In this set of essays Walima T. Kalusa and Megan Vaughan explore themes in the history of death in Zambia and Malawi from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Drawing on extensive archival and oral historical research they examine the impact of Christianity on spiritual beliefs, the racialised politics of death on the colonial Copperbelt, the transformation of burial practices, the histories of suicide and of maternal mortality, and the political life of the corpse.

This study reconstructs the life history of Paramount Chief Kalonga Gawa Undi X of the Chewa speaking people of Zambia's Eastern Province. Born in 1931, he played a key role in the nationalist movement in Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) in the late 1950s and early 1960s and participated in the constitutional talks in England at the height of the struggle for political freedom. Throughout his life, he successfully fought to preserve the power and authority of traditional leaders, thereby confounding attempts by both colonial governments and African urban elites to undermine chiefly prerogative and power. With this study, the author asks us to rethink the standard historical accounts of the role of traditional leaders in African independence.