Zambezi

The Zambezi Region is the eastern end of the Caprivi Strip, river country of the Subia, Fwe, Yeyi, Totela and Mbukushu peoples and of Khwe San in the west, which a treaty signed in Europe in 1890 handed to German South West Africa so that Germany could reach the Zambezi. Its past runs through Subia chiefdoms and the Lozi and Makololo kingdoms, a forgotten German outpost, a South African homeland and war zone, a failed secession in 1999 and a change of name in 2013.

1. 1570s to 1750

   Subia tradition names Itenge as the first known chief, who led his people from the north to the Kafue floodplains in today's Zambia, and his son Ikuhane took them on to the Zambezi valley and the Chobe. The Zambezi and Chobe basin is still called Iteenge in Subiya. In the 1700s the chief Nsundano I set up his headquarters at Luchindo, opposite today's Ngoma border post, and Luchindo is now a shrine for all Subia. source

2. 1851

   Sebetwane, a Sotho chief who had led his people, later known as the Makololo, on a trek of more than 1,200 km from near today's Senekal in the Free State, crossed the Zambezi and conquered the Lozi kingdom, ruling from his capital at Linyanti. The Scottish missionary David Livingstone reached him there, and Sebetwane died on 7 July 1851, shortly after their meeting. source

3. 1890

   Under the Heligoland Zanzibar Treaty with Britain, Germany gave up its interest in Zanzibar and took this strip of land for German South West Africa, naming it after Chancellor Leo von Caprivi. The plan was a river route to German East Africa, but the Victoria Falls and other falls downstream made the Zambezi useless for that. Before colonial rule the land was known as Itenge. source

4. 1966 to 1990

   The Caprivi Game Reserve was proclaimed in 1966 and upgraded to a game park in 1968, but during the liberation war the South African Defence Force declared it a military area. Only after independence could it be run as a conservation area, and a survey then found about 5,000 people living inside it. It became Bwabwata National Park in 2007. source

5. 1972 to 1989

   Under apartheid, South Africa set up East Caprivi (also called Itenge) as a Bantustan, an ethnic homeland, in 1972, and granted it self-government in 1976. Unlike the other homelands in the territory it was run from Pretoria. It became an ethnic Representative Authority in 1980 and was abolished in May 1989, at the start of the move to independence. source

6. 1966 to 21 March 1990

   In 1966 SWAPO, the South West Africa People's Organisation, began an armed struggle against South African rule that grew into the wider South African Border War. Namibia became independent on 21 March 1990. source

7. 1999

   On 2 August 1999 the Caprivi Liberation Army, which wanted the strip to break away from Namibia, attacked the army base, police station, border post and state radio station in Katima Mulilo. Fourteen people were killed and a state of emergency followed. About 3,000 people fled to Botswana for fear of reprisals, and 132 people were arrested and charged with high treason in a trial so delayed that acquittals only came in 2012. source

8. 2013

   On 8 August 2013 President Hifikepunye Pohamba announced that the Caprivi Region would be renamed Zambezi, after the river, as part of removing colonial names from the map. source

Languages

In the 2023 census the main home languages of the region's households were Sisubiya (30.5%), Silozi (25.8%) and Sifwe (17.5%), followed by Sitotela (7.5%), Siyeyi (5.2%) and Thimbukushu (4.0%). Only 2.1% of households spoke English at home and 0.7% the Khwe San language. source

English and Fanagalo

Thanks to long contact with Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, most people here speak English. Many older men also know Fanagalo, the pidgin used on the Johannesburg gold mines where they once worked. Afrikaans, common elsewhere in Namibia, is barely heard. source

Royal seats

Traditional kingdoms still matter here. Bukalo, 43 km south-east of Katima Mulilo, is the royal headquarters of the Subia. King Mutwa Liswani II (who reigned from 1965 to 1996) founded the royal palace there, and it is still the seat of the Subia Traditional Authority. source

Lusata Festival

The Mafwe hold their Lusata festival every year in the last week of September at Chinchimane, the royal village about 6 km from Katima Mulilo. It is named after the king's mace, an ivory-studded stick, and chiefs come from Zambia and Botswana for it. source

Living from the rivers

Most people live along the rivers and the main roads, fishing and farming small fields of maize, millet and groundnuts among other crops, and grazing their cattle on shared communal land. source