The techniques of making temporary boats or rafts by weaving together bundles of buoyant reeds were known to African people living near the many rivers, lakes, lagoons and swamps of what is now Zambia.
[1] The coming of the Iron Age introduced tools such as the adze which facilitates the construction of dugout canoes, especially from African teak (Pterocarpus angolensis or 'mulombwa' in Chibemba, 'mulombe' in Chilozi, 'mukwa' in Chishona) which has a long life even when constantly immersed.
The people of the lake and its wetlands, which cover a completely flat area of more than 10,000 km2 in flood, have the ability to navigate unaided across open water or through mazes of swamp channels despite having no landmarks to guide them most of the time.
A colonial administrator in the 1920s saw a dugout canoe crossing Lake Tanganyika (35 km wide) which is large enough to have waves of around 1 m. Though such a feat was commonplace, he was astonished to discover that the three paddlers were all blind, and the boat was being steered by a small child to the store at Mpulungu so they could buy supplies.
Use of dugout canoes has declined somewhat except in more remote locations, due to a relative shortage of good African Teak trees, and competition from timber plank, aluminium and glass-fibre boats.