Fire-Eaters
As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, despite the many years of direct contact with European traders and the influx of European goods, most African societies still produced their own iron and its products, or obtained them from neighbouring communities through local trade. The quality of iron products was such that, despite competition from European imports, local iron production survived into the early twentieth century in some parts of the continent. The production process covered prospecting, mining, smelting and forging. Different types of ore were available all over the continent and were extracted by shallow or alluvial mining. A variety of skills were required for building furnaces, producing charcoal, smelting and forging iron into goods. Iron production was generally not an enclave activity but a process that fulfilled the totality of socioeconomic needs. It also fitted the gender division of labour within communities.
Wealth from the Rocks
Metallurgy was an important economic activity in which all ethnic groups participated in different levels of intensity. From iron ore which was smelted in elaborate and complicated processes imbued in magic, song, dance, incantations, medicines, and taboos by members of exclusively male guilds, blacksmiths were able to produce the following: (a) tools used in agriculture: hoes, axes used to clear forestays or areas to be cultivated to grow food for subsistence, non-edible crops such as tobacco and hemp which were smoked as part of relaxation, cotton used to make blankets sand shawls, needles for mending clothes, and knives for a variety of uses; (b) hunting using varieties of spears to hunt game, seek protection from dangerous animals, for defence of resources or offence to capture desired resources; (c) various sizes of hooks used in fishing different varieties of fish; and (d) making of regalia used in chieftaincies and priesthood as symbols of authority. Copper was also smelted and put in ingots of varying sizes and rods of varying sizes and lengths, which were (a) used to make copper wires as wires, rods, vessels and other utensils, copper smiths produced jewellery and ornaments and cast art pieces such as statues and necklaces worn by men and women as status symbols; (b) used in exchange of goods and services as currency; and (c) used to produce regalia for the for those in authority. Gold was mined directly and processed into making as variety of items such as buttons and regalia. In its various forms of development and sophistication, metallurgy was responsible for the economic, social and political advances among the pre-colonial societies.
A variety of skills was required for building furnaces, producing charcoal, smelting and forging iron into goods. Metallurgy and production of various items that were needed and necessary for an improved life were generally not an enclave activity but a process that satisfied the totality of socioeconomic needs. It also promoted the gender division of labour within community. Wealth from the Rocks is therefore a detailed study of the place, role, and function of metallurgy in pre-colonial Zambian societies.
One Zambia, One Nation, One Country
Zambia became an independent Republic of Zambia on 24 October 1964, with Kenneth Kaunda as the first president for twenty-seven years, He and his successors have, over the last fifty years, created a stable and united nation under the motto ‘One Zambia, One Nation’. Zambia is regarded as a beautiful, friendly, diverse, and unspoilt country. Aside from the majestic Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River, despite its considerable mineral wealth and agricultural potential, Zambia is not well known.
Before the Rise of the Modern Copperbelt
This study discusses the beginning of mining enterprises in Zambia from the beginning.
