|
They Are Back,
The White Tribesmen
By Yuyi K.
Libakeni
The third in
our series on The White Tribesmen. Read the previous ones
here,
here and
here
Lt. Col. P.C Middleton
was a popular figure in Mongu either at the DC’s office or at the
Resident Commissioner’s. He was three times DC Senanga during the
period 1951-55 with a spell at the secretariat in Lusaka and was
acting RC in 1961. At Senanga, Middleton initiated the Senanga
Development Survey and with Ian Mackinson, undertook major aerial
surveys of both Senanga and Mongu Districts. A number of our
constituency maps of the province are based on these surveys
Middleton hated adultery, chigororo (chigololo) and always
condemned it among his District Messenger corps. At each morning
parade Middleton would remind them of the dangers of adultery.
Chigororo is of course Nyanja, Middleton had passed higher
examination in Nyanja, the Lozi word for it being buozwa or
bubuki. For this Chigororo campaign, Middleton was himself
nicknamed Chigororo.
A.C North
was DC Kaoma 1952-54 where he distinguished himself as an
outstanding Luvale speaker, dispensing with unreliable Luvale
interpreters during his court sessions as Magistrate. North passed
his Higher (Oral /written) examinations in Luvale during his
probation at Kabompo. The Luvale nickname of Kausanga was
given in recognition of his language proficiency. Kausanga is from
usanga, Luvale for white beads which have traditional spiritual
significance. Kausanga is a title of a popular Shombe (Luvale
casanova dance) song. Memories are still fresh among some of the old
people - when on tour, North would be carried in a hammock, as was
the fashion of the day, a throng of the natives following him to his
camp singing and clapping “Kausanga mwana mwa lila, ike mwalila
mwana obe”, Kausanga the child is crying, what are you going to
do for your crying child? Maybe a song but the singers where asking
their DC to look at their plight, pleading for development. Later
North was on the staff of the Native Authority Development Centre,
Chalimbana and Principal of the National Institute of Public
Administration (NIPA) in Lusaka, the former devoted to training
Indunas, Native Treasury clerks etc while the latter dealt with
local government administrators.
|
November
2005