Major R.T. Coryndon, the first British Resident at Lealuyi in 1897, was named Mulenga, not the common Bemba name but the Silozi word for squint eyes.

Daniells M was a Polish Jew who traded at Tapo in the area through which the famous Mongu-Kalabo road passes. He was named Mayeyauka, probably because he walked like a floater as Lozi men walk lightly but fast on the thick layer of floating grass weed litindi, so common on the Barotse flood plain. He was also called Nalushangala, which relates to an increase or extension etc. Daniells was probably given to constant price increases in his shop hence nalushangala-shangala.

Dinwiddie JA named Mutakatala, was DC Senanga 1948/51 The 1948 Annual Report recorded that 1947/48 produced too much rain and an all-engulfing flood swept away the bulk of valley crops. The following season the heavy rains gave way to severe drought, withering early maize including the hardier cassava roots. Famine ruled in Senanga and the new man at the Boma was accused of having brought famine with him, earning him a new name Mutakatala, one who came with or at the time of hunger. Dinwiddie’s pre-occupation with issues of hunger led him to a land dispute with the local community. Anxious that his messengers grow their own food, he allowed them to cultivate land beyond their compound, thereby encroaching on land belonging to local villagers, this dispute led to the formal delineation of the Boma boundaries.

Dempster first established himself at Lukona in 1918 by buying up Harrington’s. He met his wife, then a missionary in Mongu and married in 1924. The couple relocated to the present Kalabo Boma in 1927 and built what was said to be the first privately owned European house at the Boma.

Dempster, the man, was nicknamed Sitenda, baldhead (compare Libala, large baldn and Kabalanyana, a small baldhead). He died in Bulawayo in 1932. Mrs Dempster remained active in Kalabo until 1939 when she ‘retired’ but it was not until 1960 that she gave up all pretences and finally retired. She had lived in Kalabo longer than any other white resident. Apparently there was no nickname for her but she remained a revered personality among the European community in Kalabo who considered her the town’s first lady and its’ guardian of tradition (though Kalabo was little known elsewhere as the Northern News once put it ‘anyone enquiring where Kalabo is should note that it is a dot (population 5) on the Kalabo River in Barotseland’). The newspaper confused the situation even more for nowhere in Zambia will you find the Kalabo River but the Luanginga River.

The Dempsters were a family to reckon with in the district, a number of traders owing their apprenticeship to the couple. Their first shops in Lukona they sold to Swiss James Kuhn, alias Walipitila, he who is just passing by. Another store, was farmed out first to E. Hale called Siyaw,i one who misses out, then to R Reed, Sicakwai, one who eats tobacco, meaning a fool. Both failed in these undertakings.

A string of traders were at one time or other store assistants at Dempsters. There was, for example, F Lawrence, Longwani, the long one, who built their Kalabo residence and RS McCulloch alias Bwandilala, small sticks, twigs, used as firewood. Bwandilala is a euphemism for small legs. McCulloch must have had small legs.

Epstein, J was a Jewish trader at Nalolo, before World War I. Short, but stout, Epstein walked like a marching man with his head looking up, not seeing where his foot lands, stepping anyhow, ku tulyana, his Lozi customers would say and called him Tulya-tulya.

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