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Article Excerpt
The Mutomboko Festival of the Lunda people in Zambia's Luapula Province is a widely popular and locally profitable event. It usually takes place on the last weekend of July; the late July date commemorates the July 29, 1961, installment of Mwata Kazembe XVII Paul Kanyembo Lutaba and the weekend celebration allows for more visitors from afar and, consequently, brings more income for the village. Therefore the exact dates shift year to year to accommodate a weekend time frame. In 1971 Kazembe XVII celebrated his decade as Mwata by formally initiating the Mutomboko as an annual tradition. As is often the case when tradition is invented--or maybe in this case reinvented--the festival has an oral history that places its origins in antiquity, linked to the earliest times of the Lunda migration into the Luapula area. Further, the festival takes its name from the mutomboko, which most translate as "the dance of conquest," the centerpiece for a series of rites taking place over several days.
By my 1997 visit, the Mutomboko had become the second-best known and attended of the annual rites of Zambian ethnic groups. The Lozi Kuomboka in the Western Province, prominently featured in the brochures and publicity of the Zambian National Tourist Bureau, was by far the most popular festival for thousands of local and foreign visitors. But Mutomboko had grown to the point of hosting some 15-20,000 guests for the ceremonies, particularly the last day's events. Moreover, from 1990 to 2002, the president of Zambia was Frederick J. Chiluba, a Lunda with strong ties to the royal court. This assured, on a simple level, the attendance of highly placed officials of the national government at the annual events. (1) Often, the sitting vice president of Zambia gave the keynote speech at the dances that end the festival. Other dignitaries drove or flew up from Lusaka, the nation's capital, or the Copperbelt for a day or two.
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In 1997 the Mutomboko as an annual rite was in its twenty-sixth year, and the focus of the event was Mwata Kazembe XVIII Munona Chinyanta, who had been the Lunda king for fourteen years. Mwansabombwe, the name of his capital/compound (cipango), was the center of activity for the entire village. In truth, I had never seen a place like this in Northern or Luapula Provinces. It is generally known as the largest "village" in Central Africa, with a population estimated at over 50,000. Mwansabombwe contains a permanent structure, passed down to the Mwata's heirs, that sits at the southern end of a large village bounded by a broad, partially tarred main street with buildings set on either side. There are at least five bars or clubs, some restaurants, even more dry goods stores, and a few other buildings either abandoned or under construction. The village, more commonly known as "Kazembe," is also the site of a Catholic church; a Protestant church which belongs to an amalgam of denominations that have for many years been combined to form the United Church of Zambia (UCZ); several other smaller churches; a primary school; a couple of small inns or rest houses; and a few government buildings, including a police station. Located around the midpoint of the high-quality paved road that runs the length of most of the Luapula Valley and ends a third of the way up Lake Mweru's eastern shore, the village is a bustling place, with auto, bus, and truck traffic regularly stopping there.
Even in 1997, when the national economy was strained by the liberalization and privatization "structural adjustment" efforts of the government, Kazembe appeared a busy place. If it was a little less affluent looking than it seemed in 1994, the year of my first visit, certainly the period immediately leading up to the Mutomboko suggested a lot of commercial activity. A friend of a friend I had met in Mansa was renovating her small restaurant located across the street from the rest house where we were staying. Tradesmen were restuccoing the entire building and adding an impressive-looking latrine at the rear. Other buildings were being painted and trucks continually arrived with all manner of dry goods and, particularly, crates of bottled beer for the bars. No matter what kind of economic year had preceded the festival, shopkeepers had the potential for a very lucrative few days during Mutomboko.
Mwata Kazembe XVIII and Lunda Life
In July 1997, Mwata Kazembe XVIII Munona Chinyanta was at the height of his influence and power. He sat down for an interview on Friday morning, July 25th (from which come all quotes in this article). He ranged over many topics, from his life story to the elements and meaning of the Mutomboko's ceremonies. Sitting in the reception room of his palace, the Mwata was dressed fashionably in a tan, short-sleeved silk shirt with a "Nehru" collar and black pearl buttons and khaki trousers (Fig. 1). He was born in 1944 in the cipango of his father, Mwata Kazembe XIV Chinyanta Nankula. It was Chinyanta Nankula who built the residence we were sitting in, thereby initiating the break of the older tradition in which each successive Mwata constructed a new cipango on the occasion of investiture.
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Moreover, Munona Chinyanta was in the mold of many Zambian postcolonial traditional leaders: relatively young (not quite forty when he became Kazembe XVIII), with a fair amount of formal education, a broad work experience that included government service, a fine command of the English language, and a clear understanding of the importance of tradition in keeping the Lunda polity strong as well as the recognition that tradition is in many ways malleable and, when necessary and/or beneficial, receptive to innovation. While he was born pakamenga--in the traditional papyrus-mat hut on the palace grounds--which made him eligible to some day succeed to the kingship, he also spent most of his earlier years engaged in various activities and jobs. After secondary school he trained as a teacher, taught in Northwestern Province for two years, then worked in Lusaka at the Ministry for Rural Development under the National Broadcasting Corporation. Partly due to the agricultural knowledge he gained in this post, he took a job in the private sector with Shell Chemicals. This was followed by a clerical position with INCA Zambia, Ltd., dealers in Fiat automobiles, where he also took correspondence courses in purchasing and marketing. A short stint at a construction company was followed by his being recalled to Mwansa bombwe in 1983 to succeed Mwata Kazembe XVII Kanyembo Lutaba.
Aside from recounting an interesting life, what was most significant in his remarks was the wealth of experience outside court life at Mwansabombwe that Munona Chinyanta brought to the Kazembeship. He gained even further experience when the government of President Kaunda tapped him in 1985 to serve as district governor of Kawambwa, around an hour's drive from Kazembe. At that time, the government was seeking stronger ties with the more influential traditional leaders, while concurrently reducing the powers of what used to be the national Council of Chiefs, by appointing some to positions at the district, provincial, and national levels. Kazembe XVIII then was appointed provincial political secretary in 1990. He left government service in the early 1990s and returned to living full time at Mwansabombwe.
It was under Munona Chinyanta that the Mutomboko festival prospered and grew to national prominence. He was a very popular traditional leader, who helped spur development of his region in the Luapula Valley. Not only did one of the country's best all-weather tarmac roads run through the valley, electrification lines also ran along the same road. Virtually all the villages of Lunda chiefs and headmen had some form of electrical power, at least for government offices and many shops. Because of the good roads, electricity, readily available fish and dry goods, and ease of travel, the area drew relatively enthusiastic civil servants and schoolteachers as well as many entrepreneurs. Besides a solid fishing industry on Lake Mweru, traders moved up and down the province with all kinds of goods. As always, there was the informal trade--a euphemism for smuggling--with the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Kazembe's village was a hub for a lot of this activity, and its shops and bars did well. Only the small towns of Nchelenge and Kashikishi to the north, near the southern end of Lake Mweru, and the provincial capital Mansa in the south evidenced a stronger economy. This was mostly due to the bustling activity at the lakeshore, partly in the form of government offices--Nchelenge was a district headquarters or boma--and partly because of the many businesses run by local entrepreneurs. Certainly, one positive effect of the post-1990 liberalized currency and business regulations that bolstered economic activities was the freer flow of capital within Zambia and across the border to the Congo. At the center of much of this activity, Kazembe XVIII was able to parlay his traditional ties to the regional Lunda business people, his knowledge of government and international aid opportunities, and the loyalty of his nobles and people into an influential and expanding power base.
The success of traditional leaders such as Kazembe in developing local, regional, and even national links to development and political influence has led, I believe, to an unprecedented expansion of annual "traditional" festivals throughout Zambia. Where, at the time of independence in 1964, the Lozi Kuomboka was probably the only festival of its kind recognized nationally, and even by the early 1980s only the Mutomboko and perhaps the Ngoni N'cwala attained relative prominence, by 2000 there were at least fifty such annual festivals listed in the national tourist board's website. The opening up of annual ceremonies to...
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