TWO GREAT AFRICAN KINGS


Mwine Lubemba Chitimukulu (left) of the Bemba speaking people of Zambia with Inkosi YaMakhosi Mphezeni IV, of the Ngonis of Zambia and Mchinji Malawi (right). On the middle is His Excellency, Mr George Kanyamula Zulu, former Australian ambassador to Zambia who is himself a dedicated Ngoni from the Angoni capital. 

This was during the 2022 Ukusefya Pangwena Traditional Ceremony of the Bemba Speaking People in Northern Zambia. The Bembas and Ngonis of Zambia do one of the most celebrated traditional cousinship on the continent as the two Nations had clashed around the 1850s when Mphezeni led his group and settled on the Southern tip of the Bemba Kingdom, this was after his father's Nation bad broken up due to succession wrangles. 

After the last battle, the Mphezeni Nation had gotten with them some Bemba women, among them a prominent Bemba Princess who even had a relationship with a royal Ngoni family member. 

A son born from this relationship would be gotten by the Bembas in 1937 from the Ngoni Nation and would go on to become a Chitumukulu in the 1960s. These events are what birthed the current tradition cousinship between the two groups. 

Photo Credit: Ambassador George Kanyamula Zulu.

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