Lemba People - Lemba Traditions and Culture

Lemba Traditions and Culture

According to some Lemba claims, they had ancestors who were men Near Eastern Jews who left Judea about 2,500 years ago and settled in a place called Senna in the Arabian peninsula and later still, migrating into North East Africa. According to the findings of British researcher Tudor Parfitt, the location of Senna was more than likely in Yemen, specifically, in the village of Sanāw within the easternmost portion of the Wadi Hadhramaut. The city had a vibrant Jewish population since ancient times, but it has dwindled to a few hundred people since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

According to their oral tradition, the male ancestors of the Lemba eventually came to Southeast Africa to obtain gold

After entering Africa, the tribe allegedly split into two groups, one staying in Ethiopia and the other traveling farther south, along the east coast. The Lemba claim this second group settled in Tanzania and Kenya, building what was referred to as "Sena II". Others supposedly settled in Malawi, where their descendants reside today. Some settled in Mozambique, eventually migrating to South Africa and Zimbabwe, where they say they constructed or at least helped construct the great enclosure (see below). However, most academics agree that for the most part the construction of the enclosure at Great Zimbabwe is attributable to the ancestors of the Shona.

The Lemba prefer their children to marry other Lembas, with marriage to non-Lembas discouraged. The restrictions on intermarriage with non-Lemba make it particularly difficult for a male non-Lemba to become a member. A female who marries a Lemba man must learn the Lemba religion, dietary rules and other customs. The female may not bring any cooking equipment from her previous home, as it may have been tainted by inappropriate use (see Kashrut). Initially, the female may have to shave her head. The man's (husband)children must also be brought up as Lembas. Lemba men who marry non-Lemba females are expelled from the community unless the females agree to live according to Lemba traditions. Normative Judaism only recognizes matrilineal descent; however, patrilineal descent was the norm among the Israelites who lived prior to its adoption.

Lemba tradition tells of a sacred object, the ngoma lungundu or "drum that thunders", that was brought with them from Sena, Yemen. Tudor Parfitt, Professor of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, has theorised that it was the Ark of the Covenant, lost from Jerusalem after the destruction by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC. In a Channel 4 programme, Parfitt announced he had traced a missing copy of the Ark to a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe. However radiocarbon dating showed the artefact to be only 600 years old. Parfitt then felt it was probably a replica made while the Lemba were in Yemen, after the original Ark of the Covenant had been destroyed. In February 2010, the Lemba ngoma lungundu, rediscovered a few years earlier and believed by some Lemba to be an almost 700-year-old replica of the original Ark of the Covenant, went on display in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In the Zoutpansberg region in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Lemba were so esteemed for their mining and metalwork skills that surrounding tribes regarded them as an almost alien but nevertheless welcome community. In the 1920s their medical knowledge earned them great respect.