By Sir HARRY JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.
Sometime H.M. Commissioner, &c., for Northern Zambezia.
Barotseland at the present day is mainly defined as the kingdom of the recently dead Lewanika which lies both to the east and west of the Upper Zambezi, north of Sesheke, the Katima Rapids, the “Caprivi” boundary line of former German South West Africa. The western boundary line of Barotseland is the east bank of the Kwando river up stream to its intersection with the 22nd degree of E. longitude; the northern boundary is the 13th degree of S. latitude; and the eastern limit is a line drawn from the 13th degree of S. latitude to the upper waters of the Kabompo-Lulafuta, and then southward to the Majili river and along the Majili down to its union with the Upper Zambezi near Sesheke.
The master people, still, in this Upper Zambezi state are the A-luyi, who seem to have entered the lands of the Upper Zambezi from the direction of Eastern Angola, if vague tradition be anything to rely on. At any rate the A-luyi became the dominant tribe in this region some three hundred years ago, if not much earlier. Prior to their dominancy the Upper Zambezi regions had been invaded by terrible armies of cannibals, the “Bazimba” of Portuguese East African records and the “Giagas,” “Jaggas” of Portuguese Congo and Angola history. The term “Jagga” seems to have been derived from the title Jaga, which they gave to their chiefs; amongst themselves this tribe or congeries of tribes which played such an amazing part in the history of Central Africa in the latter half of the 16th century was known either as the “Imbángala” of the middle course of the Kwango river or the Va-chibokwe, Va-kioko, Va-chokwe, Bajoko (according to Livingstone), or Ba-jok of South-west Congoland and the Kasai sources. This boiling over of the Va-chokwe—as they are nowadays termed in their original home—caused terrific, population-destroying raids to be made across Northern Angola into Luango and the Congo coast region, and southwards over Barotseland, Central Zambezia, Southern Nyasaland and Moçambique, and northwards up the East Coast to the surroundings of Mombasa. The Va-chokwe were known by several names in the Portuguese records, the Jagga, Ba-zimba, and Bambo (sing. “Mumbo.”) “Ba-zimba” seems to have died out as a tribal name, but the Bambo still inhabit the region through which the Lower Shire flows, and the original Va-chokwe, Va-kioko, Va-chibokwe, or Ba-jok are prominent inhabitants in the basin of the extreme upper Kasai, and come into Barotseland or Angola on trading expeditions. They are a singularly independent, quarrelsome, warlike people, not unlikely to give trouble yet to the Belgian controllers of Congoland, to the British peace-keepers in North-West Zambezia, or to the Portuguese in Eastern Angola.
But though Upper Zambezia was traditionally overrun by the Va-chokwe three hundred and fifty years ago, the A-luyi seem soon afterwards to have absorbed the invasive quota of peoples and to have settled down as the rulers of Upper Zambezia till their land was first invaded from the south about one hundred and twenty years ago.
This invasion took place from the direction of Lake Ngami and the invaders seem to have been a section of the Ba-hurutse division of the Bechuana people. They reached the Upper Zambezi—traditionally—at the end of the 18th century, whether as friends or foes, tradition does not say; probably in small numbers and with no racial feud against the A-luyi. Their descendants may be the “Njenji” or “Zinzi” tribe who still speak a dialect of Sechuana and are settled rather high up the Zambezi. They seem however to have long retained the tribal name—Ba-hurutse—which became shortened into Ba-rotse.
These Ba-hurutse colonists of the Upper Zambezi valley apparently preserved some slender connection with the remainder of the great area of Bechuanaland, and had allowed news to reach the Fatherland of their tribe regarding the well-watered region in which they had made a new home. At any rate Sebituane, the son of an erratic woman chief in Basutoland, who in the second decade of the 19th century led her people forth on a mad excursion, gradually found his way to the north-west, and finally at the close of the eighteen-twenties had crossed the Zambezi and brought his followers—now called the Makololo—to the conquest of its upper valley.
By about 1840, he had conquered the A-luyi, whom he and his people called the “Ba-rotse” (Ba-hurutse), by the name of the earlier Bechuana colonists. Livingstone found him a fine-looking, copper-coloured man. “He was far and away the finest Kafir I ever saw,” wrote W. C. Oswell at the time—1851; and many years afterwards (in 1890) he repeated the same thing to me. “Sebituane is a gentleman in life and manner” exclaimed his surprised guests in 1851, when they appreciated to the full his gracious and thoughtful hospitality.
One feels on reading the remembrances of Livingstone and Oswell how intense must have been their regret when a few days after their arrival this great chief fell ill with inflammation of the lungs and passed away. Sebituane’s last days of life were taken up with recounting in a subdued voice (he was suffering from an old wound in the lungs) his wonderful adventures since he had first reached the Zambezi and found his way into Barotseland as a ruler. To the east of his moving horde of Bechuana or Makololo, were the fierce Tebele Zulus under Umsilikazi or Mosilikatse,[1] who likewise strove to conquer for themselves a state in North Zambezia. The pressure of the Amandebele drove Sebituane to the more swampy regions of “Barotseland.”
After Sebituane’s death Livingstone and Oswell left his country, promising to return. His son Sekeletu—inferior to his splendid father in height, physique, and appearance—was placed on the throne and ruled Barotseland for some twelve years. Livingstone had returned to the Upper Zambezi in 1853, determined then to discover the whole secret of its course and of its main tributaries, and to follow up the trail of the Ba-joko traders and the “Mambari” or half-caste Portuguese, who were beginning to renew their trading enterprize with the Upper Zambezi, and ascertain if through Sekeletu’s kingdom they could find their way “á contra costa”—to Portuguese Zambezia and Moçambique.