page_title: Lemba people
section_title: Sacred ngoma
hierarchical_section_title: Lemba people / Lemba traditions and culture / Sacred ngoma
caption_attribution_description: English: Small drum from Congo in the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium. Français&#160;: Petit tambour à fente et idéogrammes provenant du Congo et servant pendant le rituel de l'association Lemba dans le Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale à Tervuren en Belgique.
context_page_description: The Lemba, wa-Remba, or Mwenye are a Bantu ethnic group native to Zimbabwe and South Africa, with smaller, little-known branches in Mozambique and Malawi. According to Tudor Parfitt, Professor of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, in 2002 they numbered an estimated 50,000. They speak the Bantu languages spoken by their geographic neighbours and resemble them physically, but they have some religious practices and beliefs similar to those in Judaism and Islam, which they say were transmitted by oral tradition.
  The name "Lemba" may originate in chilemba, a Swahili word for turbans worn by some Bantu peoples, or lembi, a Bantu word meaning "non-African" or "respected foreigner". Magdel le Roux says that the name VaRemba may be translated as "the people who refuse" – probably in the context of "not eating with others". In Zimbabwe and South Africa, the people prefer the name Mwenye.
  Since the late twentieth century, there has been increased media and scholarly attention to the Lemba's claim of common descent to the Jewish people. Genetic Y-DNA analyses in the 2000s have established a partially Middle-Eastern origin for a portion of the male Lemba population.
context_section_description: Lemba tradition tells of a sacred object, the ngoma lungundu or "drum that thunders", which they brought from the place called Sena. Their oral history claims that the ngoma was the Biblical Ark of the Covenant made by Moses. Parfitt, a professor at SOAS, University of London, wrote a book in 2008, The Lost Ark of the Covenant about the rediscovery of this object. His book was adapted as a television documentary that aired on the History Channel, tracing the Lemba's claim that the ngoma lungunda was the legendary Ark of the Covenant. Following the lead of eighth-century accounts of the Ark in Arabia, Parfitt found a ghost town named Sena in the Hadhramaut, an area inhabited by people who are genetically linked to the Lemba.
  Parfitt has theorized that the ngoma was related to the Ark of the Covenant, lost from Jerusalem after the city's destruction by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 BC. He says that the ngoma is a descendant of the Biblical Ark, theorizing that the Ark was repaired by adding more material to it as the artifact began to wear out or that it was destroyed. He says that the ark/ngoma was carried to Africa by its priestly guardians. Lemba oral history claimed that the Ark exploded 700 years ago, and that they rebuilt the Ark on its remains.
  Parfitt discovered the ngoma in a Harare, Zimbabwe museum in 2007. It had last been exhibited in 1949 by colonial officials in Bulawayo. They took it to Harare for protection during the struggle for independence, and it was later misplaced inside the museum. Radiocarbon dating of a portion of the artifact showed it to be 700 years old. Parfitt said he believed that the ngoma was the oldest wooden artifact in Zimbabwe. In February 2010, the 'Lemba ngoma lungundu' was put on display in the museum, along with a celebration of both its history and the history of the Lemba.
  Parfitt says that the ngoma/ark was carried into battles. If it broke apart, it would be rebuilt. The ngoma, he says, was possibly built from the remains of the original Ark. "So it's the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of," Parfitt says. "Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science", he said. The ngoma was on display in the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences, but in 2008  it disappeared, and is widely believed to have been stolen by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for his personal collection. The story of Parfitt and the ngoma was updated in 2014 in the ZDF documentary "Tudor Parfitt and the Lost Tribe of Israel"  
  The Lemba considered the ngoma as intensely sacred and too holy to be touched. It was carried by poles inserted into rings attached to each side of the ngoma. The only members of the tribe permitted to approach it were the hereditary priesthood who guarded it. Others feared that if they were to touch it, they would be "struck down by the fire of God" which would erupt from the object. The Lemba continue to regard the ngoma as the sacred Ark.
caption: Small drum from Congo in the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
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