the numbers that speak the Bemba language and thus make the Bemba appear to be a dominant ethnic group in Zambia. Chibemba is used as a lingua franca in Zambian cities. It is estimated that of the 11.3 million people in Zambia, 32% (or 3,600,000 people) are Bemba or Bemba-speaking, 18% (2,034,000) are Maravi, 15% (1,695,000) are Tonga, 8% (904,000) are Barotze, and the remainder are ethnic groups such as the Mambwe, Tumbuka, and Northwestern peoples.

LANGUAGE

In Zambia, as in many southern and central African countries, there is a multiplicity of languages belonging mostly to the Bantu family of languages. For example, the name for elephant in Bemba is nsofu, in Tonga it is ndopu, while in Luyana it is muzovu. “To die” in all three languages is kufwa, and a child in all three languages is mwana. In short, these languages share a similar vocabulary. But in spite of their common origin, many of these languages are distinct from each other, characterized by a loss of mutual comprehensibility. It is therefore quite common for a modern-day Zambian to be multilingual, speaking a maternal or first language as well as several other languages such as Bemba and English. As noted in the preceding section, the Bemba group is the most dominant ethnic group in Zambia, and Bemba as a language is the most commonly spoken maternal language, with 32% of the population (or 3,600,000 people) speaking this language. One of the Bemba dialects has become the lingua franca of the cosmopolitan urban population of major Zambian cities such as Kitwe and Ndola. The prominence of Bemba can be traced back to the days of the powerful paramount chief Chitimukulu and his kingdom that presided over an expansive area. However, in today's Zambia, English plays an important role as the national language, the language of prestige and power spoken by an influential bureaucratic elite. Education from secondary school to university is also taught in English. While English is good as a unifying language since no ethnic group can identify with it, it has its disadvantages in that the majority of the population who are not fluent in English are excluded from the modern economy and development.

FOLKLORE

There is one interesting myth in Bemba oral tradition that deals with the origins of the Bemba group. There are many partial and varying oral renditions to this myth. The myth begins by noting that long ago in the land of Kola, there lived White and Black people, but after a quarrel the White people sailed away to get rich in Europe, while the Black people remained under their chief Mukulumpe Mubemba. The name Bemba comes directly from this chief's last name. The chief then had sons with Mumbi Mukasa Liulu, a heavenly queen who had fallen from the sky and who belonged to the “Crocodile clan” Ng'andu. Due to internal quarrels within the royal family, the sons fled, taking with them a group of loyal followers. After much traveling and many conquests, the surviving sons and followers settled in present-day Bemba territory and established a centralized form of government with a paramount chief, named Chitimukulu, “The Great Tree,” in reference to their original ruler, from whose heavenly mother they all trace descent. By war, they expanded the Bemba control over conquered territories, and internally the Crocodile clan consolidated control and political authority over other rival clans. The full narration and interpretation of the myth, also called the Bemba Charter Myth, reveals a story that is rich in its oral, political, religious, and ritual dimensions. In general, the Bemba rely heavily on folklore, myths, and the oral tradition to pass on vital information about beliefs, customs, and culture from one generation to the next.

RELIGION

Similar to other peoples of the Bantu family, the Bemba have their own form of traditional religion in which they believe in the existence of a single high god, Leza, who is far removed from everyday life and lives in the sky. He is omnipotent and controls things such as thunder and both women's and men's fertility, and he is the source of magic power. Christian missionaries of various denominations came to Zambia during the era of colonization in the late 19th century and converted many of the peoples of Zambia, including the Bemba, to Christianity. However, few Zambians as of today have totally abandoned all aspects of traditional belief systems, so much so that the religion of most people in Zambia and among the Bemba can be considered to be a transition from traditional systems to Christianity. Those who strictly adhere to traditional religion have been greatly influenced by Christian teachings and its trappings as well. Due to the similarities in the overall structure of Christianity and indigenous religions, most people do not see any contradictions between the two and are likely to practice both religions simultaneously. In general it is estimated that 34% of Zambia's population are Protestant, 27% hold to traditional beliefs, 26% are Roman Catholic, 8% are African Christian, and the rest follow other Christian sects, Islam, and other faiths.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

The major national holiday in Zambia is Independence Day on 24 October. Zambia obtained its independence from Great Britain in 1964 on 24 October. During this day every year there are celebrations arranged in major urban areas and throughout the country. There is much drinking, dancing, and singing. In the afternoon, people congregate in stadiums to watch a game of soccer between major leagues, or to see the national team play a friendly match with a national team from a nearby country such as Malawi.

RITES OF PASSAGE

Among the Bemba, there is no initiation ceremony for boys. Girls go through an initiation ceremony called Chisungu, a puberty rite that initiates girls through the symbols of life and death in order to give social form and meaning to their sexuality. A girl whose breasts have started to develop is secluded for anywhere from six weeks to three months to undergo the Chisungu ceremony. A series of rites representing the duties of the girl as cook, gardener, hostess, and mother are carried out in an initiation hut, as well as in the surrounding bush. During the ceremony there is much drumming, dancing, singing, and drama symbolic of the acoustic uproar which the Bemba associate with the whole of cosmic and human forces. One of the worst things that could happen to a girl is to bear a child before she has been initiated. Her child would then be considered a creature of ill-omen and both the father and the mother could be banished. Although still practiced in rural and urban areas, the Chisungu ceremony is slowly disappearing because most girls grow up in Christian families and go to modern schools, which have become a new rite of passage. School teachings and subjects such as biology are at variance with the teachings of Chisungu, which perpetuates male dominance and the acceptance of rigid inferior sex roles for women. Nevertheless, many people in Zambia in general, and among the Bemba in particular, believe that initiation ceremonies are part of their cultural and moral heritage and that such initiation ceremonies should continue, or even be incorporated into the school curriculum.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

Seniority is important among the Bemba and largely determines interpersonal relations. Shaking hands is the normal way of greeting, particularly among members of the same age set. There also exists a joking relationship between members of different clans. Among the Bemba a clan is defined as a descent group whose members trace their descent from a common ancestress, i.e., a grouping of several matrilineal lineages. The Bemba people have about 40 clans, and most clans have a partner clan with which they joke and can intermarry. Marriage of individuals from the same clan is not usually permissible. Most clans are named after living things such as plants and animals. Two clans in partnership usually have names that are associated and show the type of joking relationship. For example, the Crocodile clan is the partner of the Fish clan, because crocodiles eat fish. A member of the Crocodile clan can tease or ridicule a member of the Fish clan by saying, “You are my meal today.” A member of the Fish clan can answer back that if it had not been for the fish, the crocodile wouldn't have seen the light of day, and it would have starved to death.

At beer parties it is common for men and women to drink from the same container, usually an earthenware pot with a wide mouth. The beer is poured into the pot and everybody takes a few sips from the pot as it is passed around. It is bad manners to refuse a sip.

LIVING CONDITIONS

The Bemba live in rural villages built up around a number of matrilineal extended families. Their main occupation is subsistence agriculture in the form of shifting cultivation. Each family grows its own food and is largely self-sufficient. Chitemene shifting cultivation is the main agricultural system, a system where crops are grown in the ash from burning the collected, stacked branches that have been lopped and chopped. Early in the dry season, a family selects an area to be cut. The cutting of the trees is solely a man's job; the women and children collect the chopped branches and pile them into heaps which are then burnt. The women are also responsible for selecting the seeds and sowing them on the ash beds, as well as digging and sowing garden mounds around the villages on which vegetables are grown. Finger millet and cassava are the main crops, but sorghum, maize, beans, and peas are also grown. Due to the poor condition of the soils, the field is abandoned after a few years and new gardens are opened. As the population has increased, the system is beginning to break down and vegetation is chopped down before it has fully regenerated. Bemba territory is not urbanized so that many people still live a rural way of life. Disease is very much a part of Bemba society. Tropical diseases such as malaria and bilharzia, as well as malnutrition, are quite common and tend to be very debilitating and sometimes lethal. On average, life expectancy at birth is about 40.3 years for males and 40.6 years for females. Life expectancy has declined during the past decade due to HIV and AIDS which has resulted in increased adult mortality. It is estimated that 16.5% of Zambia's population is HIV positive.

Most people in the Bemba heartland still live in villages of 30–50 huts made of wattle and daub with a grass thatched roof. The village also serves as the basic political unit and is administered by a headman to whom the majority of the villagers are related. Once the fertility of the soil around the village has been exhausted, the village may be relocated to some other suitable location. This is a direct consequence of the chitemene system of shifting cultivation and necessitates the building of impermanent structures. Material possessions also tend to be minimal. A household might own a bicycle, a radio, and a few other trinkets of modern life. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Bemba had no form of storable wealth. Today most households are characterized by a limited cash flow to cover basic needs. Consumer goods are rarely bought, and cash income is earned only when there is need for it. There are some households that are progressive and earn a substantial amount of cash through poaching, fishing, and casual labor to enable them to buy goods exceeding basic needs. Transportation is largely by foot, although long-distance travel is by buses that occasionally visit the remotest parts of the rural areas.

FAMILY LIFE

“Family” among the Bemba refers to the extended family that includes several generations, much like a clan. The extended family serves as the corporate property-holding unit and a cooperative work group that in most instances shares food, gifts, money, and other amenities of life. It is a form of social security for those having less access to wealth. Within the extended family system of classificatory kinship ties, an individual generally has several “mothers,” several “fathers,” and a host of “sons” and “daughters.” Polygamy was permissible and quite common among the Bemba, but statistics to show its current levels are not available. Chiefs once needed additional wives because of their obligations of hospitality which entailed the preparation of large amounts of food, brewing beer, and the cultivation of large fields. But the coming of Christianity and modernization has weakened the practice of polygamy.

Since the Bemba are a matrilineal society, large payments in money or goods are not required at the time of marriage, as is commonly done in patrilineal societies. In order to become engaged to a girl, a young man is expected to offer a small betrothal present to the parents of the girl, in the form of a piece of cloth, a rooster, or something of small value. Once married, the young son-in-law moves to the wife's village and performs tasks for his parents-in-law. In the past, girls were often engaged before puberty and performed chores for their future husband such as sweeping the hut and drawing water. Before puberty, boys and girls are encouraged to play together and can indulge in “puppy love” without any sanctions. However, as soon as girls reach puberty, sexual contacts with men are prohibited until marriage. These days, boys and girls find their own mates either at school or in surrounding villages and then inform their parents about their love. Marriages can be carried out either under modern statutory law patterned along the British system, or under Bemba customary law.

CLOTHING

Before the arrival of the Europeans, the most common type of cloth was that made from bark, which was worn around the waist by women as a loincloth. Today most Zambians, including the Bemba, wear modern dress. Although the clothing for men is Western (shorts, pants, and shirts), the designs and fashion for women's dresses are typically of Zambian or African origin.

FOOD

The staple food for the Bemba is finger millet which is ground into flour. A thick porridge is made from the flour and is eaten with a relish, a side dish of vegetables or meat. Two other important staple crops are cassava and maize. Cassava is poor in nutrients but is easy to grow and can stay underground for a number of years before it is harvested. The importance of maize has increased over time, and it is likely to take the place of finger millet as the main staple. Other important crops that comprise the Bemba diet include peanuts, beans, edible gourds or squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, bananas, and cowpeas. Due to the presence of the tsetse fly, large livestock such as cattle and goats are not kept. However, the Bemba supplement their diet in numerous ways by hunting small game, fishing, and gathering wild fruits. These activities provide much needed food during certain months and years of famine when food becomes scarce. Honey, insects such as caterpillars and grasshoppers, fruits, and wild plants are collected throughout the year. Fishing also adds much needed protein to the diet. Fishing using fish traps and fish poison is conducted during the months of February, March, and April when the rivers are full of water. Dogs are usually kept not as pets but for hunting purposes, particularly for small game such as bush pig and duiker (a small antelope). All kinds of implements are used for hunting purposes, ranging from old-fashioned guns to spears, nets, pits, traps, and axes.

Food prohibitions and taboos are not common among the Bemba, except in certain circumstances, such as soon after marriage when a son-in-law might be prohibited from eating the food cooked by his mother-in-law, or when a girl undergoing the chisungu initiation ceremony might be restricted from eating certain foods.

EDUCATION

At the time of independence in 1964, the educational infrastructure was underdeveloped in many parts of Zambia due to colonial neglect. Very few people were literate prior to 1964. Since independence, the government of Zambia has devoted substantial amounts of funds to educational development. The educational system in Zambia is similar to the British system in which students spend eight years in primary school, four years in secondary school, and another four years in college. The University of Zambia has a limited capacity of about 4,000 students, and entry into the university is very competitive. Because fees are not charged at any level of the educational system, the only obstacle to education is the availability of schools, particularly in rural areas where full primary schools are rare. The national literacy rate in Zambia has increased dramatically from a low of about 10% in 1964 to a high of 70% today. However, since the Bemba live far from the main centers of development, their literacy rates could be much lower than this.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Like many peoples of Africa, the Bemba have a rich cultural heritage that is centered around an oral tradition of conveying information from one generation to the next. Very little of the Bemba's folklore has been written down. Traditional music is part of daily life from initiation rites and marriage ceremonies to hunting parties.

WORK

In traditional Bemba society, although males are heavily involved in clearing new fields, they are primarily occupied with political affairs and trade. Agriculture is largely the domain of women, who are responsible for most of the food. With the introduction of the modern economy during the era of colonization, men began to migrate for wage opportunities in the copper mines of the copperbelt of Zambia, and further afield to South Africa. As a result of large-scale migration of young men to the mines, the rural areas contain a large proportion of women; agriculture is therefore stagnant because of the lack of male labor to clear trees. Census statistics indicate that Bemba areas are second only to the Eastern Province of Zambia in their shortage of men. The absence of men in rural areas has had a major negative impact on agricultural productivity, the economic standing of women and children, marriage, and family life. In most cases, women have become poorer than in the past when men were present.

SPORTS

Throughout Zambia, the most popular sport played by children and young men is soccer. The national team of Zambia has had some prominent Bemba soccer players.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

In trading centers throughout the Bemba region, beer pubs are a common part of the landscape, where people gather to drink both traditional and bottled beer. Television is available in Zambia, but few people in rural areas can afford to buy a television set. Like among the Chewa of Malawi, children in Bemba territory keep themselves busy through the many traditional games they have developed. Among the popular games and activities are mice hunting expeditions, hide and seek at night, tug-of-war and the nguli game (which is essentially a spinning top a carved cylindrical piece of wood, about three inches long, with a sharp pin on the bottom). Men often play nsolo, a more demanding game, much like chess, often played under a shady tree at the edge of a village, or at the mphala or insaka (men's meetinghouse). Village children make their own toys such as cars made from dry cornstalks, scrap materials, and discarded wires as well as other innovative playthings. As such children become responsible, self-reliant, and creative given the fact that parents and children rarely have money to spend on expensive (or even cheap) toys. Many of these activities help to improve children's learning and social skills.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

The Bemba people are not generally known for having developed a complex folk art culture, although iron-smelting was practiced until the 1940s. A Bemba man has four basic implements: an axe used for clearing the bush and cutting wood; a hoe for farming; a spear for hunting; and, in the past, a bow. Woodcarving is less developed compared to other peoples in the region, and weaving is unknown among the Bemba. Perhaps the best crafts among the Bemba are pottery and baskets, although these also tend to be simple and fragile.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Zambia has been relatively stable during the post-independence era, and inter-ethnic fighting has not been a major problem. However, due to economic difficulties during the 1970s and 1980s, the government has faced internal unrest from time to time. Shortages and unemployment in the cities, and widespread misery in rural areas, triggered discontent among the top-ranking leaders in government, the political party, the business community, and university students, which culminated in multiparty democracy in the early 1990s and the peaceful removal from power of President Kenneth Kaunda in 1991. Apart from the economic malaise of the rural areas, the Bemba were far removed from the centers of these conflicts, with the exception of those living in the major urban areas.

GENDER ISSUES

There are pervasive inequalities between women and men in Zambia today, more so among the Bemba where women are supposed to traditionally be subservient to men. These inequalities can be traced to pre-colonial indigenous traditions, the colonial and post-independence eras. During the colonial era the introduction of the labor migration economy where men were allowed to migrate to mining and large scale plantation agricultural areas left women and old people in rural villages in charge of subsistence agriculture. Among the Bemba and other groups in Zambia women are prized for marriage and their access to secondary and tertiary education is much lower than for men and boys. Thus, wage employment in urban centers is regarded as suitable for men. Women tend to be confined to jobs related to their roles as care givers and nurturers—nurses, teachers and secretaries—low wage jobs.

In rural areas women are the backbone of subsistence agriculture producing most of the food while men are away in urban areas. Women take care of child-rearing and house-running. In Bemba subsistence society women do the weeding, sowing, and harvesting. Male activities in rural areas are fewer than female, more spaced out and less repetitive.

Recent statistics from the Human Development Report indicate that women in Zambia are more likely to be poor than men: 65% of women are poor, compared to 52% of men, and child poverty has also increased. In particular, women heads of household were more likely to be poor: 70% of female-headed households are extremely poor compared to 57% of male-headed households. Thus gender inequality in rural and urban areas is well entrenched in Zambia.

Human rights are enshrined in the Zambian constitution. However, with reference to homosexuality, Zambians are divided in how to approach it. Currently Chapter 87 of Zambia's Penal Code Act describes homosexuality as an “offense against morality.” The issue of homosexuality in Zambia came to the forefront in 1998 when for the first time in the country's history, the Zambian homosexual community decided to come out in the open, and form an organization called Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, and Transgender Association (LEGATRA) to champion their cause. This led to an uproar by the Zambian community, both in support and against it with the majority vowing to reject it at all costs. The political and Christian establishments in Zambia have condemned homosexuality as unbiblical and against human nature and pointed out that this abnormality has no right to exist in society or ask for support from the government.