Nyuaminyami is literally the stuff that legends are made of – and I mean LITERALLY!
Legend has it that there is a dragon like creature that inhabits the Zambezi river in Africa called Nyaminyami, but also known as the Zambezi River God. This creature is believed to have the power to control all life that resides within or around the mighty Zambezi river.
Well that is as far as legends go, but let me dazzle you with some earie facts that stem around this legend:
The Zambezi River is one of the largest river systems on the continent as a matter of fact the fourth-largest, and before the Kariba Dam Project started in 1956, it was home to many peaceful Batonga people.
However, the dam building project managed to distort the peaceful existence of the Batonga people living in the Zambezi Valley for hundreds of years as they were asked to relocate.
The Batonga people were firm believers in the Zambezi River God and they were certain that Nyaminyami wouldn’t allow a dam to be built on his very own doorstep. And a year or so into the dam building project a severe flood struck, and several of the workers of the project was killed, also the partially built dam at that time was left in ruins.
Fable has it that relatives of the deceased waited for three days for human remains to be recovered. It was only after the elders of the Batonga tribe declared that a sacrifice to the River God would be the only thing that could possibly soothe Nyaminyami’s unhappiness, and a slaughtered calf was placed on the river banks of the mighty Zambezi, that the bodies of the deceased workers were found.