transhumance

Performing Transhumance on the Zambezi

Sunday, September 22, 5pm
Admission: $5

This illustrated anthropological lecture by anthropologist Thomas Miller focuses on the role of water in a particular history through the lenses of ritual, politics, symbolism and music.

In western Zambia, the Lozi of the Barotse floodplain practice “transhumance,” a distinct migratory way of life. During the rainy season, when the Zambezi River inundates their homes and leaves their fields underwater, the people migrate to seasonal quarters in the hill country. Every year the royal barge of the paramount chief, who according to Lozi tradition has divine spiritual and moral authority over nature, leads the people to higher ground in a ceremony called Kuomboka (“Getting out of the water”).  [continue reading…]