Batonga

In Batonga culture, music plays a significant role both in the life of the individual and in the community. It provides not only a mode for personal expression but also a means of communication between members of the community, and between the community and the spiritual world. Drumming is by far the most important musical activity. Budima and social drums are the most common. Drums are made and played by men, with few exceptions. Each drummer plays on one drum, and all Batonga drums have a single pegged skin, the other end of the drum being open. Women provide accompaniment by clapping their hands and shaking rattles; they are also the main singers.

For centuries the Gwembe Valley Tonga have lived along the north and south banks of the Zambezi River. In 1957 and 1958, tens of thousands of them were forcibly resettled to make way for Kariba Dam, a hydro-electric project of what was then the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

The resettlement was followed by a physical separation by the new lake, later reinforced by the incorporation of the Gwembe Valley Tonga into two different nations, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Forty years afterwards, despite the differences in their recent political and economic history, the Gwembe Valley Tonga are still recognizable as an ethnic group referred to as the Batonga of Zambia and Zimbabwe — sharing a common language, culture, and world of beliefs.

These recordings, from both sides of the lake, show their rich musical culture to be very much alive. —Courtesy Calabash Music