Zambia Philately: Craft Village

The African Craft Village, Livingstone, was built in 1960 by the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum on a site allocated by the Victoria Falls Trust and the Municipal Council of Livingstone with assistance from the trust and small grant from the Sporting and Cultural Fund. It was originally known as the Open Air Museum.

The village contained nearly fifty forms of dwellings and other structures from the five major tribal groups of Zambia and covered approximately an acre of ground on the right bank of the Maramba, a tributary on the Zambezi. In the centre was a dancing arena. Gardens, in which are grown examples of the main cereal crops, are cultivated in each tribal section. Root crops, legumes, fruit trees and other plants of importance to the rural African were also grown and chickens kept.

Craftsmen in traditional dress worked in the village. The sale of their products, guides and admission charge were the sole source of funding. The village received no subsidy and was administered by the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum.