CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Chanda, Osward |
|---|---|
| Title | Portable Inheritance: The Living Heritage of Traditional Names in Postcolonial Zambia |
| Summary | This study highlights the link between traditional Zambian names (anthroponyms) and cultural heritage and discusses how wider social, political and cultural changes have affected naming practices in post-colonial Zambia. Zambians used traditional names in precolonial times. Contact with European Christian missionaries and British colonisation from late nineteenth century to independence significantly changed naming practices. As in other colonies, European Christian missionaries and colonial authorities discouraged the use of traditional Zambian names in colonial Zambia in their quest to propagate European ideals. This was because the names were closely linked to local traditions, which missionaries considered as pagan. As a result, Biblical or European names were assigned to Zambians on conversion to Christianity, during school enrolment or job recruitment. On the other hand, the introduction of permanent surnames during the colonial period has helped preserve many traditional names and inspired creation of new surnames from nicknames, colonial concepts and localised forms of European languages. After Zambia gained political independence in 1964, the new government embarked on promotion of local culture. In addition, the older generation were keen on reviving their traditions. As a result, use of traditional first names became common. Charismatic churches in the postcolonial period, like the European Christian missionaries earlier, also discouraged usage of traditional names. The methods used in this study included ethnographic research in Chongwe, Kafue and Lusaka districts and quantitative analysis of names of University of Zambia (UNZA) graduates between 1976 and 2016. Zambian traditional names are linked to many aspects of cultural heritage, including indigenous religion, initiation and clans/totems. From the interviews, it was established that Zambians were made to change their names by adopting European/Biblical names in the colonial period. Related to this, the low percentage of local first name usage (7.9%) among 1976 UNZA graduates confirms the colonial/missionary restrictions on the usage of the names which existed when the graduates were born. Usage of local first names increased in the following decades, to 18.3% in 1986, 39% in 2006 and decreased to 31.6% in 2016. There was a rise in the percentage of graduates who had names from a mixture of local languages, and the noticeable presence – though on a small scale – of Arabic/Islamic names. The traditional/local name use patterns were different among Zambian ethnic groups; however, all ethnicities experienced increased usage of local names over the study period. |
| Supervisor | . Spät, Eszter |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/chanda_osward.pdf |
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