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Northern Rhodesia Tax Stamps as an Aid to Chronology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
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It is well known that historians studying preliterate societies, in which oral traditions are the main sources of data used in reconstructing the past, have experienced problems in ‘arranging’ events in their order of occurrence. To establish chronology, historians have used a number of aids such as mnemonic devices and occurrences of eclipses and droughts which are then correlated to the western calendar. This paper discusses an aid which, used together with oral traditions, can be very useful in reconstructing the early colonial history of Northern Rhodesia between 1910 and 1927. This aid is the tax stamp given to all tax payers during this period. To understand the importance of the tax stamps to chronology, perhaps it is best to begin with a description as to how events were recorded in the precolonial period.
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 1987
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Notes
* This paper was initially presented as a University of Zambia History Department seminar paper. I am grateful for the comments made there.
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