Luchazi

The Luchazi and Chokwe are ‘cousins’.  They left the Lunda Empire during the same migration.  See the quote from Lewis Gann in the section under the Chokwe. 

The Luchazi were farmers and moved to an area south of the Chokwe and Lovale.  As farmers they planted cassava, bananas and millet.  They also knew how to tend bees and traded beeswax (then used for making candles) with the Portuguese or their intermediaries.  Later, they also became known for the production of rubber which could be traded with the Portuguese.  Obviously, therefore, although being good farmers they were well aware of the advantages of growing cash crops to exchange for imported goods. 

The Ovimbundu people, who were the intermediary traders for the Portuguese, called all the Bantu to the east of them Nganguela or Ganguela.  This name applied to Chokwe, Luchazi, Lovale, and others.  The Portuguese rarely travelled this far inland and missionaries did not work in the area.  For this reason, little has been written down of histories of the people. 

As with the Chokwe, many Luchazi left their homes in Angola mainly because of the slave trade and fighting during wars.  They were settled by the British in the same area of Northwestern Rhodesia as the Chokwe during the early 1900s. 

The Luchazi did not only migrate into Zambia but also to Namibia.  In Angola, the Luchazi still are a dominant group in the east of the country.  During the civil war from 1975 onwards, all the bridges towards the east were blown up making access almost impossible.  The people survived on their crops and wildlife for food.  Only recently when the scientific team from the Okavango Wilderness Project canoed up the tributaries of the Okavango (Cuito, Kavango) River did they find the extent of the depredations of the people there. 

There is obviously a lot more to be found out about the Luchazi and, if I find anything, I will add it at a later date.