Nsenga

Nsenga, a Bantu-speaking people inhabiting the Luangwa River valley area of southeastern Zambia. It is difficult to differentiate the Nsenga from other eastern Zambian peoples, since they share many social customs with the neighbouring Bemba, Bisa, and Lila peoples to the north but share the use of the Nyanja language with their Chewa and Ngoni neighbours to the east.

The Nsenga appear to be a historical offshoot of the Chewa, who in turn derive from a complex of Luba peoples called the Maravi. The Maravi early established a federation of chiefdoms in the Congo region, and in the 15th century groups of them began migrating southward into what is now Zambia, eventually giving rise to all the Nyanja-speaking peoples of southeastern Zambia, including the Chewa and the Nsenga.

First Bemba and then Ngoni raids led Nsenga chiefs to build substantial stockades for self-defense. In the 1860s and ’70s the Ngoni came to dominate the Nsenga and exacted tribute, settled in their area, intermarried, and assumed their language and culture.

The precolonial Nsenga were avid hunters, both for subsistence needs and for the ivory trade with the Portuguese. The Nsenga served as middlemen between the Portuguese and such peoples as the Lamba farther north. They also grew cotton and wove cloth from it. Later British colonizers prohibited hunting in the Nsenga homeland, in which several important game reserves containing elephant, buffalo, kudu, zebra, and lion are now located.

The alluvial soils of the Luangwa River valley are exceptionally fertile, and the climate is temperate. The Nsenga obtain four harvests annually of corn (maize) from permanent riverain gardens; other fields are cleared from bush, and composting is practiced. Tobacco and rice have long been cash crops. The tsetse fly has precluded cattle raising.

The Nsenga observe matrilineal descent. Chiefs are chosen from particular lineages within clans who rule designated lands, but exogamy between clans has created a situation whereby most clans are represented in each chiefdom. Although all precolonial Nsenga chiefs were equals, the British named a senior chief in order to centralize authority and administration. The Nsenga seek work in Malawi and other parts of southern Africa, or they go to the Zambian Copperbelt region west of their lands.