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Which Is
It,
Lealuyi Or
Lialuyi?
by Yuyi K
Libakeni
Sometimes I
have, rather unwittingly, come under the influence of authenticity
and referred to the Litunga’s royal capital as Lialuyi and not, as
is commonly done, Lealuyi. Understandably this has confused some
readers and when my editor asked me about this, I felt obliged to
explain briefly but truthfully.
Siluyana or
Siluyi was the original language of the Aluyi, the people of present
day Western Province which for the avoidance of doubt we shall call
Barotseland (Bulozi) in this discussion. The Aluyi migrated into
Zambia around the 16th century from the Congo where they lived along
a sub-tributary of the Congo, the Luyi River. Luyi is derived from
Siluyana root-word uyi meaning bad or cruel. From the river
the people received their name, Aluyi, which, according to Dr M
Lisimba “could be of subjective/possessive concord i.e. A–luyi, of
the Luyi river, but hardly likely to have origin in the spirit of
self-criticism i.e. of the bad or cruel”. That the Luyi environment
was unfriendly and that Aluyi claim to have lived in Bulozi before,
we learn from the Siluyana call to migrate “tu ukele kwatu ku
mwelele ku mbuka-mbuka ko kwa ifele munu lishebo, mushitu
nowa kono elikungunamo,” let’s return to our home where food and
water is plenty, life in the forest is good but there is too much
dust and dirt. Given the migratory life of the times the claim is
not surprising. The Kaonde also claim to have lived on the Kaonde
river in the Congo and were returning to their old home in Zambia.
The claim by
some scholars that in the Nkoya language luyi means
foreigner, might be an indication of the phenomenon of borrowed
words assuming new meanings while claims that it is the Nkoya or
Kwengo who so named the Aluyi are misleading. In part, this appears
to be due to a misunderstanding of the Luyana saying ‘muluyi-luyi
ma nalikola o ku mangile ma ni sheta o wila yoya ma ni lala sumbu’
which simply warns that a tribesman is not necessarily a relative.
The Aluyi
called their new home Uluyi, land of the Aluyi, hence suluyi,
si-Uluyi, the red warrior ant that is endemic in the flood plain. It
seems the only people found were the Bushmen people called Makwengo
and Batwa. In any case who ever did not offer any recorded
resistance ran away, perished or were completely absorbed. (During
my youth in my home area, Libonda, elders used to point out to us
pockets of Batwa people.)
When
Sebitwane’s Makololo conquered the Aluyi (1840-64) they introduced
and made Sesotho, their mother tongue, the lingua franca in
Uluyi as it was then. Francois Coillard and his fellow French
missionaries who had lived in Lesotho before coming to Barotseland
found it convenient to adopt Sesotho for their evangelistic and
educational activities (Mupatu YW Silozi se lu bulela The
Silozi we Speak). In time Sesotho began absorbing Siluyana words
into its vocabulary, developing into some form of Esperanto, hence
the Sikololo orthography of 1913. This greatly disappointed the
missionaries who had ‘hoped that Sesuto would easily resume the
place it had had but a few years before. That hope was not
fulfilled. On the contrary the Sikololo vocabulary went on losing
Sesuto words and gaining Luyana ones’. Adolphe Jalla’s
pioneering book Litaba za Sicaba sa Bulozi (History of the Lozi
Nation) was first published in Sesotho in 1909.
In turn
Sikololo continued taking in more and more Siluyana words but this
time, in addition, a host of words from a medley of immigrant
languages, principally Mbunda, Subiya, Totela, Toka etc, were
absorbed. The resultant language, what the Aluyi call simolonga
or a language without origin or roots, was enshrined in the 1936
orthography, formally called Silozi, the language of today which, in
his 1963 study (A Note on the Languages of Barotseland),
Prof George Fortune referred to as “a recently intrusive Southern
Sotho language considerably influenced in vocabulary, phonology and
grammar by Luyana.” Prior to 1936 a big debate had ensued in the
nation in which many called for the restoration of the Siluyana
language. But this was not to be as the people’s will was ignored,
that of the white Protestant missionaries carried the day. And yet
in linguistics, as in politics, the will of the people (in today’s
parlance, stakeholders) is all-powerful! The British put aside
Edmund Burke’s admonition (Address to the Sheriffs of Bristol) “if
any man ask me what a free government (substitute peoples
language) is, I answer that, for any practical purpose, it is
what the people think so, and that they, and not I, are the natural,
lawful and competent judges of the matter.” For its part the 1977
orthography (Kashoki ME, The Factor of Language in Zambia)
turned the Lozi into a people of two illiterates: the young who can
not read pre-1977 writings and the old who cannot follow the
Constitution written under the 1977 orthography. And yet Roger
Fowler (Understanding Language) tells us that language is an
intrinsic aspect of human inheritance and must be enjoyed naturally
with such ease as breathing!”
When a
language is manipulated principally to satisfy scientific rigor it
is, according to Eric Partridge (Usage and Abusage), deprived of
its vigour and reality which comes only from its intimate
association with acts and passions of men as they vividly describe
and express them in their speech.
The language
developments we have described above were exclusively confined to
the central Barotse plain, mbunga the seat of Luyi power, which was
totally under Kololo rule. Elsewhere in the kingdom, the Kololo
never dared and their influence there was therefore minimal.
Accordingly, Siluyana culture and language flourished in these areas
although, over time, succumbed to external influences, and the
language became modified, altered and differentiated. Thus, various
dialects sprouted that have since acquired derisive nicknames (e.g.
Sikwangwa, Simwenyi) that stem from historical or situational
circumstances. The Kwangwa, from Luyana ‘ku kangwa,’ to
fail, was an Aluyi group that lived along the forest areas of Mongu
and Senanga, They were accused of having failed, na kangwa muolyo,
to defend their self-appointed chief Mange, himself so nicknamed
because of his persistent requests to successive Litungas, his
uncles, to be recognized as a chief, mu mange ko ku mbumu
(Ikacana NS, Litaba za Makwangwa History of the Kwangwa)
he would say. The Mwenyi or Akwa-Mwenyi, the people of a stranger,
living in and around Kalabo Boma, were so named (Sakubita MM
Kalabo wa Mboanjikana Kalabo of Mboanjikana) because they
allowed a stranger, Kaongolo, a Luyi from Senanga who married
into the family, to succeed to the position of their Induna, Uyoya
Ndimba hence the saying nunda mulonga wa kwata mwaela, Salunda no
kwaela Kaongolo (thou mayest not set a stranger over thee which
is not thy brother, Deut 17:15).
Now
notwithstanding Lozi being lingua franca in Barotseland,
Luyana unlike Latin has never been dead as Brelsford (Tribes of
Zambia), quoting CMN White, makes the point clear: Such
information as I (i.e White) have indicates that it (Luyana) is
still in general use among people who are Luyana. So far as I can
judge Luyana, Kwangwa, Mbowe, Liuwa, Makoma and many other small
languages form an allied group pre-Makololo and are still in use. My
Luchazi kitchen boy speaks Kwangwa, Makoma and understands Luyana.
It is clear therefore that Max Gluckman’s claim that “some 25
Bantu-speaking tribes comprised the Barotse nation”(The Economy
of Central Barotse Plain) is misconceived as the
so-called tribes are in fact groups of Aluyi speaking various Luyana
dialects just as English has its own Cockney and Yorkshire dialects!
It is worth recalling HW Fowler’s definition of a dialect: a
variety of a language which prevails in a district with local
peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation and phrases (A
Dictionary of Modern English Usage), compare Lisimba’s description
of Luyana as an intermediate stage between a language group and a
dialect cluster but perhaps more of the latter than the former!
The new
language was called Silozi derived from the word Barotse
whose origin has been associated by some scholars with the
Rozwi of Zimbabwe and Bena Luizi ‘men of the river’
by which name the Aluyi were known by the Subiya of Sesheke. However
the weight of the evidence is that the word is a corruption of
Bahurutse (Mahurutse) the dominant ethnic group among the Makololo
invaders. Indeed one of the first maps of the kingdom by the
Royal Geographical Society (after explorations of St Hill
Gibbons et al.) was captioned The Kingdom of the Marutse (Ba-Rotsi).
By contrast earlier European explorers had referred to the Lozi as
the Luyi. David Livingstone is said to be the first to refer to them
as the ‘Barotse.’ Livingstone had come through South Africa and
must have been au fait with the Bahurutse connection. And so
to day we have Silozi, the language, Malozi the people, Bulozi (Barotseland)
the land.
But who are
the Malozi? Strictly speaking (see Sakubita, Ikacana, Mupatu) they
are the descendants of the Aluyi but now also immigrant tribes
resident in Bulozi.
The term has
other special usage which can be confusing to the visitor; for
example a Lozi will refer to the Kuta assembled as Malozi or
separately to the Litunga or any chief as Malozi. So when Jalla
spoke of “Malozi defeating ba Makoma” he was not talking of
two tribes but identifying government forces, Malozi, against the
rebels in the Makoma area.
To day’s
Silozi contains a huge body of Sesotho-based vocabulary and
deep-rooted vestiges of Sesotho grammar and spellings. There are
however many Luyana pedigree words which have maintained their
original meanings and spellings while others have changed both
spelling and meaning yet others only adopted Sesotho spellings; the
most prominent being Lealuyi, Sesheke, Senanga, Sefula and Mongu. As
presently spelt these words are meaningless. In this category also
falls Lewanika (Liwanika la Mafuci, unifier of lands or
peoples) which is a Mbunda nickname given to Lubosi (Lewanika’s
given name) in praise of the manner he had handled the 1884
rebellion against his rule and his restoration thereafter.
Now back to
the sheep, Which is it, Lealuyi or Lialuyi? Let me quote
Mupatu (Prins G (editor) Self-Help Education at Makapulwa School)
“Lealuyi is an incorrect spelling which has resulted from the
mistakes of the Basuto preachers as well as of our benefactor the
Rev. Francois Coillard. The prefix Li indicates either greatness, or
is a kind of pronoun, so Li-Aluyi means either the big
town of the Aluyi or the country of the Aluyi. Similar
mistranscriptions render Sifula as Sefula, Mungu as Mongu
etc”. In fact the full title of the Litunga is Litunga lia
Aluyi. Surprisingly, in his earlier quoted book Jalla, a chief
architect of the Sikololo orthography, has stuck to Lialui, Sinanga
(high river bank), Sisheke (sandy place), Sifula (si-Fura,
the French language spoken at the Mission), Mungu
(pumpkin) and Liwanika. However by contrast Royal usage has
continued with Lealuyi: the Litunga’s letterhead bears Lealuyi as is
each year’s official Kuomboka Programme! Abusage setting the rules?
A historical
note on Lialuyi. First sited by Litunga Sipopa (1864-76) it was
Lubosi Lewanika (1878-1916) who built the capital, though now a
shadow of its original self (see Mupatu, Bulozi Sapili Bulozi in the
Early Days). However late Kalaluka Katukula, (Lwambi wa
Matauka Namucoko forthcoming ) refers to an incident probably
early in the17th century when on a hunting trip in the area Ngombala,
the sixth Litunga, witnessed one of his senior Indunas, Tungulu,
being mauled by a buffalo. Surprised that Tungulu survived Ngombala
predicted that something historic was in the offing for the spot. In
selecting the site Sipopa might have been responding to this
prediction. It is for this historic incident that Induna Tungulu is
the traditional mayor of Lealuyi, watch him receiving farewell
directives from the Litunga as the latter prepares to step into the
Nalikwanda at Nayuma on Kuomboka day.
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July
2006