Stories from old graveyards
Published On December 23, 2015 » 4687 Views» By Davies M.M Chanda » Features
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•THE Mufulira Old Mine Cemetery near the Mopani Copper Mines plant. Picture by ZYANGANI NYASULU

•THE Mufulira Old Mine Cemetery near the Mopani Copper Mines plant. Picture by ZYANGANI NYASULU

By MOSES KABAILA JR –
THE old adage that ‘the richest place is the grave yard’ could seem to suggest that people are buried with money and other valuable items.
As odd as it might sound, it could be true if looked at from a different perspective.
Just two months ago, the nation was toasting its 51st independence and dotted around the country are some strange old graves in odd places – Graves that were established way back before independence.
The creepy side of these tombs is that their tenants were not even indigenous residents, both in citizenship or colour of their skin.
They had travelled thousands of miles to come and meet their slumber in Northern Rhodesia. Who were these people? What were they looking for? How did they die and can we trace their roots?
Though it would sound paranoid to imagine whether there is anything valuable in these old single rooms apart from their occupants, it would be interesting to discuss their lives and background.
Theirs are not ordinary graves you find at Kantolomba cemetery in Ndola or Chatulinga in Mufulira, but these are tombs that spurn the spectrum of Zambia’s history before and after independence.
Between the gold rush for mineral resources; such as copper, the famous missionary works and the two world wars that pedaled the depressing rides of the Jewish people to Africa, lie these lonely vaults.
Mufulira, ‘The Place of Abundance’ as it is known, has never run short of fascinating history, from sports icons such as Samuel Zoom Ndhlovu to the infamous sulphur dioxide pollution (commonly called senta by the locals) in Kankoyo and Kantanshi and of course, the graveyard called Mufulira Old Mine cemetery.
When a stranger in Mufulira, one will be all at sea by the site of this monumental resting place along the fence of Mopani Copper Mines Plant, located near the Refinery Section. Hosting over 100 graves and established as far back as the 1920s, the graveyard was the original cemetery for whites who had come to set up one of Zambia’s oldest mines- the Mufulira Mine.
A tombstone in this cemetery, unveiled in 1931 pays homage to a husband, only 28 years at the time of his death which, according to the scribbling on the stone, was an accidental death. What type of accident killed him? Was it a mine accident? Was he accidentally killed by his compatriots?
Another interesting stone includes a tomb of an individual who had come from Scotland where he was born in 1883 and died in Mufulira in 1950. What was the Scottish man doing in Northern Rhodesia?
In his short excerpt from the history of Mufulira, JL Samaras says the guardians of these graves were early pioneers who had come to Northern Rhodesia following copper explorations and when the drilling selection was done at Mufulira in 1925.
These young men lived in tents and later, small mud thatched houses with no doors or windows. It therefore comes as no surprise to learn that they were plagued by malaria. Prospecting soon became known as the ‘driller’s graveyard’, because black-water fever, snake bites, accidents and sunstroke were just a few of the problems which they had to endure.
However, after years of progress in mining activities, the work force of around 1,000 Africans and 300 white workers was reduced when disaster struck in 1931. Because of world depression, all operations on the mine in Mufulira were suspended.
It was a heavy blow. Employees were paid off and Mufulira became a ghost town when trading licences were suspended. Only a few traders who had sunk their life’s savings into the venture, remained and somehow survived.
An accountant, by the name of Mr Tucker and three other men, stayed on to look after the mine after it shut down
This would suggest that the mine was put under care and maintenance until around 1934 when it was reopened.
The reopening of the mine also meant the expansion of the graveyard as more deaths occurred with the booming of the white population.
In Kitwe, an old cemetery is located in Nkana East. This graveyard is still called by its original name.
The Nkana East cemetery is also the oldest cemetery for early white settlers in Kitwe formerly called Nkana, with burial dates from 1930 to 1964.
The cemetery is located in the north of Central Street, some 500 metres east of the Central Street and Ndola Road intersection.
Currently, this cemetery is operational. It is, however, no longer a preserve for whites or Jews only as indigenous Zambians are being buried on the site at a fee.
The burial site in Nkana East is still making some history of its own for all the wrong reasons.
It is host to a motor vehicle driving school within the graveyard. One can only wonder if this is the only driving school in Kitwe offering such services.
There is also a small field of groundnuts that has been cultivated within the main entrance of the cemetery hopefully not on the beds.
The Nkana East cemetery is also horde to a burial section for Jews who were mostly interred there after World War 2, when a polish refugee camp was established in the neighbouring city of Ndola.
One of the notable monuments of the Jewish section is the sculpturing of the tombstones. Unlike many modern cemeteries, this section lends itself more elaborate designs of tombstones ranging from horn-shaped stones to other intriguing sculptures.
One grave bears a message from a loving husband to his dear wife: Deeply mourned by her sorrowing husband.
The Mufulira and Kitwe cemeteries for whites can be compared to early whites only graveyards.
The Settlers’ Cemetery at Kwacha Centre which is believed to be the first cemetery in Ndola for whites, with burials between 1911 and 1932, also has a small walled Jewish section within the cemetery area.
The cemetery is located on the west of Nkana Road, within the grounds of the Wanderers Rugby Club at Kwacha Centre.
One distinctive tomb is that of a small child only four years and three months old at the time of his death.
The mostly buried quote starts with the word “safe….” it was difficult to read the rest of the words a they are hidden under leaves and mud.
There was a shortage of guts for this author at this point to dig a little bit and read the rest of the message. Besides, it could have been tantamount to trespassing.
Subsequent burials took place in Kansenji Cemetery which also hosts the Kansenji War Graves. The war grave contains 23 tombstones concentrated from Abercorn European Cemetery and two from Livingstone Cemetery.
It also contains a special memorial to one casualty known to be buried in Chikuula Military Grave and special memorials to two other casualties formerly commemorated on the Ikawa (or Old Fife) Memorial, whose graves are not known. There are also burials from the 1939-1945 war and one Belgian burial.
Unlike the Settlers’ Graveyard, Bwana Mkubwa was the first copper mine to be established on the Copperbelt and after World War 2, a small Polish refugee camp was established there and this explains the presence of Polish graves at the old Mine are.
The mass killings in the Second World War from 1939-1945, triggered the exodus of many Polish people that included mainly Jews.
Zambia under British control became a host to many of these refugees.
Three camps were set up. One was at Abercon in remote Northern Province (now Mbala) and the other in Livingstone while another one was based in Ndola.
The place in Bwana Mkubwa, Ndola, was host to a Polish refugee camp for thousands of people and was their home for almost five years before it was closed in 1948, long after the war had ended in Europe.
A graveyard and a monument to mark their presence still lie at the campsite.
Eggsa, a genealogical society, says the Bwana Mkubwa cemetery located in the general area to the south east of the old Open Pit, has its location shown on the mine Survey Plan E/F/15C.
It is also worthwhile to mention that in October 1942, the Director of War Evacuees and Camps of Northern Rhodesia, Sir Gore Browne, who himself was based in now  Muchinga Province’s Shiwang’andu, expected only around 500 Polish refugees on his territory.
They were coming from the Middle East. In August 1945, the number of Polish refugees in Northern Rhodesia were 3,419 of which 1,227 stayed in camps in the capital Lusaka, 1,431 in Bwana Mkubwa on the Copperbelt, 164 in Fort Jameson at the border with Nyasaland (Malawi) and 597 in Abercorn in the Northern Province.
According to records, Abercorn camp was the last camp that was built in Northern Rhodesia. It was set up in 1942. Approximately 600 Polish refugees were brought to Abercorn in contingents.
They came by ship to Dar-es-Salaam and via Kigoma to Mpulungu on Lake Tanganyika and subsequently they went in groups to Abercorn by lorry.
Wanda Nowoisiad-Ostrowska remembered in the book of ‘The Polish Deportees of World War II’ of T. Piotrowski that Abercorn camp was divided into six sections of single room houses, a washing area, a laundry, a church and four school buildings with seven classes.
The cooking was done in a large kitchen, situated in the middle. One of the administrators lived in a building that also had a community centre where films were shown.
She depicted quite a sociable image with singing songs in the evening, listening together to the radio in order to be informed about the war in Europe and doing craft work with other women in the evenings.
Death was also present in these camps.
In January 1944, the Polish staff in all East African camps had been reduced.
In an official letter from the British Authorities it was said that: “It has been agreed that the welfare work in the Polish settlements must continue and the minimum staff stays to ensure this must be retained.”
In January 1948, the Commissioner of the East African Refugee Administration wrote a letter about the deportation of the Polish refugees from Abercorn camp.
They were going from Kigoma to Dar-es-Salaam and from there by ship to the United Kingdom where their next of kin – often husbands and sons who had been fighting in the war – were getting courses and training for civilian jobs.
The deportation from Abercorn was called Operation Pole-jump.
On the opposite side of Zambia’s map, Southern Province and Livingstone to be precise, lies another historical burial site within the Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park that is spread a few metres from the river and where Livingstone’s founders initially crossed the Zambezi between Zambia and Zimbabwe.
This historical and ancient place is a cemetery called the Old Drift.
The cemetery, now almost the only surviving trace of the first European settlement of Livingstone, is situated on the banks of the Zambezi, about one and half kilometres upstream of the entrance to the Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park.
The presence of an urban settlement in this area owed to two major factors: the line of the main entry-route from the south into the then North-Western Rhodesia and the proximity into North-Western Rhodesia were carried by ox – or mule-drawn wagons and ferried across the Zambezi at the point, some nine kilometres upstream of the Victoria Falls, where the river is at its narrowest for some distance.
The northern end of this crossing, known as the Old Drift or Sekuti’s Drift (after the Toka Chief whose village was then nearby), soon became the first European settlers’ town in the North-Western Rhodesia.
The first settler, F J Clarke, arrived in 1898 and set himself up as a trader, hotel-keeper and forwarding agent.
By 1903 the European population had grown to sixty-eight, including seventeen women and six children. There is, unfortunately no record of the number of Africans attached to the settlement.
The British South African Company established an administrative post nearby.
The site of the Old Drift settlement was flat, marshy and malaria infested and was only a metre or so, above high water level.
In most years, some twenty per cent of the settlers died and in 1903 the figure was considerably higher. Many of these early settlers were buried in the Old Drift cemetery.
The railway from Bulawayo reached the south bank of the Zambezi at the Victoria Falls in April, 1904 and work began almost immediately on the construction of the bridge, which was officially opened in September 1905.
As soon as work began on the bridge it was apparent that with the completion of the railway, the Old Drift would fall into disuse and that the only argument for retaining the Livingstone settlement in that spot would fall away.
By the end of 1904, a new township had been laid out on the present site of Livingstone and by the end of the following year the Old Drift was deserted.
Today, a monument beside Riverside Drive, some five hundred metres east of the cemetery marks the site of the old river crossing.
The words on the monument read: This cemetery forms the last resting place of a number of the early settlers who died at the old drift between the year 1898 and the time of the removal to Livingstone.
Those known to be buried at the cemetery are also listed on the monument.
It is also believed that fourteen other settlers whose names are not known are also resting at the Old Drift Cemetery.
Last but not the least, in Muchinga Province is found a totally diverse set up of an old cemetery in the town of Chinsali within the confines of Lubwa Mission, few metres away from United Church of Zambia’s Lubwa building.
It is not only the fact that this grave hardly contains any white person’s graves but that it is here where the founder of this nation, Dr Kenneth David Kaunda’s family is buried.
The notable interments being, his father David Kaunda and mother Helen Nyamunyirenda Kaunda.
Zambia’s grandfather’s tombstone just says:  A Faithful Minister while the nation’s grandmother’s tomb simply says: the one from whose womb came the liberator and father of the Zambian nation.
It is interesting to also note that it is at this same grave site where notable politician Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe has some of his close relations, including his children Chola Chimwangalala Chewe Kapwepwe and Mwamba Kapwepwe are buried.
The late politician’s body, however, rests at his house in Chinsali on top of a hill where he said he wanted to be enjoying the view of his home village as he rested.
It will therefore be right to say that from the gold rush to the word of God and the confusion that war brought, came the birth of our beautiful country Zambia.
The graveyard indeed has riches beyond man’s understanding.
May the souls of those who have contributed to the erection of this great nation continue resting in eternal peace.

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