Ethnographic expedition to Zambia, single departure in 2026.

In the far west of Zambia, near the town of Zambezi, the historic Likumbi Lya Mize ceremony of the Luvale people is held in August. It is the final part of the complex Mukanda initiation rite, a three-month training programme for young adolescents who are also circumcised. The ceremony is accompanied by a multitude of Makishi masks with their dances, declared Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2008.

Mize is the name of the village that hosts the traditional court of the Luvale, not far from the city of Zambezi. The Makishi dancers and their beautiful, large masks personify the spirits of the ancestors who will accompany each initiate in their training. At the beginning of the Mukanda, the young people are escorted by the masks and women to the river, symbolising the passage to the afterlife, as they will die as children and be resurrected after their training in a secret and isolated place, returning to the world of the living as adults on the day of Likumbi Lya Mize. The ceremony therefore celebrates a sort of collective resurrection, in which hundreds of different Makishi masks/spirits accompany the young initiates to the city of Zambezi and the court of Mize, shouting and emitting incomprehensible sounds, amid dances and songs, colours and dizzying rhythms, welcomed by the community and their jubilant mothers.