Bemba

The Bemba, or AbaBemba, are a matrilineal Bantu people of the plateau between the Luapula, Chambeshi and Luangwa rivers in northern Zambia. Their traditions trace them to the Luba country of Upemba: a seventeenth-century revolt against the Luba king Mukulumpe, led by his sons Nkole and Chiti of the Bena Ng'andu clan, sent their ancestors east across the Luapula, where they settled near the headwaters of the Chambeshi before 1740.

The village of Ng'wena became the first capital of the Bemba under the Chitimukulu. From the late 1700s the Chitimukulus turned expansionist, and parceled conquered lands to royal brothers, creating tributary kingdoms such as Mwamba; by the early nineteenth century more than fifteen chieftainships answered to the Chitimukulu.

Villagers practice slash-and-burn farming finger millet and manioc, and their language, Ichibemba, is related to Luba and served as a lingua franca across Sabi peoples.