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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The History of Abdullah Ibn Suliman |
Author: | Roberts, Andrew D. |
Year: | 1967 |
Periodical: | African Social Research |
Issue: | 4 |
Period: | December |
Pages: | 241-270 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Zambia |
Subjects: | Swahili market vendors history History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Religion and Witchcraft |
Abstract: | Abdullah ibn Suliman, a Swahili trader active in north-eastern Zambia from 1867, later became leader of a colony of foreign traders in the Tabwa: chiefdom of Nsama. This colony's history, recorded in 1913 in the Kawambwa District Notebook, is reproduced, with explanatory introduction and notes. The text is clearly derived primarily from Swahili: informants in Itabwa and is as such accepted as one of the very few accounts left by coastal traders in the East African interior; and it describes in detail the relations between the foreign traders in Itabwa and the Tabwa, Bemba, and eastern Lunda of Kazembe. Many points can be compared with Tippu Tip's reminiscences, while Livingstone's journals confirm several passages. The text is also important as being, in this readily accessible, clearly annotated form, a comparative source of Tabwa, Bemba and Lunda history. References; genealogical scheme; annotated index of names and terms. |