Tonga People Research Articles

Chronic Uncertainty and Momentary Opportunity: A half century of adaptation among Zambia’s Gwembe Tonga

In Zambia’s Southern Province, where a history of climatic and political fluctuation have played out in peoples livelihood choices and ecological impacts, the Gwembe Tonga people have learned to respond to uncertainty by expecting the worst. This outlook emerges from at least 50 years of experience. The building of the Kariba Dam on the Middle Zambezi River in the late 1950s resulted in the forced relocation of Gwembe people. Since resettlement in 1958, Gwembe people have lived under conditions of increasing uncertainty, both environmental and sociopolitical, that have enormous implications for environmental change. Understanding environmental change in this region demands an exploration of the social, political and economic context of Gwembe Tonga lives. In looking for broad patterns of adaptation and response, one point emerges clearly. For the Gwembe Tonga, the most recurrent pattern, and most reliable response to living in conditions of extreme uncertainty, is an increasingly opportunistic use of the environment and other resources. This article presents ethnographic data collected over more than 50 years (through the Gwembe Tonga Research Project) in Southern Zambia.

Remitting the gift: Zambian mobility and anthropological insights for migration studies

AbstractThis article brings together anthropological theories of gift exchange and ethnographic data on migrant gifting (‘remitting’) in order to understand the core of investing in social relations through remitting practices. Migration literature from throughout the developing world documents important patterns of remitting that furthers our understanding of how migrants' earnings help rural investment. In contrast to the majority of migration literature, scholars working in different regions of Zambia have documented migration patterns and remittance practices that do not echo the documented findings from other regions of the developing world. In Zambian migration, remittances consist more of food, ‘town goods’ or cash, rather than the larger sums of money or durable goods that other migration studies describe. The Zambian literature also documents cases of non‐remitting. Rather than provide significant support to relatives in sending communities, Zambian migrants invest in social networks over time through ‘gift‐remitting’. These ‘gift‐remittances’ facilitate options to return to home communities, or to maintain mutually beneficial social ties for both migrants and relatives in home villages. These findings compel policies directed towards enhancing migrants' remitting power to consider the core social foundation of their ties to home, and how investing in social relations can be incorporated into policy development. The article draws on fieldwork with the Gwembe Tonga people of Zambia's Southern Province since 1994, and recent ethnographic literature from Zambia. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Gift Remitting and Alliance Building in Zambian Modernity: Old Answers to Modern Problems

This article highlights the strategic nature of remittances in Zambian migration. Zambian migrants usually give only small gifts to their home‐based relatives, not the large sums of money or goods used for investment that is documented in the literature on remitting elsewhere. In a case like Zambia, where so little surplus cash exists and the diversion of cash or other resources can have great material costs for the giver, why do Zambian migrants continue to remit? I argue that gift remitting develops strategic alliances that translate into insurance policies for the future, enabling Zambian migrants to "hedge their bets" in a volatile and rapidly changing socioeconomic terrain. This article focuses attention on the broad experiences and contexts of remitting and how the unpredictability of modern life may foster a renewed need for building alliances. I draw on fieldwork conducted from 1994‐2001 with the Gwembe Tonga people of Zambia's Southern Province and recent ethnographic literature from Zambia. [Keywords: migration, gift, economy, intergenerational relations, Africa]

Human growth in southern Zambia: a first study of Tonga children predating the Kariba Dam (1957-1958).

During the late 1950s the Kariba hydro-electric dam was constructed on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe forcing the relocation of 57,000 people, mainly Tonga. As part of a larger study to assess the effects of the relocation, research into the human biology of the Tonga people was conducted. The research reported here provides a basis for comparison with long-term follow-up data on growth and physical status of Gwembe Tonga to determine the effects of resettlement. The sample consists of 303 schoolchildren, 7 to 13 years, from two schools that were not relocated and three schools that were to be relocated. Homogeneity of the two groups led us to combine them as a single baseline sample before relocation. Comparisons with NCHS (National Center for Health Statistics) reference data and with contemporary urban data from southern Zambia indicate sub-optimal nutritional status. After ages 6 and 7, height-for-age and weight-for-age Z-scores of boys decline steadily towards -2.0 SD throughout the 12th year, whereas mean Z-scores of girls decline markedly from 8 years on. Mean HAZ (Height-for-age-Z-score) of girls falls below -2.0 SD by 11 years and approaches -3.0 SD by 13 years. Thirty-nine percent of males and 47% of females in the baseline sample showed effects of moderate or severe protein energy malnutrition at the time of relocation. Because these children were from a school sample, gender differences in opportunity to attend school may be a factor in what appears to be gender bias, favoring the status of boys. This sample provides a baseline for assessing the long-term impact of forced relocation on the Gwembe Tonga.

A Central African Perspective on Contextualizing the Ephesian Potentates, Principalities, and Powers

The concept of power varies according to the sociocultural setting in which it is perceived and defined. One's outlook is also influenced by his or her religious worldview and value system. This study investigates the notion of spiritual “powers” as developed in Ephesians from the point of view of the Zambian Tonga people. It is based upon an overview of the cluster of power concepts in this epistle as they relate to the implicit pagan socio-religious setting that prevailed in ancient Asia Minor. This is compared with a contextualized perspective of these notions as influenced by a traditional Tonga construal of the different spiritual forces that impinge upon their daily world. We conclude with a listing of seven important principles that pertain to a meaningful contemporary communication of the biblical message in Butonga.

SOCIAL RESPONS PÅ URBANISERINGENS EPIDEMIER: Aids-oplysning i det sydlige Zambia

Hanne Overgaard Mogensen: A Social
 Response to the Epidemics of Urbanization.
 AIDS Information in Southern
 Zambia
 In Southern Zambia, Tonga people associate
 AIDS with a locally defined disease called
 kahungo which is said to be caused by
 contact with symbolically polluted biood.
 Before the arrival of AIDS, kahungo was
 associated with TB and sexually transmitted
 diseases. In Africa, epidemics of TB and
 STDs were often related to colonization and
 urbanization. Similar to AIDS, they spread
 more rapidly than what was known in
 Europe, and the colonial administration tried
 to explain this with “problems of behaviour”,
 thereby ignoring the miserable
 conditions under which people lived. The
 Tongas’ association of these diseases with
 kahungo should be seen as a social response
 to new epidemics. While the Europeans
 talked about individual problems of adaptation
 to modem life, kahungo concems the
 collective responsibility to maintain order.
 Kahungo, a disease of disorderly biood, has
 become the symbol of the disorder of
 urbanization and modemization.

Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi Valley.

In this, the first comprehensive study of the Tonga people in Zimbabwe, Pamela Reynolds focuses on children s work in a subsistence agricultural system, assessing how much work they do, the value of their work to their families and how it both limits their opportunities and fosters their personal growth and knowledge. Set in the context of the history of the Tonga people south of the Zambezi river and a discussion of their current position as a minority group in independent Zimbabwe, this is a study of social differentiation, particularly the impact of gender and age, and of the individual as a social agent. Based on extensive fieldwork among the Tonga, it avoids the usual trap of analyzing children s labour roles in isolation from social, economic and political factors.

For Your Information

The first presentation of the Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology has been presented to Thayer Scudder. Scudder is Director of the Institute for Development Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology at the California Institute of Technology. The bulletin of the IDA notes that "Scudder is well known for his pioneering work with Elizabeth Colson on the long-term effects of forced relocation on the Gwembe Tonga people of Zambia. Data gathered among the Tonga over a period of more than 25 years have served as bases of comparison for Scudder's examination of relocation in many other areas of the world."

The Effect of Westernization on Cooperative Behaviour in Central Africa

The traditional ethos of Central African societies emphasises cooperation and sharing. In a Prisoner's Dilemma game, traditional Tonga men and women in Zambia played more cooperatively than westernized Tonga people and Asian students. Their greater cooperativeness showed most clearly in their tendency to make a cooperative response even after their partner had defected, whereas other groups tended to meet defection with defection. L'effet de l'occidentalisation sur le comportement traditionnellement coopératif des peuplades d'Afrique centrale est étudié à travers le jeu du Dilemme du Prisonnier, proposé à onze échantillons zambiens plus ou moins occidentalisés. En général, les groupes traditionnels se révèlent plus coopératifs, attitude qui apparaît clairement dans leur tendance à répondre coopérativement měme après un choix compétitif du partenaire, alors que les sujets des autres groupes réagissent plutôt de façon « négative » face à une tactique compétitive.

A Lungfish (Protopterus) from the Middle Zambezi

THE Joint Fisheries Research Organization has been so fortunate as to acquire a lungfish from the Middle Zambezi. The specimen came, on May 15, 1957, from a stagnant ‘backwater’ of the Zambezi, at that time receding from its peak flood, in the Chipepo district on the northern bank, and was collected by Mr. Thayer E. Scudder, an anthropologist, who was at the time studying the local Gwembe Tonga people. Notwithstanding the fact that several fish-collecting expeditions have been made to this area, which is due shortly to be flooded by the waters of the Kariba dam, no other specimens are known from this region. However, it is known to the natives, who call it ‘Ikana’. The fish is a specimen of Protopterus annectens (Owen), typically light-coloured ventrally, with the belly and lower head covered with conspicuous dark spots, and is of considerable interest in many respects.

Geographical Notes

THE Journal of the Straits Branch of the Bengal Asiatic Society for December, 1881, contains a short comparative vocabulary of the Fijian and Maori (New Zealand) languages, with notes by Mr. Thurston and Sir F. A. Wild. The Maori is a recognised member of the Eastern Polynesian linguistic family, and from these specimens the Fijian might be supposed to belong to the same connection. But the natives, especially of the eastern inlands of the Fiji Archipelago, have long been exposed to Polynesian influences, through their relations with the Tonga islanders. These influences are apparent both in their physical type and in the numerous dialects current on the coast. But the skulls of the Kai Colos occupying the interior of Viti Levu have been shown by Prof. Flower to be of a distinctly Papuan character. In fact, they are the most dolichocephalic on the globe. The outward appearance of the Kai Colos and other tribes removed from contact with the Tonga people also closely resembles that of the pure Melanesians of the New Hebrides and Solomon groups. Specimens of their speech have not yet been collected; but it may be taken for granted that it will be found to be of a distinctly Melanesian type, betraying little or no affinity to the Polynesian. Such vocabularies as these, while possessing a certain value, are apt to be very misleading, and have in fact contributed to the current belief that the Polynesian and Melanesian tongues are fundamentally one. In reality they possess nothing in common beyond the verbal resemblances due to the wide-spread Polynesian influences in the Melanesian domain. In their morphology and inner structure, the two systems are radically distinct.