ABSTRACT
The Lemba are a black tribe whose heartland is the Mberengwe/Mposi area of Zimbabwe but who are to be found in small groups throughout northeast South Africa and in central and eastern Zimbabwe. Notwithstanding the fact that this tribe is in many respects indistinguishable from neighbouring tribes, and as far as any uninitiated traveller is concerned totally indistinguishable from other people in the area, for much of the twentieth century a number of Lemba and particularly those of South Africa have claimed to be of Jewish or Semitic ancestry, and a number of outside European observers have made similar claims for them for an even longer period.
