Creations of Chiefs among acephalous societies of Southern Zambia 1890 to 1958The Kafue Flats came under the rule of the British South Africa Company in 1890 and civil administration commenced in 1903. Ostensibly, the people were relieved at the arrival of the new order for they could now look forward to a period of calm, free from the depredations of marauding Kololo, Lozi and Ndebele who had throughout the 19th century despoiled the area of its human and cattle. The company sought to administer the area with two goals in mind. First, it sought to extract labour from the local population to sustain its mining efforts and satisfy the demands of its white settler population for African workers. Second, it sought to minimize its costs. Taxation was embraced from the beginning as the key vehicle for achieving both of these goals. It not only generated revenue but, because taxes were payable in cash only, it also induced large numbers of African men to take up wage employment for Europeans. By the North Western Rhodesia Proclamation Number 16 of 1905, tax was imposed in the area. Mutelo, as tax came to be known in Chitonga quickly became the heart and soul of Company Administration, and the constant preoccupation of district officials. The company's problem was that taxation was itself a labour intensive activity, requiring far more staff than the company had at its disposal. At the turn of the century, the BSA Co. had fewer than fifty administrators in a territory of more than 29o,ooo square miles, far too few to administer the tax on their own. In addition, collecting the tax required detailed information about the distribution of the African population, information that company personnel did not possess. Although early missionary and travellers accounts had provided some data about the peoples that were scattered about the territory, this information was piecemeal and uneven. Only in a handful of areas such as Nkala and Nanzhila where mission stations were located had the number of African inhabitants counted and made known to BSA Co. administrators.The solution adopted by BSA Co. administrators was to enlist the help of indigenous chiefs. It was assumed that these local rulers knew the locations of the taxable males in the areas under their control and already possessed a system for extracting tribute that could be employed for the collection of taxes. The company thus sought to strike a bargain with local rulers whereby the rulers would use their authority and local administrative capacity to extract revenues from their subjects and, in return, the company would protect them from their rivals and guarantee their status as local leaders. However, some difficulties presented themselves in the implementation of these arrangements. Contrary to European assumptions about the tribal nature of African society, the Tonga, Ila and Batwa inhabiting the Kafue Flats were an acephalous society. They had no chiefs that were capable of organizing or enforcing the collection of the tax. The absence of chiefs did not mean there were no leaders. One kind of leader was the rain shrine priest known as Sikatongo, serving the small locales Colson calls Masi or neighbourhoods. There were also persons called Ulaanyika, the owner of the land, who received respect as the first settler of a particular neighbourhood, but who in fact could not allocate the land or, by himself, refuse it to new comers. In addition to Ulaanyika and Sikatongo, the Kafue Flats had a constellation of clan leaders that coordinated and managed the common pool resources found thereabout. For instance, a specific clan regulated the hunting of animals on the flats, including the collective hunt called Chiila. Another coordinated fishing activities in ponds, lagoons, tributaries and river sections. The supervision of pasture areas and cattle camps called Matanga were done by different clans. From 1903, the BSA Co. began to recognise certain persons as official indunas of the neighbourhood. A number of prominent men were equally recognised as Village Headmen. After the imposition in 1905 of mutelo, as tax came to be known in Chitonga, the number of officially recognised leaders increased substantially. Vickery notes that District indunas or chiefs rose from less than fifty in 1904 to over a hundred by the time of the First World War. The increase resulted partly from additional designations by District Officers in their search for the real leaders. After the First World War, the BSA Co. implemented a series of administrative actions to bolster the authority of chiefs. The basis for these actions was the Administration of Natives Proclamation number 8 of 1916 and amended Proclamation Number 6 of 1919. The 1916 Proclamation among other things defined the duties of the chiefs and provided for the fining or imprisonment of subjects who failed to carry out their chief's orders. This enabled chiefs to exercise a considerable amount of control over their people something which they had been unable to do before. In explaining what government hoped the Proclamation Number 6 of 1919 would achieve, J. Moffat Thomson, the Secretary of Native affairs told the Legislative council:The new bill introduces a more advanced form of native administration, which gives to the chiefs the management of their own affairs within their tribal areas and it is hoped it will preserve and maintain all that is good in native custom and tribal organisationChiefs will take more interest in their own affairs. The power and influence of traditional authorities was further enhanced after the imperial government took over the administration of Northern Rhodesia from the Chartered Company in 1924. Deliberate efforts were made to bring the territorys native administration into line with the general policy operative in other British African tropical dependencies. These efforts culminated into the passing in 1929 of the Native authority Ordinance and the Native Courts Ordinance by the Legislative council a measure that followed a recommendation by a conference of Administrative Officers two years earlier that a system of indirect rule be introduced in the territory in place of the de-facto direct rule. The 1929 Native Authority Ordinance replaced the Administration of Native Proclamation number 8 of 1916 and amended Proclamation number 6 of 1919. The new Ordinance institutionalised the position of chief as head of an area far exceeding the average Tonga neighbourhood which had previously been the basis of the administrations native district. By the late 1930s, the states policies shifted towards creating bigger and allegedly more efficient Native Authorities out of the numerous existing authorities. In 1939, for example, an Acting Secretary outlined the colonial states official policy on chiefs in Northern Rhodesia when he informed the Provincial Commissioner that, the present policy is to abolish petty subordinate authorities at suitable opportunities with the objective of building up strong central authorities. Subsequently, chiefs with smaller populations were abolished and amalgamated into large ones. Chiefs Siyoowi and Munenga were for instance made village headmen under Chief Mwanachingwala while Kazoka and Hachiboloma were put under Chief Nalubamba. The process of eliminating petty native authorities was halted during the Second World War for fear of active resistance. When it was revitalised, the colonial state embarked on creating even larger Native Authorities. For example, the Plateau Tonga Native Authority emerged, comprising ten chiefs encompassing Mazabuka, Choma and later Monze. Equally the Ila Native Authority emerged in Namwala District in which Chief Mukobela presided over as senior chief. To the North west part of the Kafue flats, the Saala Native Authority came into being in Mumbwa District. By 1940 the Kafue Flats sprawl over three Native Authorities with 21 of the 29 chiefs claiming territorial rights on it. The claimants were, Chiefs Chongo, Mwanachingwala and Hamusonde of the Plateau Tonga Native Authority. Others were Nalubamba, Mukobela, Mungaila, Chiinda, Chilyabufu, Shimbizhi and Shezongo from the Ila Native Authority. Musungwa, Kaingu and Shakumbila of the Saala Native Authority claimed territorial rights to the North West in Mumbwa District.