Tourism

Muchinga province possesses numerous historic outposts, buildings and ruins. This can be attributed to the fact that, largely the province was ‘home’ to many colonial mineral prospectors (BSA Co.) political administrators, empire builders and messengers of Christianity, the missionaries, especially in the last half of the 19th century. Most profound and uniquely built historic structures are the mission settlements and churches, most of which are operational today. Some of these include:
Lubwa Mission

Declared under Statutory Instrument 121 of 1976, Lubwa Mission is situated in Chinsali
District. Lubwa Mission is home and birth place of Zambia’s first Republican President;
Dr. Kenneth Kaunda. The mission is also the first church station for present day United Church of Zambia. A few meters from the original church is a burial ground for Kaunda’s parents, relatives and a few freedom fighters. This brick house at Lubwa was occupied from 1945 by the first President of the Republic of Zambia, Dr. Kenneth David Kaunda, while he was headmaster of Lubwa Upper Primary School.

Shiwa Ng’andu House
In 1911, a young British Officer, Stewart Gore-Brown, was appointed to the Anglo Belgian Boundary Commission to determine the border between Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo. He developed a great fondness for the surrounding countryside and determined that when his work was finished he would return and settle in this part of Africa. He was back in 1914 and set off on foot from Ndola on the Copper belt with 30 carriers looking for a piece of land to buy. Gore-Brown purchased 10 000 acres of land near the lake and called it “Ichishiba”
The First World War necessitated a return to England but six years later he returned as a retired Lieutenant Colonel and set about building the estate with an army building manual. Using local materials, recruiting and training builders, carpenters and blacksmiths, he built cottages for his workers, a school, a chapel, a hospital, a post office, a workshop complex and later an airstrip. Eventually, the elaborate manor house, overlooking the Lake was completed in 1932 and the appropriate furnishings, paintings, cutlery and crockery was shipped from England.

Picture showing 89 roomed historical Shiwa house

Old Fife
Located about 2 km to the East of Nakonde District along Nakonde – Kanyala road is a small place known as old fife. Old Fife is a historic place established in 1895 when it served as a boma under the British colony. It was originally known as Ikawa. The British renamed it as Old Fife reminiscent of a Scottish District on the East Cost of the North Sea. Here, the British and the German fought during the World War 1 (WW1) and many casualties were buried in mass graves. The prominent grave is that of Major Heinrich Von Berg a German Commander, who was put to rest on 1st January 1918. Old Fife was also a Military Training Camp and to date still has war trenches, ammunition cartridges etc.

Mass grave of World War one veterans (major Heinrich Von Berg)

Lenshina Burial Place
Alice Lenshina was a Christian religious leader who founded the Lumpa Church in Chinsali district. Chinsali district was a battleground for two Christian missions between 1905 to 1934 namely the Roman Catholic Missionaries based at Ilondola and the United Free Church of Scotland, based at Lubwa. One of the missionaries at Lubwa was David Kaunda, the father of Kenneth Kaunda (who was to become the first president of Zambia).
Lenshina became very ill with cerebral malaria in September 1953 and fell into a deep coma. She eventually regained consciousness and claimed to have met Jesus Christ during her coma. She said he had given her the task of spreading a special message and she became the focus of a revival movement at Lubwa mission, where she was baptized. Lenshina preached a Christian doctrine with baptism as the only observance. She attacked witchcraft and sorcery, and condemned the consumption of alcohol and the practice of polygamy.
A grand temple was built in 1958. Gradually the revival became a witchcraft eradication movement and evolved into an independent church called the Lumpa Church in 1955. The new church rapidly joined the competition for souls against the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland. Lenshina was so successful that by the late 1950s her church may have had up to 150,000 members in the northern and eastern provinces of Northern Rhodesia. The church's drive for membership was so aggressive that it was seen as a political threat by the colonial Northern Rhodesia government. The conflict between the United National Independence Party (UNIP) and the Lumpa Church reached a climax in July to October in 1964, just before Northern Rhodesia's independence.
On July 24, 1964 a gun battle broke out between UNIP and Lumpa Church members. The resulting riots were only quelled by the intervention of State troops, and the proclamation of a state of emergency by the new pre-independence Prime Minister, Kenneth Kaunda. About a thousand people died in the clashes between Lumpa Church adherents, UNIP's members and the security forces. Approximately 15,000 Lumpa Church members fled and took refuge in Congo; some of them never returned to Zambia. The Lumpa Church was banned on 3 August 1964 and Lenshina surrendered to police a few days later.
Lenshina never faced a trial but was detained by Kenneth Kaunda in Mumbwa district with her husband, who later died in 1972. Alice Lenshina was later released from detention in December 1975 but was put under house arrest in Lusaka's New Chilenje compound. She died on 7 December 1978 while under house arrest and was eventually buried at Kasomo village in a concrete structure.

Lenshina Alice Mulenga burial site Kasomo village, Chinsali District

Mwenzo Mission
Mwenzo Mission station is located in Nakonde District and is the Pioneer Mission for the United Church of Zambia in the Province. The station was established in 1898 by Rev. James Alexander Chrisholm of the Free Church of Scotland FCS). The Mission is at the confluence of Nakonde and Kalulu rivers. At Mwenzo the first Post Office building in Zambia was built in 1900. A doctor’s house was built in 1909 and a church was later built in 1914 and other historic structures. This site is rich with history and architectural beauty.

Zwangendaba’s Grave
The history of Central Africa was to an extent affected by that of South Africa, especially during the reign of Shaka the Zulu in the 19th Century. The ravaging wars of Shaka, commonly referred to as Mfecane caused mass migration of weaker tribes and communities in search of peace. Among the people that ran away from Shaka were Zwangendaba and his Ngoni people. In 1831, he crossed into Zambia at Zumbo and went into fipaland (present Tanzania). However, due to fierce wars he turned with his people into Zambia again and died in 1848. He was, according to tradition buried in Nakonde District on the Nakonde-Mbala Road, about 1 km south of Nachipeta School.
The site is an important historical resource for research education and tourism.

Royal grave for Ngoni King Zwangendaba

Nachikufu Cave
Nachikufu Cave is a pre-historic archaeological site located about 80 kilometers from Mpika towards Serenje District and less than half a Km to the west, off the Great North road. An area of covering 2.590 square kilometers having approximately latitude 12 degrees 15 minutes south and longitude 31 degrees 10 minutes east.

The site was used by the Bisa and the Lala during the Bemba and Ngoni raids in precolonial era as a hide-out. It also consists of valuable archaeological and scientific information that dates to about 15,000 years ago.