The Tonga people of Zambia and Zimbabwe (also called 'Batonga') are a Bantu ethnic group of southern Zambia and neighbouring northern Zimbabwe, and to a lesser extent, in Mozambique. They are related to the Batoka who are part of the Tokaleya people in the same area, but not to the Tonga people of Malawi. In southern Zambia they are patrons of the Kafue Twa. They differ culturally and linguistically from the Tsonga people of South Africa and southern Mozambique.
The BaTonga people of Zimbabwe are found in and around the Binga District, Binga village the Kariba area, and other parts of Matabeleland. They number up to 300,000 and are mostly subsistence farmers. ln Zimbabwe the language of the Tonga people is called tchitonga. [1]
The Tonga People were settled along Lake Kariba after the construction of the Kariba Dam wall. [2] They stretch from Chirundu, Kariba town, Mola, Binga to Victoria Falls.
In the 1800s, during the reign of Mzilikazi and Lobengula, BaTonga people were regarded by the Ndebele (at the time called the "Matabele") as very peaceful. Early British explorers also regarded them as "wholesome" and "entirely peaceful" on "both sides of the Zambezi." [3]
The advent of digital media, which incorporates social media, it has increased the visibility of the indigenous people. [4]
The Longitudinal Gwembe Tonga Research project a 50-year study took place in southern Zambia uses carrying capacity to explain general social processes and the human-environment interactions of the Tonga people. [5] In the article Carrying Capacity's New Guise: Folk Models for Public Debate and Longitudinal Study of Environmental Change, Lisa Cligget focuses on the relationship between the Tonga people and the environment. [5] The construction of the Kariba Dam caused 57,000 Tonga people on both sides of the Zambian lake[ clarification needed ] due to constant flooding. [5] Lake Kariba is the largest artificial reservoir in the world. A majority of the population moved up stream. However, last minute engineering forced 6000 people to relocate to Lusitu, a small village downstream from the dam. [5] Lusitu is known as the most ecological disturbed region.The drought cycle is a common ecological risk that affects the southern African farmers and directly impacts the Tonga people's access to food. The worst drought in the past decade happened between 1994 and 1995 in Lusitu. [5] This drought caused no harvest for the people in Lusitu. Economic factors have influenced relationships within and outside of Tonga people community. The economic factors in the region include; the collapse of the copper industry, and the structural adjustment program. [5] The structural adjustment program for these rural communities cut government funding limiting infrastructure even more. The consequences of the structural adjustment program means clinics do not have access to aspirin, chloroquine, antibiotics and other medications. The negative effect on education in these rural areas that are remote makes it challenging to find teachers to accept and keep positions. [5] The Tonga people in Lusitu and surrounding areas have become dependent on agriculture production and kinship family networks. [5]
Via the Gwembe Tonga Research Project, the Gwembe people’s adaptations to their environment have been observed through many changing environmental conditions. [5] As environmental conditions become harsher, there are four strategies in which the Gwembe people cope with scarcity. These coping strategies address scarcity in both physical and economic environments in Gwembe Valley. The copper industry failed in Zambia in the 1970s and there is a lack of maintenance of national and local infrastructure, creating equally harsh conditions of economic strife. [5] Extended family networks and kinship play a large role in how scarcity is confronted, exemplified by the four coping strategies. [5]
Humans are capable of eating less and less food, both in volume and nutritional value, and surviving. [5] A way that Gwembe people change behavior in response to food scarcity is through malnutrition.
When preferred foods become scarce or disappear, Gwembe people turn to “famine foods” that include tamarind seeds mixed with ash. [5]
Gwembe people decrease their domestic group size to be more mobile and to feed less people. [5] Being more mobile allows for bettered ability to find food sources, through the environment or asking extended family members not encountering scarcity. [5]
Gwembe families will not repair their homestead granaries to maintain the appearance to outsiders of a lack of grain, while they still have it. [5] Families will also start eating indoors. Both strategies are to prevent neighbors from pleading for grain.
The Tonga language of Zambia is spoken by about 1.38 million people in Zambia and 137,000 in Zimbabwe; it is an important lingua franca in parts of those countries and is spoken by members of other ethnic groups as well as the Tonga. [6] (The Malawian Tonga language is classified in a different zone of the Bantu languages.)
In Zimbabwe, the Tonga also speak Shona, Ndebele and English. In Zambia, the Tonga also speak Nyanja and English, in Mozambique they also speak Portuguese as second languages. One of the most difficult task is to quantify the actual population of the Tonga people. Because of their peaceful approach, they easily assimilate to other tribes and eventually move over to dominant tribes. In Zimbabwe not only do they speak dominant languages such as Shona and Ndebele but a great population have taken on either Shona or Ndebele surnames. There are families in places such as Binga, Zimbabwe where half the siblings could carry Tonga surnames and another Ndebele surnames. In the national population register the ones with Ndebele surnames will be counted among the Ndebeles. Beside the Tsonga speaking in South Africa, they are also a population of that speaks predominantly Zulu, however among the Zulu tribe it is well known that there is a great population of the Tonga people among them. In Mpumalanga, Enkomazi, there is a place called Tonga, while the population of the area is called Swati, the name is a testimony to the once existence of the Tonga people in the area.
The Kariba Dam is a double curvature concrete arch dam in the Kariba Gorge of the Zambezi river basin between Zambia and Zimbabwe. The dam stands 128 metres (420 ft) tall and 579 metres (1,900 ft) long. The dam forms Lake Kariba, which extends for 280 kilometres (170 mi) and holds 185 cubic kilometres (150,000,000 acre⋅ft) of water.
Demographic features of the population of Zimbabwe include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council claimed it to be about 1.2 million. Bulawayo covers an area of 546 square kilometres in the western part of the country, along the Matsheumhlope River. Along with the capital Harare, Bulawayo is one of two cities in Zimbabwe that are also provinces.
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and the physical geography definition based on the physical characteristics of the land.
Chimurenga is a word in Shona. The Ndebele equivalent is not as widely used since most Zimbabweans speak Shona; it is Umvukela, meaning "revolutionary struggle" or uprising. In specific historical terms, it also refers to the Ndebele and the Shona insurrections against administration of the British South Africa Company during the late 1890s, the First Chimurenga—and the war fought between African nationalist guerrillas and the predominantly-white Rhodesian government during the 1960s and the 1970s, the Rhodesian Bush War, or the Second Chimurenga/Imvukela.
Kariba is a resort town in Mashonaland West province, Zimbabwe, located close to the Kariba Dam at the north-eastern end of Lake Kariba, near the Zambian border. According to the 2022 Population Census, the town had a population of 27,600.
Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers and are further separated from Midlands by the Shangani River in central Zimbabwe. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people who were called "Amatabele"(people with long spears – Mzilikazi 's group of people who were escaping the Mfecani wars). Other ethnic groups who inhabit parts of Matabeleland include the Tonga, Bakalanga, Venda, Nambya, Khoisan, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, and Tsonga.
The Tsonga people are a Bantu ethnic group primarily native to Southern Mozambique and South Africa. They speak Xitsonga, a Southern Bantu language. A very small number of Tsonga people are also found in Zimbabwe and Northern Eswatini. The Tsonga people of South Africa share some history with the Tsonga people of Southern Mozambique, and have similar cultural practices, but differ in the dialects spoken.
The Ndau are an ethnic group which inhabits the areas in south-eastern South Africa. The name "Ndau" means Land. Just like the Manyika people in northern Manicaland, their name Manyika also meaning "Owners of the Land", the name Ndau means Land. E.g "Ndau yedu" meaning "our land" When the Ngoni observed this, they called them the Ndau people, the name itself meaning the land, the place or the country in their language. Some suggestions are that the name is derived from the Nguni words "Amading'indawo" which means "those looking for a place" as this is what the Gaza Nguni called them and the name then evolved to Ndau. This is erroneous as the natives are described in detail to have already been occupying parts of Zimbabwe and Mozambique in 1500s by Joao dos Santos. The five largest Ndau groups are the Magova; the Mashanga; the Vatomboti, the Madanda and the Teve. Ancient Ndau People met with the Khoi/San during the first trade with the Arabs at Mapungumbwe and its attributed to the Kalanga people not Ndau. They traded with Arabs with “Mpalu” “Njeti” and “Vukotlo’’ these are the red, white and blue coloured cloths together with golden beads. Ndau people traded traditional herbs, spiritual powers, animal skins and bones.
Ugali, also known as posho, nsima, and other names, is a type of corn meal made from maize or corn flour in several countries in Africa. It is cooked in boiling water or milk until it reaches a stiff or firm dough-like consistency. In 2017, the dish was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, one of a few foods in the list.
The Shona people are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, primarily living in Zimbabwe where they form the majority of the population, as well as Mozambique, South Africa, and a worldwide diaspora. There are five major Shona language/dialect clusters: Manyika, Karanga, Zezuru, Korekore, and Ndau.
The Northern Ndebele people are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. Significant populations of native speakers of the Northern Ndebele language (siNdebele) are found in Zimbabwe and in South Africa.
Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) was the military wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), a militant African nationalist organisation that participated in the Rhodesian Bush War against white minority rule of Rhodesia.
Binga District is a district of Zimbabwe in southern Africa. It is located in Matabeleland North just south of Kariba Lake, across the lake from Zambia It lies along the southern Zambezi Escarpment.
The military history of Zimbabwe chronicles a vast time period and complex events from the dawn of history until the present time. It covers invasions of native peoples of Africa, encroachment by Europeans, and civil conflict.
The Gaza Empire (1824–1895) was an African empire established by general Soshangane and was located in southeastern Africa in the area of southern Mozambique and southeastern Zimbabwe. The Gaza Empire, at its height in the 1860s, covered all of Mozambique between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers, known as Gazaland.
The pre-colonial history of Zimbabwe lasted until the British government granted colonial status to Southern Rhodesia in 1923.
Many languages are spoken, or historically have been spoken, in Zimbabwe. Since the adoption of its 2013 Constitution, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, namely Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa. The country's main languages are Shona, spoken by only 42% of the population, and Ndebele, spoken by roughly 39%. English is the country's lingua franca, used in government and business and as the main medium of instruction in schools. English is the first language of most white Zimbabweans, and is the second language of a majority of black Zimbabweans. Historically, a minority of white Zimbabweans spoke Afrikaans, Greek, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, among other languages, while Gujarati and Hindi could be found amongst the country's Indian population. Deaf Zimbabweans commonly use one of several varieties of Zimbabwean Sign Language, with some using American Sign Language. Zimbabwean language data is based on estimates, as Zimbabwe has never conducted a census that enumerated people by language.
The Southern Bantu languages are a large group of Bantu languages, largely validated in Janson (1991/92). They are nearly synonymous with Guthrie's Bantu zone S, apart from the exclusion of Shona and the inclusion of Makhuwa. They include all of the major Bantu languages of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique, with outliers such as Lozi in Zambia and Namibia, and Ngoni in Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi.
Mthwakazi is the traditional name of the proto-Ndebele people and Ndebele kingdom and is in the area of today's Zimbabwe. Mthwakazi is widely used to refer to inhabitants of Matebeleland Province in Zimbabwe.
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