Lozi - Settlements

The Lozi occupy small, compact villages, often surrounded by a fence or palisade and usually arranged with a cattle corral or open plaza in the center. Although village sites persist over time, there is a great deal of flux in village population. Flooding of the Zambezi River necessitates abandonment of villages in the flood plains during part of the year. In some cases, all or most of a village's population will move together to their lands on higher sites. Sometimes, however, the entire village will disperse, with its members joining kin from other villages. Besides this annual flux, there is a continual flow of people from one village to another for various reasons. The prevailing house type is that of a round hut with a low cylindrical wall of rush mats or of wattle and daub and a conical thatched roof.