Lozi (people)
The Lozi , also called Pilot or Rotse , are a people who live predominantly in Zambia and to a lesser extent in Angola and Namibia . It migrated in the 17th century as the Aalui tribe from what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo and initially lived on the Kabompo River , 300 kilometers northeast of their present-day settlement area.
People of this people still live there today. In the middle of the 19th century some of them migrated from the Kabompo to the Zambezi , where they were able to subjugate the Makololo in 1864 and establish the Barotse Kingdom . It is not clear whether they themselves were temporarily subjugated by the Makololo. Their state organization did not develop until after 1864. It consists of three estates: the members of the royal court, who were responsible for observing the rites and accepting tributes of subject tribes, the area chiefs, who acted as judges and tribute officers on the spot, and the officers who maintained order in subjugated places maintained. The only remaining conflicts were with the people at the Kafue .
A minority of Lozi settled in eastern Angola, in the provinces of Moxico and Cuando Cubango . In 1972 the Odendaal Commission set up a homeland for the Lozi in South West Africa (later Namibia ) following the basic patterns of South African apartheid policy , which in 1976 received self-government status. It was first called Ostcaprivi , later renamed Lozi . When Namibia gained state sovereignty in 1990, it was abolished.
The Lozi are predominantly Christians, but they also practice a traditional religion that knows a creator god Nyambi who has been raptured into heaven . He shows himself as the sun, his wife Nailele as the moon. On the basis of this idea, their kingship developed.
bibliography
- Gerald L. Caplan: The Elites of Barotseland 1878-1969: A Political History of Zambia's Western Province . C. Hurst & Co., London, 1970 ISBN 0-900966-38-6
- AD Jalla: Litaba za Sicaba sa Malozi: History, Traditions and Legends of Barotseland . Produced for the use of the Colonial Office , African No. 1179, Second Edition, 1921. (in Lozi)
