kamba, noun

/ˈkamba/
Forms:
khamba, makhambaShow more Also khamba, makhamba, ukhamba.
Origin:
IsiXhosa, isiZuluShow more IsiXhosa and isiZulu ukhamba.
An earthenware pot for holding sour milk or beer.
1952 F.J. Edmonstone Where Mists Still Linger 5I have often stood in the confines of our home and watched the womenfolk struggling up the steep path from the Gwala Gwala carrying water in their kambas, which they balance on their heads.
1952 F.J. Edmonstone Where Mists Still Linger 143Kambas, Earthenware vessels.
1955 V.M. Fitzroy Dark Bright Land 267Calabashes filled with thick milk beautifully prepared. A kamba of amasi, each decorated with its imbanga — this was the Zulu expression of gratitude, of goodwill, of hospitality.
1967 S.M.A. Lowe Hungry Veld 96She was going to make ukhambas (dishes made from river clay) too. These were to be baked in the hot sand under the fire and then polished shiny black with dugo seeds...Ukhambas of utywala (native beer) were handed round.
1978 A. Elliott Sons of Zulu 79The man called out to his youngest wife to bring ‘such and such’ a khamba (beer-pot) from his hut for the white lady.
1978 A. Elliott Sons of Zulu 130As the family head, he is given his own pot of beer or khamba in his hut in the early morning and he starts his drinking then.
1980 E. Prov. Herald 16 May (Suppl.) 4One beerhall has a television set where eyes that can hardly see and a mind that can hardly discern after gulping some makhambas, are exposed to beauty and education for which they do not care.
1986 M. Ramgobin Waiting to Live 19The contents of the khamba could also be obtained, but not, here in Durban, a whole big khambaful — there was no sharing and passing around of the wide-mouthed earthenware pot. The thick beer they were used to was sold in small tin mugs.
1987 Scope 6 Nov. 42‘Imagine my husband’s face,’ she said, ‘if, when he sipped his beer, he found a tadpole floating in his kamba!’
An earthenware pot for holding sour milk or beer.
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19521987

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IsiXhosa
IsiZulu
kamassi, nounn.kambro, nounn.
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