THE BEMBA TRIBE OF NORTH-EASTERN RHODESIA 101 or 'maternal nephew* is selected. I never heard of a regent being appointed for a young man as is commonly done in those Bantu tribes where the heir to the throne is known from his time of birth.
The situation is more complicated in the case of succession to chieftainships, since through the custom of inheriting one big territorial chieftainship after another within the paramount's immediate family, a tradition has grownup that, e.g., the holder of the Mwambaship should always succeed to the Citimukuluship, whatever the priority of kinship. This claim was put forward in the last succession dispute (1925) and is commonly supported by Government officials who naturally prefer a fixed system of succession to the discussion of rival candidates' rights that seems to have been the older procedure. There is also a tendency becoming more and more evident for certain of these bigger chieftainships to be confined to sub-branches of the main royal line, as distinct from sub-chieftainships which are nearly always given to descendants of local branches of the crocodile clan (e.g. the Mwabaship). This constant growth and separation of different sub-lines or houses of the royal clan seems to have been continuous in the past. The chart of the present central branch of the Bena yandu should make the situation clear. It will be seen that the first and second Citimukulus in this line were siblings, and were succeeded by another pair of own brothers—Citimukulu III and IV, the sons of the first ruler's eldest sister, Candamukulu. The paramountcy then passed to the line of a younger sister, Bwalya Cabala, tradition stating that the eldest maternal nephew of Citimukulu III and IV, then holding office as Mwamba, refused to succeed to the office for various reasons. The title then passed to another pair of brothers in succession, Citimukulu VI and VII, the sons of a younger daughter of Candamukulu—Nakasafye. Hence the famous dispute of 1925 just referred to, between Kanyanta, now Citimukulu, and his mother's mother's sister's grandchild, Bwalya Cangala, then holding the Nkulaship, and reckoned as Kanyanta's classificatory brother. Bwalya claimed that he was own maternal nephew of the dead chief, Ponde, and Kanyanta that he came of an older line and that it had now become established that the Mwambas always succeeded the Citimukulus. The Government supported the latter claimant, but there seems to have been very little to choose between the