By Elliott Siamonga

THE BaTonga know that emotional upsets and disappointments occur in life, but they believe certain medicines and the observance of certain taboos guard against well defined emotional contingencies and safeguarding their environments.
While some people believe that taboos are superstitious and pagan beliefs, the BaTonga have used taboos as a control measure in the management of their natural resources and surroundings.
This system has also been used not only in African cultures, but in other societies far away from the BaTonga such as in North and South America where the indigenous people have their own taboo system to manage their natural systems.
The BaTonga of the Zambezi Valley have used the taboo system as an effective measure in the management of their well being and natural resources surrounding them.
According to the BaTonga elders, places such as hot-springs, certain wildlife animal species, shrine forests and sacred pools cannot be used for any purpose other than those specified by traditional chiefs and village spirit mediums.
Defying instructions often results in pools drying up or the forests not bearing wild fruits for both animals and human beings.
Elders say villagers are only allowed to debark the baobab tree from the eastern and western sides of the trunk.
Any breach of this taboo often resulted in the baobab drying up or developing a disease.
However, this taboo seems to be true as those giant trees that were not debarked properly developed a sooty disease which is threatening the survival of most baobabs in the Zambezi Valley according to ecologists.
Shrines and other sacred places in the landscape, particularly so-called holy homes, where a spirit is believed to dwell, are approached with caution.
Some places could not be looked at, except under special circumstances and most required that some offering be left as a gesture of respect.
Failure to do so would bring bad luck to one’s family or even death.
In the observance of such places, trees, grass and animals and other creatures found around such shrines or mountains are not tampered with.
This generally leads to the conservation of the entire ecosystem around such places.
The BaTonga also believe the killing of wild animals and birds is taboo, and goes against Mother Nature.
Wild animals are only killed for food, or for ritual purposes.
Indiscriminate killing of wildlife or the killing of wild animals for sport displeases the ancestors.
In most cases only male and aged animals are killed for such purposes as meat harvesting for communities, female animals are spared so that they can breed so as to avoid species depletion.
The taboo system in the BaTonga classes them into totems, and most totems have animal, reptile and amphibian names attached to them.
Those with such totems are forbidden to eat the flesh of their totem clan, as this is sacrilegious.
For example, the Ndlovu (elephant) clan should not eat meat from the elephant; the same is true for the Dube, which is not supposed to eat zebra meat.
Other clans such as snake, fish, frog, birds should not consume flesh from their clan species.
The BaTonga believe that if one eats the clan meat, the spirits of the ancestors will be angered and moved to punish the culprit by ensuring that the person loses his teeth or even faces death.
The BaTonga culture has also created a natural balance in the consumptive use of wild animals each clan protects its clan animal because the vitality and survival of the clan are dependent on the abundance of clan animals.
These cultural and spiritual values of the BaTonga people have been responsible for regulating the use of wildlife.
The belief in taboos is strongly held among the BaTonga who strongly believe that balance and harmony should pervade their relationships with the environment, from the sky to the underworld and all beings in between.
Throughout the Zambezi Valley and Kariba Dam, the parents of newly born twins are forbidden from taking them near water because the words for ‘twins’ and ‘tiger fish’ are considered the same.
Since both symbolise dualities (such as the return and rebirth), their equation is particularly strong, and, at least until the twins became mature human beings, they had to be kept spatially and emotionally separated from the fish to prevent their fusing.
Parents of twins often make gruelling overland detours that this taboo entails because twins once fully grown could use their special relationship with the tiger fish to bring bounty to their families and communities.
It is very common today in rural Binga to find that most great tiger fish fishermen are twins, as they have a bond with the fish species.
They also know the fish’s spawning areas and guard the nests jealously and they often play the role of advising other fishermen on how best to sustainably catch the fish.
Closely related to that is the spirit of the fish eagle commonly known as the hungwe among the shone tribe.
It is taboo to bait or kill this bird as it also directs or shows fishermen where they can get the tiger fish.
The relationship between the BaTonga fisherman and fish eagle has led to the increase in the number of the bird species and sustainable fishing of the tiger fish.
In general taboos served to temper such intensities of connection among the BaTonga.
For example, the great hunters blessed with the power of the spider spirit, avoided the sound of plucked strings or guitars at ceremonies, because the strings on such instruments are much like the spider webbing and their sound could cause the hunter to be overwhelmed by their identification with the spider often fatal.
Among the BaTonga, spider webbing gained attention rather than the creature’s eight legs or some other less distinctive feature.
The taboo also applied to different creatures, animals and reptiles such as the python, in consequence each totemic clan contributed to the sustenance of the larger community.
However, not all taboo relationships last a lifetime.
In certain cases for example, when hunting, fishing or gardening special injunctions lasted only for a few days.
Similarly at life-cycle events like birth, puberty, marriage and death taboos apply to the person directly affected along with relatives considered close enough to be equally involved in the process for only a set time.
In a country where wilderness areas often fenced off in national parks, or even tamed into conservancies, Binga still stands as a bastion of wildness.
This is refreshingly evident when one looks up at a silhouette of fisherman in the Zambezi River hauling fishing nets in a dugout canoe or a goat herder looking for lost goats or sheep.
Ultimately it is these scenes, personalities and peculiarities that draw visitors to the BaTonga, but however there are deeper beliefs that make this place wild and properly conserved.
It is the observance of certain taboos.