The Moto Moto Museum is located in Mbala and was officially opened in 1974. The museum is housed on a former carpentry and bricklaying workshop, donated by the Diocese of Mbala in 1972.
The name “Moto Moto ” was derived from Bishop Joseph Dupont who smoked a pipe and called for “Moto” – fire in swahilili which earned him the name Moto Moto. Bishop Adolf Furstenderg Bishop of Mbala Diocese donated the present day main gallery which houses the Ethnography gallery which was previously a carpenter workshop.
Moto Moto Museum dates back to the 1950s when a French Canadian Catholic Priest, Jean Jacques Corbeil began collecting cultural artefacts in the Northern part of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) when he was undertaking missionary as part of the White Fathers in 1943. Over the years he collected cultural and Natural Artefacts among the villages of Northern Zambia and later figurines along the Zambia-Congo Border on the Copperbelt. He was particularly interested in items of music, medicine, initiation and witchcraft. He also made a reasonable collection of snakes. The artefacts, collected for study and posterity were stored in the Mulilansolo Mission until 1964, when they were moved to Serenje until 1969, then to Isoka.
References
- National Monuments of Zambia (1972)
- www.museumszambia.org