The Tonga of Zimbabwe

Religion: African Traditional Religion

Population: 112,000

Location: The Tonga people are located in the northwestern section of Zimbabwe along the Kariba lake shore. They presently occupy three distinct zones along the lake:

a. along the lake shore and the tributaries that feed into the lake
b. along the low lying hills and valleys further inland from the lake and
c. on the higher plateau above the escarpment and in some valleys over the mountains.
Because of their separation by the lake from the Zambia Tonga, they are considered a separate people. Their language is a bit different and their economic status has suffered compared to the Zambia side.

The Tonga of Zimbabwe fit the pattern of unreached people groups. They live in isolation from others and their living area is quite inhospitable to outsiders, further limiting casual contacts. The valley is always hot. In winter it is dry and hot. In summer it is hotter still and wet and in the spring it is hottest of all. Only the Tonga seem to be able to thrive in the heat and complain of the cold when the temperature drops into the 70's in the winter months.

Major roads do reach to Kamativi, Mbilisi and Binga on the western side, and a single road reaches into the area from Karoi on the East. However, most of the people do not live along these roads which traverse the high ground. Most of the villages, and therefore the greatest part of the population, live along the mountain valleys and along the streams or rivers that flow from the escarpment to the lake.

History: The Tonga migrated into Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. There is no tradition of migration left among them. No one knows for certain how or why they came there. They have no history at all before being encountered by Livingstone, a mere 140 years ago. Livingstone described them as "very degraded" because the men of the Tonga wore no clothes at all.

On his second visit in 1860, Livingstone traveled down the Zambezi with a fleet of canoes. This time he described the Tonga more kindly saying, "We now saw many good looking young men and women. The dresses of the ladies are identical with those of the Nubian women in upper Egypt. To a belt on their waist a great number of strings are attached to hang all round the person. These fringes are about six or eight inches long. The matrons wear, in addition, a skin cut like the tails of a coatee.... The younger girls... have the fringes only in front...."

Livingstone preached to the Tonga as the canoes drifted down the river stopping occasionally to greet people on the banks of the river. They seemed to welcome Christianity and the promise of peace. They told Livingstone that they hoped the British, whom they distinguished from the Portuguese or Boers, would come and take care of them.

When Livingstone left the Gwembe valley and passed through the Kariba Gorge, he remembered the Tonga in their simplicity with affection. After the last of Livingstone's canoes disappeared down the river, the valley turned to its state of isolation for the rest of the 19th century.

Several individual hunters and slave traders visited the valley and two Jesuit missionaries tried to establish a settlement in the valley. However after two weeks one left and in another three weeks the other one had died.

In 1896, Sir Charles Metcalfe explored the valley seeking a Cape-to-Cairo route for the railway. He reached the Kariba Gorge on foot after having to abandon his wagons on the escarpment. When the railway reached the Zambezi in 1905 it crossed the river at Victoria Falls, 250 miles farther up the river. Thus the valley was left undisturbed for another period of time.

Identity: The Tonga of Zambia and the Tonga of Zimbabwe are essentially the same tribe. Before the construction of the Kariba Dam in the late 1950's they crossed back the forth across the river, cultivating fields on the opposite bank, collecting food where it was plentiful and visiting relatives, for there was inter-marriage across the river groupings. In 1957 a major resettlement of the peoples of the valley began and the Tongas on each side of the river were pulled back from the valley where the lake would form.

Furthermore in the mid-60's with Unilateral Declaration Independence (UDI) in Zimbabwe, any further crossing of the lake, which was the international boundary with Zambia, was forbidden. Thus two sections of the Tonga were permanently separated. The consequences of this could hardly have been predicted.

The two parts of the same tribe experienced very different fates. The Zambian Tonga were integrated into the larger Zambian community while the Zimbabwe Tonga were further isolated by the creation of the huge lake. The railway from Livingstone to Lusaka passed through the resettled Tonga in Zambia giving them access to the outside world and commerce. Access to the Zimbabwe Tonga was further hampered by the lack of roads, schools and medical services. By the mid-60's most Zimbabwe Tongas had so little training that most posts requiring literacy in their area were by recruitment from elsewhere in Zimbabwe.

The Gwembe Tonga of Zambia were encouraged to take advantage of the economic possibilities associated with Lake Kariba and the railroad. They used their profits to develop as

cash crop farmers, establishing shops and to finance further education for their children. Such was not the future of the Tonga of Zimbabwe who still exist as subsistence farmers or supplement their income by migratory labor.

Language: The Tonga speak a Bantu language. The language is a bit different from that on the Zambia side, but mutually intelligible. Three other closely-related languages are Ila, Sala and Soli. Together with the Lenje language, these five languages make up the Lenje-Tonga group of Central Bantu languages.

Customs and Folklore: The Tonga and the Ila called themselves by the name of "Bakule Menyo" (the toothless people). No one has given a good explanation for the practice of removing several of their front teeth. However, after the colonial powers came in and began to tax the people, the men would go to Bulawayo and other towns or farms seeking work in order to pay their taxes. The men eventually stopped knocking out their front teeth because they were laughed at in the towns where they went to work. This practice, however, continued among the women of the village. Other ornamentation such as pieces of bone through the nose are still practiced by some of the elderly women. Pipe smoking using the "bubble pipe" is practiced by many of the women as well as the men.

Religion: Witchcraft, ancestral worship and animism form the largest part of Tonga religious beliefs. Even though Livingstone had made contact with the Tonga and one chief is reported to have been converted to Christianity, there have been no vibrant number of churches established among the Tonga.

Christianity: Mission work had begun on the north bank in the early 1900's. Before 1957, a few children on the south bank of the Zambezi attended mission schools in Zambia, staying with kin or as boarders.

In the 1960's Baptist missionaries from Gokwe penetrated the southern reach of the Tonga and churches were established among the people of Simchimbu and Ninyunka areas. However, the work did not spread farther north into the valley where most of the Tonga live. In the early 1990's a missionary family established a presence on the western edge of Tongaland at the mining town of Kamativi. Health problems and other factors resulted in the withdrawal of the missionaries from Kamativi. Fortunately a Tonga pastor, Orders Chasungwa, established residency as a home missionary among his own people. Twelve churches and mission points had been begun before the departure of the missionaries. These are being maintained and even growing under the leadership of the home missionary.

Also reaching into the Eastern edge of Tongaland are churches located at the town of Kariba. Though these churches are made up of mostly Shona people who have come to the town for employment, there are some Tonga being reached. Also, one evangelical church has had a vision of reaching the Tonga using a boat to go along the lake and into the rivers that feed into the lake. The Jesus film is being used to good effect in this effort.

Resources

Weinrich, Ann. The Tonga People of the Southern Shore of Lake Kariba. Gwelo (Gweru): Mambo Press, 1977.

Howarth, David. The Shadow of the Dam. London, U.K.: Collins, 1961.

Smith, Edwin W. African Ideas of God. London, U.K.: Edinburgh House Press, 1950.

 

 

The Tonga people live in Zambia and Zimbabwe