Zimbabwe's Cultural Heritage

Introduction

63 THE TONGA Introduction Abridged from A History of North-Western Zimbabwe since 400 AD, by Godfrey Tabona Ncube The earliest Bantu speakers settled in the Victoria Falls region between 400500 AD. The use of ceramic style, or tradition, to recognize groups of people suggests that these early farmers were displaced at the end of the ninth century by the Later Iron Age Kalomo group. Around the twelfth century, the Kangila ceramic tradition spread southward from the northern areas of the Batoka plateau into the Victoria Falls region. This tradition lasted until relatively recent times, probably around the end of the eighteenth century. It is from this Kangila group that the Tonga language apparently developed. The Tonga expanded along the Zambezi valley because the Zambezi River assured them of a perennial water supply. There is evidence to suggest that the areas inhabited by the Tonga in Zimbabwe once extended further south than at present. Northerly migrations and conquest by Shona groups from about the seventeenth century onwards apparently caused some Tonga withdrawals northwards. Both archaeological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Tonga language is associated with the language of northern Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo rather than Zimbabwean languages. The term ‘Tonga’ itself has applied to the people of the Middle Zambezi valley and the southern Zambezian plateau since the mid-nineteenth century. Prior to their common identity as Tonga people, it is likely that different names were used to describe the inhabitants of different areas throughout the valley. The term ‘Tonga’, which was probably a term of foreign origin bestowed by their neighbours, has been interpreted to mean a ‘chiefless’ people or those who do not recognise a paramount ruler. Although the Tonga on both sides of the Zambezi formed one society, spoke the same language and observed the same customs, there is no evidence of them at any time building a large scale political unit under a paramount ruler. Rather, they were organized into a large number of small scattered independent political units, each with its own ruler. After colonisation, the Tonga were spared the fate of Land Apportionment because of the general prevalence of tsetse fly in their area of settlement. 64 Thus they did not lose land to Europeans because Europeans were unwilling to settle in that part of the country and risk contracting human trypanosomiasis. Furthermore, the fact that ox-drawn wagon transportation could not be used over most of the Tonga country discouraged many Europeans from settling there, because they were entirely reliant on oxwagons for bringing in their supplies. However, the Tonga were to suffer an even greater uprooting and resettlement, involving more than 23,000 people, in the 1950s. Since the damming of the Zambezi at Kariba would form a lake covering 5180 square kilometres, submerging the Zambezi plain, the lower courses of the tributaries and many of the lower hills, the Federal government embarked on the forced removal and resettlement of all the people below the 488 metre elevation. The movement of the Tonga from the valley was implemented over a 3-year period (1956-58) and the actual transfer of the people from the valley to escarpment was executed in government lorries. The creation of Lake Kariba provides an example of massive technological development achieved at tremendous economic and social cost to the displaced people. The Valley Tonga lost their valued alluvial river gardens, which had played a major role in staving off famine, and the loss of sacred graves where the lineage spirits had been worshipped and propitiated – this loss was perhaps the most serious and difficult to compensate because its value could not be measured in material terms. Today the Tonga people are found in Hwange (eastern), Lupane (western/northern), Gokwe North and Nyaminyami/Kariba districts. ...