ABSTRACT
In 1955 the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland undertook the building of a hydro-electric dam at Kariba Gorge on the Zambezi River. The resulting Lake Kariba, already in process of formation, will eventually flood some 2,000 square miles of the Middle Zambezi Valley, i.e. of the Gwembe Valley. By 1958 some 52,000 Valley Tonga had been moved from their old neighbourhoods to areas away from the flooding. The Zambezi River forms the boundary between Northern and Southern Rhodesia, though in the past it has been no barrier to the movement of Valley Tonga from one side of the river to the other. Each Government moved those living within its borders into its hinterland, thus breaking the old bonds between communities which had formerly faced one another along the river.
