KAMUZWAZI : a village with World War History

By
Yohane Mbeeya Moono

This is cut from Oral History

Mbala formerly known as Abercon is a district that is shrouded in World War History. The town in on the Northern tip of the Northern Province in modern day Zambia.

In the year 2018, the World descended on Mbala to commemorate the centinary to mark the end of the First World War.

Oral History records that the last bullet to fired in the First World War was actually fired in Mbala District in a village called KAKA near the Saise River which demarcates Zambia and Tanzania. Both British and Germany soldiers had the camps in Zambia and fought along that River.

KAKA is a village that is before KAMUZWAZI when coming from the Mbala Central Business District. KAKA and KAMUZWAZI are actually neighbouring villages with a stream came to be known after the village of Kamuzwazi as the demarcation. Kamuzwazi is actually about 75 kilometers from the Central Business District of Mbala. The two villages have the Saise River as the major source of water during the dry season when most of the streams dry up.

Kamuzwazi has actually an interesting story about it with regards to the World War. Both the British and Germany soldiers had employed locals as Askaris during the period of the war.
On one fateful day, history has it was to be a market day in this village but as the trades from the other neighbouring villages came for business found that most white soldiers and their Askaris lying in pools of blood due to the heavy fighting that had taken place in the night the day before.

This incident made the locals to name the village Kamuzwazi meaning a Village Stained with Blood. Kamuzwazi is a mambwe name which is the local dialect found in Mbala District. In the Mambwe dialect Kamuz is a Village and Wazi is Blood and that is the full meaning of Kamuzwazi. The town has had the name since that fateful day during the battle for supremacy between the British and Germans during the First World War.

Kamuzwazi a village stained with blood shall forever be shrouded in the History of World War.