CHOBE DISTRICT (3)

This week we continue our historical examination of the Chobe District, which over the centuries has served as a crossroads linking the wealth of central and southern Africa across the Chobe and Zambezi rivers. In our last instalment, we had noted that the venerable Makololo monarch Sebetwane reached out to Dikgosi Letsholathebe, Sechele, and Sekgoma to request that the road to his kingdom be opened to the Europeans in return for access to the hunting grounds in Chobe.

As a result, in 1851 Livingstone once more joined by Oswell and Fleming, arrived at Linyandi just weeks before the great Mokololo’s death on July 7. Thereafter, the trio explored the region north of the Zambezi River. While Livingstone remained behind at Sesheke, Oswell, apparently accompanied by Fleming, proceeded from the confluence of the river they labelled Chobe eastward along the Zambezi, only turning back after spotting the spray of Mosi-oa-Thunya or Victoria Falls. This was just over four years before their supposed discovery by Livingstone in November 1855.

The names Linyandi and Chobe are both said to have been specific place names whose current status as alternative appellations for a common river can be traced back to the mapping of Livingstone and Oswell.

Linyandi, which may be translated as “a place I will suffer and die”, was the name given by the Makololo to Sebetwane’s settlement and adjacent marshes due to the great number of people who perished in the area largely due to malaria.

The origin of the name Chobe is more problematic. According to Livingstone, Chobe was what the Makololo called the river. It was thus so labelled in the initial maps produced by Oswell and Livingstone, that were the basis for William Cooley’s ground-breaking 1852 “Map of Africa South of the Equator”, as well as the early maps of Charles Andersson and Francis Galton.

Notwithstanding its prominence in the Cooley map and popular writings of Livingstone, other early European visitors in the region such as James Chapman, Thomas Baines and Frederick Selous were adamant in their observations that Chobe was not an accurate local name for the river, but rather referred to a specific place possibly linked at one time to a certain individual. In this context, Selous noted that the name meant nothing in any of the local languages of the region.

The name Chobe does, however, appear in a Vekuhane folktale about a cursed place entitled, “Chobe-chobe”. In the tale “Chobe-chobe” is the onomatopoeia rendering the haunting sound made by a bird to a man who had committed incest with his sister. Despite repeatedly slaying the bird, it continued to reappear, ultimately revealing the man’s crime to his fellow villagers resulting in his execution at a place thereafter known as Chobe. Stories of such haunting or revelation birds exposing wickedness are a common feature in the region’s Bantu folklore.

In 1853 Livingstone returned to the Chobe, once more accompanied by Fleming, who had now set himself up as a pioneering independent trader. To better explore the Chobe and Zambezi, Livingstone used a metal pontoon, the first of its kind in the region, which he received as a gift from William Frederick Webb, a wealthy sportsman who along with his colleague William Codrington, travelled to Botswana on furlough from the British army to hunt big game. Earlier, Livingstone had nursed the pair after they had been discovered by Bakwena suffering from fever and thirst in the Kalahari.

Throughout the 19th century, Cape Town was a popular resting place for British officers and civil servants travelling to and from India, with many making arrangements with Sechele and other local rulers to hunt and trade in the region. By the 1860’s, the middle Zambezi region, including Chobe, was becoming a major area of commercial ivory hunting by both Europeans and Africans, while slave traders linked to the Portuguese ports on the Angolan coast remained a threat. It was to stem this scourge that Livingstone sought an alliance with the Makololo to promote his vision of Christianity and legitimate commerce in the region. As a result, an attempt was made in 1860 by the London Missionary Society (LMS) to establish a station among the Makololo at Linyandi, which however failed largely due to the disease.

In the 1880s the Roman Catholic Jesuit order built but subsequently abandoned a mission Mpandamatenga. Thereafter the Paris Evangelical Mission, followed by the LMS became active in the area.

Following Sebetwane’s death, the Makololo kingdom steadily declined during the reign of his son Sekeletu, who had succeeded his father following a brief regency by his elder sister Dikuku or MmaMotsisane (Mamochisane).