author
D. E. C. Stirke
A colonial-era administrator and observer of life in Barotseland, he wrote from close experience of the region and its people. His work offers a detailed early-20th-century record of language, customs, and everyday life in what is now western Zambia.
1 Audiobook
Barotseland : eight years among the Barotse
by D. E. C. Stirke
About the author
Known in library records as Douglas Elliott Charles Romaine Stirke, he is best remembered for Barotseland: Eight Years Among the Barotse, a firsthand account drawn from his years in Barotseland in Northern Rhodesia. Contemporary catalog and journal records also identify him as D. E. C. Stirke, and as a Native Commissioner at Nalolo.
Stirke also worked on language materials connected with the region. Records for A Sikololo Phrase Book and a comparative vocabulary of Sikololo, Silui, and Simbunda show his interest in documenting local languages as well as describing the society around him.
Today, his writing is mainly read as a historical source: a vivid, on-the-ground portrait of Barotseland from the colonial period. For modern listeners, his work can be valuable both for the detail it preserves and for the window it opens onto the attitudes and structures of its time.