Asserting/inventing traditions on the Luapula: the Lunda Mutomboko Festival.

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 the public seems to be a real trend, with ethnic groups looking to put their collective self-images onto a national stage. This, it turns out, is certainly one way to promote local unity and wider economic and political possibilities. It can also turn into group self-assertion in the face of competition for increasingly scarce local and regional government resources.

Moreover, it is clear that the identity politics of the Lunda of Kazembe has grown out of several historical conditions. First, they arrived in the region (probably c. 1740) to find several groups of people who eventually fell under Lunda hegemony in the form of a new kingship system and its related history and cosmology. (2) By the mid-1800s, this seat of power had to cope with slave traders in the area and then, around 1890, the British colonial presence. Both of these forces alternately helped to shape the Lunda polity in the Luapula and create new cooperative relationships among the three, at different times. In the 1940s Mwata Kazembe XIV Chinyanta Nankula gathered a team of elders, in collaboration with Catholic missionary Fr. Eduoard Labreque, to write Ifikolwe Fyandi na Bantu Bandi (My Ancestors and My People) (1951), which became a seminal written record of Lunda history and philosophy. A series of monographs on the Luapula area and its peoples by Ian Cunnison in the 1950s-60s had the effect of codifying in writing many previously oral elements of Lunda history and culture. It is significant that one of Cunnison's Lunda research assistants, Chileya J. Chiwale, later teamed with Kazembe Munona Chinyanta to write a book on the Mutomboko ceremony and other Lunda cultural spheres of life (1989). (3) This latter project suggests the rising interest in codifying and promoting a Lunda identity that for nearly two decades had been at least partly sublimated under broader ethnic, provincial, and national identities. (4) The early government of Zambia sought to minimize notions of "tribe" in favor of a national identity, as was clear in the way resources, educational opportunities, and government jobs were spread regionally among major ethnic groups. This may have been one reason why smaller groups sought affiliation with the larger ones. It was also common government policy to post civil servants outside their home areas, where they would have to use another Zambian language and learn the local cultures. In the post-Cold War Zambia of "the new world order," where opening the economy and privatizing parastatal enterprises has led to a wide spread case of the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, local-level ethnic assertion has become one way to vie for the ever-evaporating resources from the government and other sectors, local and international.

Friday: Mutentamo

While the actual mutomboko dance is performed during the final stages of the ceremonies, there are usually two and sometimes three days involved in the actual festival. During early festivities, the kalela dance was the one I most readily recognized, but there were also other dances requiring from two women to groups of fifteen or twenty men and women. Costuming was fairly rudimentary: Some men's skirts were made of animal tails/leather strips or grass; colorful cloths were tied tightly around women's waists; and the kalela dancers wore rudimentary outfits that signified the numerous personae culled from a colonial-era cast of characters. (5) For most of the dances, drums were the central instruments, with whistles wielded by some dance leaders, especially in the kalela performances. The most common ensemble was the traditionally ubiquitous combination of three drums: sensele (the smallest drum and highest tone), itumba (a wide, squat drum with a low tone), and icibitiko (a tall, slim drum with a mid-tone). This set-up characterized most of the dance music being played. Kalela troupes, however, use entirely different drums. They are very large, called imangu, and come in three sizes, which I would unscientifically call big, bigger, and really big. (6) As in the other type of drum ensemble, they represent three voices, with high, mid-range, and low tones. The largest imangu use metal fifty-gallon drums for the bodies and cowhide for the heads. These heads are held in place by an intricate lacing of leather strips in a mesh-like weave over the body of the drum. The drum ensemble is suspended from a single forked wooden pole and played by at least three musicians using thick, wooden drumsticks (Fig. 4). Most of these performers reappeared the next day outside the walls of Kazembe's compound as entertainment for portions of the afternoon's ceremonies.

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Friday's activities served as the beginning of the festival's key rites. It became clear by Saturday that the 1997 Mutomboko was not as well attended as the one in 1994. This was at least partially attributable to a slower economy than was in place three years earlier. It was simply the case that the cost of travel and lodging was more difficult for people that year. Nonetheless, it is a measure of Mwata Kazembe's entrepreneurial skills that development, in the form of an airstrip, and the concomitant dramatic arrival of VIPs out of the sky (7) would frame this Mutomboko's events. Moreover, the presence of additional commercial sponsorship was confirmed that afternoon at the Mutentamo, when a large banner touting the Zambian-produced "Planter's Leaf Cigarettes" was unfurled behind the place where Mwata Kazembe would eventually sit. Taking advantage of the music and gathering crowd that preceded the actual Mutentamo ceremonies, a troupe of actors put on a skit explaining that these cigarettes are much safer than the home-rolled variety, whose rolling paper was often old newspapers with dangerous levels of lead in the ink. (8)

Activity around and within the cipango at Mwansabombwe had been increasing all week and Friday morning saw an upsurge in the arrival of many groups of women from nearby and distant villages, bringing cooked food and brewed beer to the compound. They were dressed in fine clothes with colorful headwraps and citenge--cloth prints 6 1/2' (2m) long that are wrapped around the waist as long skirts over dresses or blouses, often known as kangas in East Africa. They balanced the large metal pots of beer and foods on their heads as they formed long dancing, singing lines to deposit the contents into waiting metal or plastic drums within the walls of the cipango.

In the mid-afternoon, people gathered outside the rear gate of the musumba in anticipation of the Mutentamo (9) ceremonies. Although these gatherings may take place at other times of the year, depending on need, they always coincide with Mutomboko in annual regularity and importance. In 1997, several nobles were being invested with new titles. Music, singing, and dancing preceded these rites, as the number of spectators grew. The cigarette company's troupe performed its skit and passed out free samples to many in the audience. Musicians and dancers performed various kinds of dances, including kalela. Eventually, the royal musicians replaced the other groups and began to play the tunes that anticipate the arrival of Mwata Kazembe. For some time, outside the rear gate and in front of the Planter's Leaf cigarette banner, assistants had been preparing a place for the Mwata's chair, laying out animal skins and transforming the wooden arm chair into a throne by covering it with what looks to be a lion skin. The musicians signaled the Mwata's arrival with a change in rhythm and song.

Kazembe sat on his throne amidst a large group of Lunda royals, chiefs, and headmen (Figs. 5-6). Three separate female groups performed for him. They were actually previewing dances women would perform the next day as well. Each group was progressively older, beginning with girls around 9 to 11 years old, then adolescent girls, and finally women who ranged from their twenties to their thirties. Each performed dances in unison, starting with kneeling and clapping three times before Kazembe, then dancing toward the other end of the yard to the musicians and dancing back to kneel again and clap their obeisance.

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This particular Mutentamo saw the installation of two men into the circle of advisors and notables: the senior advisor, whose title is Kalandala, and a headman with the positional title of Chitasu (Fig. 7). They arrived in a procession of family and friends, wearing the uniforms of power: blue mukonzo "skirts" with red trim, suit coats (under which one wore a t-shirt and the other a collared, short-sleeved "golf" shirt), and white headdresses. They knelt before the royal entourage and clapped three times to honor the Mwata. They used ulumpemba powder to dust their foreheads and smear over the arms of their suit coats. While kneeling, they fell, in unison, to one side, as if they had been shot (Fig. 8). They rolled back up to their knees then fell in the other direction, this time remaining completely immobile, as if they were dead, until one of the ceremony's officials helped them up. It was clear to all watching that they had shown their devotion to Mwata Kazembe, acknowledging his power over them as well as their willingness to die for him--or, in turn, be killed by him. Each man was then led over to join his seated group of relatives and constituents. At this point, several spokespersons, for Mwata Kazembe and other elders, reminded the initiates of their duties and obligations.

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Punctuating these instances of advising the initiates, the two Lunda notables in turn danced brief, condensed versions of the mutomboko, moving, again, from clapping before the Mwata to dancing toward the musicians and back again. The crowd was particularly appreciative of the second noble, a headman named Kapala, who was very large and portly, yet moved lightly in swaying steps with an arrogant expression on his face (Fig. 9). Several audience members were moved to dance out to him and press money in his jacket pocket or into his hands. Also popular with those gathered were the young heirs who live at court, wearing smaller versions of royal dress and dancing the mutomboko in varying styles. It was particularly for these younger dancers that audience members dashed onto the square to give monetary gifts. Finally, Munona Chinyanta himself rose to the cheers of the crowd, stopped in front of each initiate to supply advice, then performed a curtailed mutomboko, holding the ceremonial sword, mpok. After a few minutes, wherein his every movement drew positive responses, he touched the sword to the ground, signaling the end of the dance, and moved back through the gates into his cipango.

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Saturday: Preliminary Rituals

Saturday, before the ceremonies of midmorning, Chinyanta Munona was dressed casually in a white t-shirt and a citenge, walking around in an old pair of canvas tennis shoes. He drank from a mug and talked with some of his bena mumba or fimankata, the men who would be carrying him around that day to the various ritual events. At their feet was the royal bier (umuselo), which Kazembe also refers to as his "coffin" since he will eventually be buried in it. As he told me, "I always keep my coffin here in the palace, and it's very treasured to me. I must look after [so] that, I don't want to ... play around with it. So, I let my grave caretakers, those who will bury me, I'm very careful with them. I have to ... feed them." The umuselo is rectangular, probably around 3' by 4' and around 2' deep (1m x 1.25m x 0.6m). It is covered in faux zebra skin, with leather tubes on either side that are nearly 1' (0.3m) in diameter (Fig. 10). Large wood poles are inserted through these tubes in order to carry Kazembe's bier.

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At around 10 a.m. on Saturday morning, with a good-sized group gathered around the doorway, Mwata Kazembe emerged dressed all in white: t-shirt, loose trousers with a frill around the waist, and headdress. He walked over to a corner of the compound to the kambolo, the ancestral shrine made of papyrus mats, and knelt before the custodian titled Nakabutula (Fig. 11). The custodian provided a vessel of the clay powder ulupemba for Kazembe to smear on his forehead and arms. This rite constitutes the custodian's permission for the chief to leave the compound. Kazembe and another acolyte then crawled on their hands and feet through the gates of the cipango. Just outside the gate, in another grass shrine, he met his grave caretakers, miyombo; each man carried a vessel of ulupemba, and each provided powder for the Mwata to smear on his forehead and arms (Fig. 12). Chinyanta Munona said that each man bearing a vessel was a chief. "So there, they also smear me with the ulupemba ... Each, you know, chief, comes with ulupemba. They smear me with it. They tell me, 'You go, in the place ... in the wilderness, and then conquer the other tribes.' Uh, they bless me. They encourage me to do whatever I want to do."

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Kazembe then walked, surrounded by hundreds of people, toward the Ng'ona River. At the first stop, the Mwata must approach a barrier consisting of a long, thin pole with grasses hanging from it that approximates a gate (Fig. 13). Here Kazembe must petition the local keepers to allow him and his priest to approach the shrine on the riverbank that honors his ancestral "brother" Chinyanta. Historically, during part of the Lunda migration to the Luapula area, royal brothers Chinyanta and Kasombola were killed by the nobles for revealing to others the existence of salt pans near the riven The most common claim is that the actual river where this took place is the Mukelezi in the Congo. (10) Once they passed through the barrier, Kazembe and his retinue approached the river and, while the Mwata sat in a small grass shelter, his priest, whose title is Prince Diuru Kabeya (the name of one of the Mwata's sons back in Kola), prayed to the ancestors for the successful propitiation of Chinyanta's spirit. (11) When the prayers finished, Kazembe rose and came to the riverbank, where he distributed the libations and foodstuffs. First, he poured several pails of locally brewed maize or millet beer, katata, into the bowl of the small clay mound at the shrine. (Fig. 14) The beer quickly filled the opening and overflowed into the river. By now there were hundreds of people surrounding the ritual specialists on one side of the river and even more observing the rites from the opposite bank (Fig. 15). As Kazembe began to toss pieces of cooked meat (mostly chicken), fish, cassava, and ground nuts into the river, hoards of children waded part way into the water on the opposite side, waiting for the few times he threw meat or fish all the way across to them. This elicited wild and loud responses from the gathered crowd. When the propitiatory rites had been performed, the Mwata and his entourage moved on foot downstream to repeat the same prayers and libations at the shrine of Kasombola. As at the earlier site, hundreds of people cheered on the presentation of gifts, punctuated by musket fire and ululating.

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After the service, Mwata Kazembe stepped into the umuselo, seated himself, and was lifted by the eight carriers. As he was sped through the large crowd, the royal musicians kept pace on foot, carrying and playing their drums. Kazembe himself played his royal "talking drum," umondo, as he was carried along (Fig. 16). The dust raised by so many people running and walking almost obscured the procession. At several points, the bena mumba (carriers) stopped and performed some intricate steps and turned the umuselo a full 360 degrees before continuing on at their rapid pace. Still aloft--in contrast to the way he earlier had crawled out and then walked to the river--the Mwata was carried to the gates of the palace, where he alighted and walked inside to rest and prepare for the final stages of the festival.

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Saturday Evening: Mutomboko

The few hours between Kazembe's return to the compound and the beginning of the final events of Mutomboko were a time for general participants to mill about the grounds and for important visitors to have an audience with Munona Chinyanta. As we moved around, video-taping a few activities here and there and taking pictures of some of the functionaries who would be seated with the nobles and VIPs at the dance grounds, numerous Zambian government officials, white and Indian dignitaries (from diplomatic missions and business interests), and prominent Zambian business people came and went at Kazembe's cota. One particular group--a casually dressed white American (actually wearing this year's official Mutomboko t-shirt) who owned the parent company of Aero Zambia and two or three formally dressed South Asian men who ran Aero Zambia in-country--arrived at the cipango minutes after their turbo-prop airliner made the first landing at the Mwansabombwe air field. It was clear that a lot of business was done in the interstices of the festival's ritual activities. During both days the Mwata received delegations from the various Mutomboko organizing committees, businessmen, and politicians from all over the country: the Copperbelt cities, Lusaka, provincial capitals, and various villages.

As the time for the procession to the dancing stadium approached, the courtyard filled with people--locals and visitors--waiting with heightened expectation. The carriers of the umuselo were dressed in regalia that included older traditional touches, such as red skull caps, and contemporary tie-dyed red shirts and trousers, a somewhat West African look. As they had done throughout the festival, the royal musicians, known as abafwalwa, played various rhythms that delineate the Mwata's state of activity. They were dressed in what resembled blue tie-dyed warm-up suits trimmed with white stripes along the outside of their arms and legs. As the drums began to beat different rhythms, there was a rise in activity and anticipation.

At the main palace gates, an older man dressed in the manner of Lunda aristocrats stood holding a bark rope leash in his left hand. At the end of the leash was a young goat provided by one of Kazembe's village headmen. In the other hand was a ceremonial sword. This man was an officer of Kazembe's court whose title is Katamatwi. He might be considered a "sergeant-at-arms," in Western terms, since in times past he was the court's enforcer, cutting off the ears of offenders or, as he was about to do, carrying out sacrificial rites. More than one elder has told me that in the old days a slave would be sacrificed at the end of a victorious battle, before Kazembe danced the mutomboko. These days, a goat serves the same purpose. Clearly, this was one of the festival's highlights. When the Mwata exited his cota, dressed in the elaborate regalia of the mutomboko, and entered the umuselo, the royal drums sped up considerably and the crowd began to cheer and ululate in increasing volume. The carriers danced back and forth with Kazembe as he played the umondo, while Katamatwi placed a small branch of tree leaves on the ground for the goat to eat. He positioned himself with legs spread and shortened his grip on the leash as he raised the sword over his head. When the carriers began their dash towards the gate, with dust being raised by all the running feet of the crowd, Katamatwi stiffened his hold on the goat and rapidly chopped down, severing the kid's head from its body. Mwata Kazembe was carried through the gates, surrounded by the surging crowd, all of whom managed to pass around the goat's carcass and Katamatwi. (12) Now there was a great race to the dancing arena at the north end of Mwansabombwe, a distance of more than two-thirds of a mile (1km).

Dozens of vehicles were parked just west of the arena. Before Kazembe's arrival, some thousands of people were already on the east side of the arena crowded onto a combination of bleacher-type seating, standing on a steeply banked hillside, sitting on top of cars, trucks, and some of the buseg that brought people in for the day. Some were milling around near the raised dance area. At the northern end of the arena was a pole, thatch, and concrete seating area for more than a hundred invited guests, Lunda nobles, several Mutomboko organizing groups, and other notables. The covered area ran around 30 yards (27m) in length, its middle bounded by a white cement-block and stucco wall and floor, where the Mwata and the special guests and nobles sat on chairs. The dance area was a flat, raised space with grass and dirt patches, nearly 80 yards long and 30 yards wide (73m x 27m). The royal musicians and numerous family and friends of the Lunda nobles were set up at the southern end of the dance space, in support of the various musical and dance performances that the festivities entail. The dance area was bounded by a white-washed block retaining wall with brick steps at the northern end that faced the reviewing stand of notables. Tall metal poles with three or four loudspeakers on each were spread around the arena, so that the speeches of visitors and other dignitaries could be heard.

Kazembe was carried into the arena in the umuselo, rushed one time around the track surrounding the dance space, and then, after his carriers danced back and forth a bit, lowered to the ground by the reviewing stand. Cheering and musket fire accompanied his arrival. When he seated himself in the central area of the reviewing stand, the Mutomboko was officially opened as a Lunda and Zambian event. The national anthem was sung, a Zambian UCZ bishop from Mbereshi mission offered the blessing for the proceedings, Senior Chief Mukuni from the Leya people in southern Zambia was introduced as an honored guest, and a string of local and, finally, national political leaders took turns welcoming everyone and emphasizing the importance of traditional celebrations and the preservation of peoples' culture. The speeches alternated in no particular order from Bemba-Lunda to English, depending on the speaker and, probably, on the intended audience. It seemed that the higher up the political leader, the more likely he was to speak in English, the national language. The final official speaker was the vice president of Zambia who, among other things, emphasized the importance of preserving traditions and developing related tourism opportunities.

When the speeches ended the dancing began. The first dancers were a group of six young girls, around 9 to 11 years old. They were dressed in long blue skirts with a thick white stripe at the bottom hem, citenge of dark cloth rolled narrow and tied around their waists, and the Aero Zambia official Mutomboko t-shirts. After kneeling before Kazembe and clapping three times, they began to dance the cinkwasa, which had them moving slowly with swaying hips across the dance area until they reached the royal musicians; then they returned, using the same steps and movements. At one point they formed a circle and, using the same movements, bent their knees and slowly descended almost all the way to the ground. Then, still dancing the same way, they rose up and resumed their move to the reviewing stand. When they reached the Mwata's seating place again, they knelt, clapped, and moved away. A second troupe of dancers was composed of six adolescent girls, dressed similarly to the first group but with an extra white strip on their blue skirts at around mid-thigh level. They began dancing the chinkwasa movements, then shifted to a slightly faster-paced set of movements called cilumwalumwa (Fig. 17). Their feet moved more quickly and the swinging and snapping of the hips was also more pronounced than the first group's. There was also a bit more improvisation in the way they moved back and forth, with individuals breaking the line to solo, then rejoining the others. The general movement from acknowledging the Mwata, across the arena to the royal musicians, and back was again carried through. The final dance troupe comprised four women in their twenties or thirties. They were dressed like the other groups, with a single white stripe at the bottom of their blue skirts. They danced some movements that echoed the first two groups, then also shifted into a dance style called wakubasha, the fastest paced of the three. Like the dancers before them, the steps and movements carefully responded to or echoed the complex beats laid down by the abafwalwa. Their feet moved rapidly and their hips swayed to the movements of their feet. It is a dance that requires a good deal of stamina, since they maintain that pace for long stretches at a time.

[FIGURE 17 OMITTED]

There was, throughout much of the dancing on this stage, a sense of anticipation and spontaneity that often resulted in people coming from the audience and the reviewing stand to briefly duplicate the dance steps and then press cash into the hands or pockets of dancers or place gifts onto the citenge cloths on the ground. This was particularly prevalent during the adult women's dances. At times, some people were so possessed by the desire to dance alongside the performers that they had to be herded away by one of several festival marshals who patrolled the arena space. After the women's dance troupes finished, the Mwata chose a series of males to dance renditions of the mutomboko.

In our discussion the day before, Munona Chinyanta stressed the powerful draw of dance and the energies it brings to bear on the ceremony. "I should mention to you, Professor, this Dance of Conquest brings a lot of people. You don't get tired. If you dance today, and tomorrow I beat on the drum, you'll see a lot of people coming. They don't get tired. So from the time my elder brother [Kazembe XVII] initiated this as an annual event, people have been flocking. They've been coming. They don't get tired." Dancing and drumming are the core of the last stages of the festival, and the participation in these dances by Lunda nobles and heirs had a galvanizing effect on the spectators. In this 1997 edition, Mwata Kazembe did as he always does, which is to call on nobles and heirs at random. "I don't tell them today, 'Tomorrow you are going to dance.' No ... I only say, 'Come on, go and dance.' Even chiefs, 'Come on, you, go and dance.'"

The first performer was one of the boys who live at the cipango, a prince and potential heir. He was probably around twelve or thirteen years old and was dressed in the style of the other nobles: a suit jacket worn over a t-shirt, with a mukanzo skirt, high argyle socks, and a headdress. After clapping three times for the Mwata, he moved slowly, in a deliberate and somewhat determined rhythm, toward the steps to the dancing arena. He was met by a royal retainer who offered him a wooden version of the mpok, the ceremonial sword. He maintained this royal swagger as he moved across to the musicians at the other end of the arena. He brandished the sword at them in salute then turned to dance the mutomboko. While individual styles were quite varied, the basic steps comprised lateral movements, swinging the leg up high for each step, two to the right and one to the left (Figs. 18-19). Gliding right suggests advancing and success, left indicates retreat. Around this basic form, dancers chose different steps to move forward. This young prince, after the right and left moves, threw both arms in the air while arching his back and rapidly took five or six small steps forward, then set himself again, arms making small circles as he feinted and threatened with the sword, then stepped again to the right and left. The audience cheered every dramatic movement, with individuals dancing onto the arena to push money into the pockets of his coat. Eventually, he reached the end of the dance area, moved down the steps in that slow swaggering manner, returned the sword to the retainer, clapped for the Mwata and regained his seat. He was followed by an even younger prince, who danced in a similar, if somewhat more energetic, style and was also heartily received by the spectators.

[FIGURES 18-19 OMITTED]

The Mwata summoned Chief Kanyembo who, looking rather ill, slowly made his way over to where Kazembe was seated and apparently begged off. When he returned to his place, Kazembe summoned another noble, Chief Kambwali, who was considerably older but in better health. He was not very tall, yet burly and regal in his movements. Dressed like most of the other aristocrats, he also wore several strings of beads around his neck (Fig. 20). He received both a sword and an ax from the royal retainer and moved unhurriedly up the steps to the arena. Striding deliberately, brandishing the weapons in small circular movements, the Lunda noble reached the musicians and saluted them by raising the sword. His style of mutomboko centered on the way he moved the weapons, first held low and shifting side to side, then raised, with elbows out and weapons pointed down, like a matador at a bullfight, as he swung his legs high to move first right then left. The timeless menace entailed in the brandishing of weapons came through in the way this old warrior carried himself in the dance (Fig. 21). He elicited enthusiastic cheers for every attack he mimed, and even more when he ended his dance by holding the sword aloft and then touching it to the ground.

[FIGURES 20-21 OMITTED]

Surprisingly--perhaps because the ceremonies were running long--Kazembe called on only one more dancer to take a turn. This was another young heir, somewhere between the earlier two in age (Fig. 22). He, too, drew the spectators' praise and gifts. After he took his seat, Chipolobwe, one of the Mwata's oldest advisors and a headman at Mbereshi, played his role as the royal bard and introduced Kazembe to the audience. He used a call-and-response to engage their participation, then recited a few of the many praises that are used to celebrate Munona Chinyanta (Fig. 23). At this point the musicians switched rhythms to indicate that Kazembe would dance the mutomboko. Everyone in the reviewing stand and all over the arena rose to acknowledge the Mwata's presence.

[FIGURES 22-23 OMITTED]

Throughout the previous two days, I had been struck by the difference in appearance of Munona Chinyanta in his ordinary clothes and Mwata Kazembe in his ceremonial costumes. He hardly seemed to be the same person. The Mwata of the various rites and processions seemed older and physically larger. His visage took on the look of an age-old mask, with hooded eyes and what seemed almost to be cracks in the dark wood of the surface of his face. (Figs. 24-25). In his regalia for the mutomboko dance, he was literally covered with icons of Lunda kingship; each of which has a name and a purpose or significance. What seemed most obviously to produce his prodigious girth was his mukonzo, or skirt, made up of more than 33 yards (30m) of cloth, with frills bunched around the front of his waist. That year the skirt was dark green, the frills around his waist red, and the lower end of the mukonzo marked by a red and a yellow stripe, each 3-4" (7-10cm) wide. His headdress, called ingala ya tulongo, was made of a headband of colorful beadwork in an abstract pattern, formerly topped with red parrot feathers but now with bright red wool. Around his neck and over a collared white shirt, Kazembe wore numerous strings of beads and cowries that more or less covered his chest. His suit coat was dark maroon and on each upper arm was tied a decorative strip of lion skin and mane called the amatayi. (13) Everywhere he moved, the Mwata was followed by a small man who held onto the uluchacha, two long red cloth strips. He scrambled at nearly every start and stop, every turn, to keep behind Kazembe and hold on. (14)

[FIGURES 24-25 OMITTED]

As he moved up the stairs to the arena in the fading light of the afternoon, there was loud cheering and ululating. There was a running series of exclamations and shouts by the court's Master of Ceremonies, who had been following most of the events of the two days with a portable bullhorn to comment on all activities; he also allowed the various actors in rites to use it to amplify their voices. At the arena, he moved to the microphone used by the speechmakers and his remarks carried all around. Munona Chinyanta strode, with studied arrogance, around the dance ground, at one time holding his arms up to acknowledge his subjects. He moved with a kind of barely suppressed energy, turning this way and that and dancing quick steps as he walked. Several retainers followed most of Kazembe's movements, particularly the acolyte who carried the royal weapons, who is officially called Mukula. Everyone who dances the mutomboko--including the Mwata--must ceremonially wrest the weapons from his hands. The Mwata refused the first mpok and was then handed another, thinner one (Fig. 26). Similarly, as he brandished the sword, he asked his retainer for an ax different from the one that was offered. He stalked the dance grounds while waiting for the ax, at times moving menacingly towards bystanders, but then being pulled back by his attendant.

[FIGURE 26 OMITTED]

Finally both weapons in hand, Kazembe began walking around as if building up momentum to begin the mutomboko. He approached spectators sitting in a dense group up on the edge of the dance grounds. He raised his weapons towards them as his attendant pulled hard on his cloth reins to keep him from attacking the crowd. The spectators raised their arms in defensive postures and ululated praise at the same time. Dancing in short bursts that teased the audience, he stopped to have his bulky mukonzo skirt adjusted by assistants, then moved into an extended set of steps (Figs. 2-3). Munona Chinyanta's style of dance put the focus on the way he wielded the weapons, feinting then thrusting as he shuffled right then left. His hips often swiveled back and forth in opposition to his arms moving the weapons left and right. The dangerous nature of the armed Kazembe was heightened by his taunting expression and movements, somehow suggesting he would just as soon kill as look at someone. Five or six minutes into the mutomboko, spectators began to run around the dance area, particularly women, who threw what looked like confetti into the air around the Mwata. There was a rise in the noise being made by the crowd's cheers, the musicians' drumming, muskets firing, and blasting of air horns scattered around the audience (Fig. 27). In the midst of this cacophony, near sunset, Mwata Kazembe raised his sword to the sky then touched it to the ground, signaling the end of his dance and of the ceremonies. He quickly moved to the umuselo and was born away towards the musumba, accompanied by cheers and a number of the royal musicians, still beating their drums.

[FIGURE 27 OMITTED]

There remained a few more subdued events for the festival. In the evening, there was a banquet in the royal courtyard for invited guests. The food was augmented by bottled beer, soft drinks, and music and by some of the entertainers who had been at Mwansabombwe for the last few days. These included a rhumba-style band composed of Luanshya policemen, featuring a transvestite lead singer / dancer. His three back-up dancers were dressed in baggy checked trousers that rode high up over the waist, secured by suspenders, and vests and t-shirts with "Luanshya All-Stars" written on the front (Fig. 28). The feast went late into the night, with many who departed the courtyard continuing their revels in the local bars. The next day, Sunday morning, Mwata Kazembe saw a few visitors at his cota, as he rested in casual clothes. The exodus back to the villages and cities was well underway by late morning.

[FIGURE 28 OMITTED]

Perpetual Kingship and Power

Mwata Kazembe, in the structure of "perpetual kingship" practiced by the many chiefs whose origins can be traced back to Kola in Congo, is both a living incarnation of power and a supplicant to the forces behind that power. This dual role is clearly marked in the rites of the Mutomboko festival. On one level, Kazembe oversees the Mutentamo ceremonies, where he presides as king, dressed in royal regalia and seated amongst his nobles. Officials and headmen are installed and advice imparted to them by elders and the Mwata himself. The ceremony is punctuated by young girls and women, aristocrats and young princes dancing truncated versions of what comes the next day. Kazembe also teasingly approximates the mutomboko for a few minutes. The next morning sees a humble Kazembe, dressed in white and smeared with ulupemba, the white clay of submission, asking permission from a shrine priest to leave the royal compound; immediately outside the walls he seeks permission from his gravekeepers/chiefs to go out on his ritual mission. At the sites of the shrines of Chinyanta and Kasombola the Mwata must ask permission of the guardians to pass through barriers and supplicate himself to the ancestral spirits. In earlier times, a propitious sign of a successful offering was the appearance of a large white snake that would eat the proffered food items. Finally, Kazembe's emergence from the cipango as the goat is sacrificed, dressed in the layers of royal vestments, playing the talking drum while being speedily conveyed to the dance arena mark his full assertion of chiefly power.

This same power is celebrated at the Mutomboko festivities, with heirs, nobles and, in a complementary manner, women pledging themselves to the Lunda polity through dance and music. Ethnic polity, nation state, and the state religion validate this last stage of the festival celebrating both Kazembe and Lundahood itself. Munona Chinyanta acknowledged this line of power and obligation in all of his activities during the festival, as well as in his comments that his umuselo, the faux zebra-striped box in which he is carried around, is also his coffin. As much as it signals his power in life, it is also a perpetual reminder of his historical links, destiny, and eventual destination in the world of royal ancestors.

While Kazembe is indeed celebrated and adored in an impressive set of public rites, he is dependent on his link to an ancestral line, and those ancestors are venerated near the cipango and a few other places in the polity. The shrines mostly parallel the places of power that existed in the land before the Lunda migration. As with many destinations of these wider migrations, nature spirits, known as bakasesema and ngulu, were and in many cases still are worshiped by the indigenous people as the "owners of the land." (15) In the same manner that perpetual kingship structures came to dominate the region, the melding of local spirit veneration and newer ancestral/spirit shrines helped the new order to find its legitimization. Acting as both a supplicating priest and a venerated king, Mwata Kazembe personifies the merging of these forces. In the contemporary nation-state, somewhat like the early Kazembes who had to deal with indigenous resistance, slave-traders, and colonial forces, Munona Chinyanta successfully integrated a still-evolving set of traditions with broader concerns of local, national, and even international politics and economics. His kingdom is definitely "of this world" and that seems to be the way everyone prefers it. (16)

[This article was accepted for publication in August 2005.]

This article is dedicated to the memory of Mwata Kazembe Chinyanta Munona XVIII, who passed away less than a year after he granted me an extensive interview and complete access to the Mutomboko's activities for the purpose of producing a video of the event. I am also grateful to Mrs. Jane Chama Chilima, the widow of Kazembe XVIII, who provided a great deal of assistance in 1997. Finally, to the current Mwata, Kazembe Mpalume XIX, who welcomed me to his court and also made it possible for his Kalulwa (palace secretary), Mr. Robinson Kamweka, to assist me in the sorting out of details that made the final version of this piece possible.

(1.) In July 2002, in his first year in office, President Levy Mwanawasa attended the Mutomboko festival. For similar politically expedient reasons, he attended again in 2003.

(2.) There is a lot of scholarship on Lunda history, and even broader scholarship on the Bemba people, the larger group that migrated into Zambia with the Lunda. One of the best sources of Lunda history, with an extensive bibliography, is Cunnison 1959, a seminal work. Several well-known studies on Bemba culture and history provide details of their earlier migration and political structure. Most convenient, for having an extensive bibliography and developing a detailed history from oral and written sources, is Roberts 1973. There is, of course, more recent scholarship on these people and areas, but the earlier works provide a thorough grounding in culture, history, and politics from the time of the migrations into Zambia. Several recent relevant studies include Musambachime 1976 and 1981 and Gordon 2002.

(3.) See Chinyanta and Chiwale 1989. Because of shared historical origins of their royal hierarchy in the area of Congo known as Kola, as well as the presence of Lunda-Ndembu peoples in roughly the same region, there would seem to be the strong possibility of a linguistic link between the Lunda Mutomboko and the Lozi Kuomboka ceremonies. However, preliminary investigations reveal no common gloss between the terms. A Luba gloss of the word mutomboko refers simply to "a dance" (de Clercq 1960:s.v. danse de pieds). It is usually defined as "the dance of conquest," by Lunda elders. The term kuomboka is defined as a verbal expression, "to get out of the water" (Brown 1984:262).

(4.) For years after independence, the Bemba, the linguistically and numerically largest ethnic group in the region, were highly influential in the way related peoples saw themselves locally and nationally. The Bemba language had been officially adopted as the particular dialect for use in education, literature, and media. The many smaller Bemba-speaking ethnic groups did not seem to assert themselves culturally in any forceful way on the national stage. One small example is the title of Mwesa Mapoma's 1974 MA thesis, "Ingomba: The Royal Musicians of the Bemba People of Luapula Province in Zambia." Mapoma, himself from the Luapula area, chose not to highlight the significant historical and cultural differences between the Bemba of Northern Province and the Bemba-speaking groups of the Luapula Province. Indeed, the primary research for this thesis was conducted in the Luapula area, in large part among the Lunda and Ushi people, before the 1971 debut of the Mutomboko festival. However, Chileya J. Chiwale's collaboration with Munona Chinyanta on the Lunda book (1989) suggests a strong resurgence in the assertion of a group identity. It is not coincidental that another former research assistant from the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, M.B. Lukhero, went on to do his own anthropological investigation of Ngoni customs and played a large role in the revival of the N'cwala ceremony in the 1980s (see Schumaker 2001).

(5.) Kalela dance forms have been widely studied, particularly in the 1950s by J. Clyde Mitchell (1956). In a fascinating update of earlier studies and claims, Zambian historian Albert B.K. Matongo (1992) reveals the sub-texts of the dance and its practice as embodying forms of resistance to colonial rule.

(6.) While I did not actually measure the size of the kalela drums, I would estimate the largest to be over 4' long with a diameter of around 2 1/2' across the drumhead (1.2m x 0.76m). The smallest was at least 2' long with a 1 1/2' diameter head (0.6m x 0.5m). The dimensions of the third were more or less in the middle of the other two.

(7.) The dignitaries were executives of AeroZambia, one of the airlines operating in the country following the collapse of Zambia Airways. The company was a major sponsor of the Mutomboko, as well as a couple of annual festivals held by other ethnic groups In the Zambia.

(8.) The banner's message was: "Ipangwa ukufuma kuli fwaka nakasuba nomba ilesangwa ucende shonse pa mutengo uwalinga yesheni mumfwe." (It's made from sun-grown tobacco and it's found in all areas at a fair price, come and try it.) And below this in smaller red letters, it said: "Icibisho ukufuma kucipani cabumi: fwaka teisuma kubumi." (Attention from the Ministry of Health: Tobacco is not good for your health.)

(9.) The Luba-French dictionary notes that -tentama is form of the verb temeka, which means, among other things, "to raise an individual to the level of chief, an investiture" (elever qqn a la dignitd de chef, lui donner l'investiture); and to purify someone.

(10.) Accounts vary as to the actual reasons Chinyanta and Kasombola drowned and which river they died In. One version meant for tourist consumption, recounted in a recent issue of the Zambian magazine Lusaka Lowdown (August 2002) simply has the brothers and their retinue trying to cross the fast-moving Lualaba River and being swept away by the strong current. The oldest written version is in the seminal Ifikolwe Fyandi na Bantu Bandi, by Mwata Kazembe XIV and Father Labrecque (1951). This history contains the detailed story of early Lunda expansion and the exploits of Chinyanta as second in command in the expedition led by Mutanda Yembeyembe. Briefly, the expedition conquered new areas and among these were salt-pans near the Lualaba. Chinyanta volunteered to take the many captured chiefs and nobles back to the Lunda capitol of Mwata Yamvwo so that they might be "invested with Lundahood." Mutanda Yembyembe warned Chinyanta not to mention the presence of salt In this newly claimed area, probably so that he could exploit its economic potential for himself. Chinyanta did not keep his word and informed Mwata Yamvwo of this discovery. When he returned to the region, preceded by word that he had revealed the salt's location, after the failure of several attempts on Chinyanta's life, Mutanda Yembeyembe had him tied inside a basket with a mortar and pestle and thrown into the Mukelezi River (also known as Ketila ka Musunsa) and drowned. They then did the same thing to Chinyanta's brother, Kasombola. At this and other locations, the Lunda keep pairs of river shrines for the brothers (Cunnison 1961).

(11.) There was a funny moment in 1994, when the priest was intoning his prayer in Bemba-Lunda--done in the same rhythm and cadence and with a lot of similar vocabulary as prayers recited in the Christian churches. He forgot he was addressing the mipashi (ancestral spirits) and began petitioning Lesa, the Christian God. He immediately caught himself, but this elicited a few stifled laughs from some within earshot.

(12.) The goat will later be eaten by Kazembe's carriers and the same sword will later be offered to the Mwata as one of his choices of weapon when he dances the mutomboko. At the moment he kills the goat, Katamatwi, like Kazembe later on, is seen as a dangerous force by the people around him. Munona Chinyanta explains Katamatwi's actions by saying, "First to show he's annoyed. He can kill somebody." Kazembe says the same thing about his own demeanor during his dancing, where an attendant with the title Masumba must hold him by his skirt tails to keep him from attacking the spectators, "So the work of that one is to control me ... Even during the olden days. He has to control me if I want to kill somebody."

(13.) Unlike most of the nobles, he did not wear the colorful high argyle socks held up by garter belts. He wore thin dark brown socks that, I believe, may have been a kind of support hose--in deference to his tender feet? He was also wearing a white pair of walking, possibly orthopedic, shoes.

(14.) During our interview, Kazembe referred to this man as the one who also makes his vestments. Traditionally, the royal tailor, known as masumbo, holds the uluchacha during the Mwata's dance, but he has also been described in the literature as the akapole or valet (Chinyanta and Chiwale 1989:28, 122).

(15.) There is a large body of scholarship on territorial/nature spirits and their shrines and rites. Cunnison treats indigenous nature spirits as part of "land ownership and ritual" (1959:217-25). Werner writes in great detail and argues convincingly for a historical interaction of invading Azimba kings with territorial cult shrines among the Lungu people of northern Zambia (1979:89-130). Van Binsbergen develops a wide-ranging exposition on territorial cults In Zambia (1981:100-130). interpreting Cunnison's findings, van Binsbergen observes,

   Though Kazembe could theoretically assert himself as
   the ultimate owner of the land since he defeated the
   previous "owners," the legitimacy of his kingship derived
   not from direct ritual relationship between king
   and land but rather from a symbiosis between king
   and owners of the land, in which the latter enjoyed
   prestige and protection while paying tribute in recognition
   of the exalted political status of the king and his
   representatives.... The initial conflict between Lunda
   invaders and local territorial cults ... dissolved into a
   situation where Lunda political supremacy was unchallenged,
   while the Lunda on their part acknowledged
   the religious supremacy of the older territorial
   cults (ibid., pp. 127-8).

In the same way that Mwata Kazembe has had to balance his many councilors, nobles, headmen, and other advisors in a politically efficacious manner, he has historically interacted with the numerous religious/spiritual forces in his land. Judging by the popularity and influence of the Mutomboko festival and the level of economic development under the recent Kazembes, I would also conjecture that the ancestral shrines directly linked to the line of Lunda royalty have over the years at least partially eroded the prominence of the indigenous territorial cults.

(16.) In July 2003, I returned to Mwansabombwe for the Mutomboko festivities. A new, very young Mwata had succeeded Munona Chinyanta. He used his prerogative as a new king to make a few changes in the rites. Some were less obvious than others. When, for instance, the Mwata visited the kambolo ancestral shrine before proceeding to the ceremonies by the river, most of what occurred was now behind a reed/grass fence, as opposed to the open transparency of Munona Chinyanta's rites. More dramatically, when the new Mwata finished his offerings at the river, he was not transported back to his palace on the umuselo, but on the shoulders of one of his carriers, a procedure that used to be used mainly when a new king was installed. One more dramatic difference was the actual dancing of the mutomboko, particularly by the young heirs. In the 2003 version, three young men, the eldest in his teens and the youngest around nine or ten years old, all danced at the same time. Their movements were grounded in the basic steps of the mutomboko, but they moved in unison, almost like a choreographed stage show. Similarly, the fast pace was echoed in the dancing of the new Mwata himself, who exhibited a kind of youthful vigor and aggressiveness that was not evident in the more courtly style of his predecesson Two things were clear in these alterations. One was the ongoing reinvention of elements of the ceremonies that kings and their followers feel impelled to carry through. Second was the showcasing of youth and a speeded up approach to the kingship, an attitude and perspective that seemed to be echoed In the many young men--as opposed to the more commonly middle-aged participants I'd seen in 1994 and 1997--who acted as assistants and marshals in the two-days of rites and activities. See Simbao, this issue, for more on Mwata Kazembe XIX's performance of the Mutomboko festival.

References cited

Brown, Ernest Douglas. 1984. Drums of Life: Royal Music and Social Life in Western Zambia. PhD diss. University of Washington.

Chinyanta, Munona, and Chileya J. Chiwale. 1989. Mutomboko Ceremony and the Lunda--Kazembe Dynasty. Lusaka: Kenneth Kaunda Foundation.

Cunnison, Ian. 1959. The Luapula Peoples of Northern Rhodesia: Custom and History in Tribal Politics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

de Clercq, Mgr. August. 1960. Dictionnaire Tshiluba-Francais. Leopoldville: Societe Missionaire de St. Paul.

Gordon, David. 2002. "Owners of the Land and Lunda Lords: Colonial Chiefs in the Borderlands of Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo." International Journal of African Historical Studies 34 (2):315-38.

Mapoma, Mwesa, 1974. Ingomba: The Royal Musicians of the Bemba People of Luapula Province In Zambia. MA thesis. UCLA.

Matongo, Albert B.K. 1992. "Popular Culture in a Colonial Society: Another Look at Mbeni and Kalela Dances on the Copperbelt, 1930-64." In Guardians in Their Time: Experiences of Zambians under Colonial Rule, 1890-1964, ed. Samuel N. Chipungu, pp. 180-217. London: Macmillan.

Mitchell, J. Clyde. 1956. "The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia." Rhodes-Livingstone Papers 27.

Musambachime, Mwelwa. 1976. Changing Roles: The History of the Development and Disintegration of Nkuba's Shila States to 1740. MA thesis, University of Wisconsin.

--. 1981. Development and Growth of the Fishing Industry in the Mweru-Luapula, 1920-64. PhD diss., University of Wisconsin.

Mwata Kazembe XIV and Father Labrecque. 1961. Ifikolwe Fyandi na Bantu Bandi, Historical Traditions of the Eastern Lunda, trans, and annotated by Ian Cunnison. Rhodes-Livingstone Communications no. 23, Central Bantu Historical Texts II. Lusaka: The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute and Manchester University Press.

Roberts, Andrew D. 1973. A History of the Bemba: Political Growth and Change in North Eastern Zambia before 1900. London: Longmans.

Schumaker, Lyn. 2001. Africanizing Anthropology: Fieldwork, Networks, and the Making of Cultural Knowledge in Central Africa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

van Binsbergen, Wire M.J. 1981. Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies. Boston: Kegan Paul International.

Werner, Douglas. 1979. "Miao Spirit Shrines in the Religious History of the Southern Lake Tanganyika Region: The Case of Kapembwa." In Guardians of the Land: Essays on Central African Territorial Cults, ed. J.M. Schoffeleers, pp. 89-130. Gwelo, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press.