Nsenga

The Nsenga are a Bantu people of the plateau and Luangwa valley in eastern Zambia, with related communities in Mozambique. Their name is said to mean “journey”, for their traditions recall a long trek out of the Luba-Lunda country of the Congo basin around the 1300s, making them one of the earliest Bantu groups to enter Zambia, after the Tonga.

Early Nsenga society had no kings and was run by clan heads called tumvi; in later centuries it coalesced into chiefdoms under rulers such as the senior chief Kalindawalo. Nsenga villagers grow millet, sorghum, maize and groundnuts and keep cotton as a cash crop, and they are known for beadwork and basketry.