Tribes in Zambia With over 70 different tribes in Zambia, there is wide cultural assortment that marks the country as one of the few nations in Africa with tribal harmony.
Chief Mpezeni of the Ngonis, also known as Ngwenyama - meaning ‘lion’, in a pensive mood. Here he wears a head gear made of a lion skin to highlight his totem of a lion.
A Tonga dancer at Shimunenga ceremony of the Tongas of Southern Province. The spear, plumed head gear and lion-maned necklace has martial connotation of bravery and conquest.
Lozis of western province are the most anglicised tribe yet an ethnic grouping that is also proud of its cultural heritage. The symbol of the Litunga is an elephant whose ivory some Lozis wear as a bangle to show tribal solidarity.
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However, one cannot talk about tribes without mentioning first president Kenneth Kaunda’s unitary slogan of ‘One Zambia, One nation’ - a crusade to make Zambian tribes live in harmony with each other. Zambia’s 13 million plus people are mostly Africans of Bantu origin, belonging to a large number of tribes which speak 73 dialects. The Zambian tribal heritage is either dying or diluted by westernisation or foreign faiths - especially among urban Zambians who constitute about 40% to 50% of the population mainly confined to Lusaka and the Copperbelt. There are seven major tribes in Zambia which have linguistic offshoots: the Lozi, the Ngoni, the Tonga, the Lunda, the Bemba, the Kaonde and the Luvale. The Lozi The Lozi migrated into Western Zambia from one of the greatest central African Chieftainships in the 17th and 18th Century in Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo). They were then conquered by the Makalolo from the South centuries later – who had fled from the great Zulu conqueror, Shaka. The