Maintaining a Life of Subsistence in the Bemba Village of Northeastern Zambia

Abstract

The Bemba people, who are living in the woodland area of northeastern Zambia, have developed a unique slash-and-burn cultivation system, called citemene system. It is now censured as the cause of deforestation and the Bemba people are faced with agricultural modernization. There are some villages where people have been maintaining a life of subsistence based on citemene, while other villages have introduced modern agriculture. This paper aims to provide a clear picture of the "traditional" life of subsistence and its structure in a Bemba village. Their subsistence strategies are classified into two-ways: self-sufficient strategies and cash-getting strategies. Although cash economy has deeply penetrated, several factors work to maintain the life of subsistence. Cash-getting activities remain on a small scale basis because of the limitation of finger millet, which is the main source of cash. Unstable marriage bonds cause produce widows. Thus it is common that the widow's household and the household with a husband co-exist in one village. Difference in the household composition results in different output of subsistence activities, which may produce social disparity. However, "leveling mechanisms" based on the social principle of sharing woks to balance the differences, which assures the subsistence life of a community as a whole.