Lozi Timber Plank Boats
Before the coming of the Europeans from 1860 onwards, the Lozi people of Barotseland were building Nalikwanda royal barges made from teak planks fixed with iron nails (extensive Rhodesian Teak forests grew in the east of Barotseland). As seen in the Kuomboka ceremony these reached huge sizes, requiring a hundred paddlers or more. Although there has been speculation that the Lozi learnt this method of boat building from Arab or Portuguese traders, the Lozi did not allow such traders to enter their territory, and the traders certainly did not haul boats overland to central Africa with them. There is no evidence to suppose that the Lozi plank boat is anything other than an indigenous technology.
Read more about this topic: Water Transport In Zambia, Indigenous Boats and Traditional Use of Waterways
Famous quotes containing the words timber, plank and/or boats:
“The very timber and boards and shingles of which our houses are made grew but yesterday in a wilderness where the Indian still hunts and the moose runs wild.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way”
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