How the Tonga lost the River
The true story of the 1950s Kariba resettlement, when the BaTonga were moved away from the Zambezi valley.
TO ChiTonga
The ChiTonga text of this story is being written down with native speakers from Binga. Check back soon!
EN English
For hundreds of years, the BaTonga lived on both sides of the Zambezi River. The river was not a border to them – it was the centre of their world. Families crossed it by canoe to visit relatives, and the floodplains fed the villages.
In the 1950s, the government decided to build the Kariba Dam to make electricity. The waters of the dam would cover the valley where the BaTonga had their homes, their fields and the graves of their ancestors.
Between 1957 and 1958, around 57,000 BaTonga people on both the Zimbabwean and Zambian sides were moved away from the river. Many were taken to dry lands far from the water, in places such as Binga, Siabuwa and Lusulu, where the soil was poor and the rains were few.
Families who had once lived side by side were now separated by a huge lake. The fishing grounds and gardens were lost under the water. The elders say that the people were moved, but their hearts stayed with the river.
Even today, the BaTonga keep the memory of the river alive in songs, stories and in the language itself. Learning ChiTonga is one way of keeping that memory – and that identity – alive for the next generation.
Lesson: A people who remember their story can never be lost.
