Culture and history info
Mukuni, 9.6 km (6.0 mi) to the south-east of present day Livingstone, was the largest village in the area before Livingstone was founded. Its Baleya inhabitants, originally from the Rozwi culture in Zimbabwe, were conquered by Chief Mukuni who came from the Congo in the 18th century. Another group of Baleya under Chief Sekute lived near the river west of the town. The most numerous people in the area, though, were the Batoka under Chief Musokotwane based at Senkobo, 30 km (19 mi) north. These are southern Tonga people but are culturally and linguistically similar to the Baleya and grouped with them as the 'Tokaleya'.
The Tokaleya paid tribute to the Lozi of Barotseland but in 1838 the Kololo, a Sotho tribe from South Africa displaced by Zulu wars, migrated north and conquered the Lozi. The Kololo placed chiefs of their subordinate Subiya people of Sesheke over the Tokaleya. In 1855 Scottish missionary traveller David Livingstone became the first European to be shown the Zambezi in the Livingstone vicinity and to see Victoria Falls when he was taken there by the Subiya/Kololo Chief Sekeletu.
In 1864 the Lozi threw off their Kololo masters and re-established their dominance over the Subiya and the Tokaleya in the vicinity of the Falls, which became the south-eastern margin of the greater Barotseland kingdom