Situated on top of the rocky Chinaphale Hill within Mpale Village in Mangochi, the village offers you the unique opportunity to take a cultural expedition into past and present Yao culture. In the past the area surrounding Mpale Village supported a thriving elephant population, in fact the road leading to Mpale Cultural Village was once a path used by wild elephant herds, en-route to grazing sites. In 2009 under the auspices of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife together with several conservation partners, the elephant population surrounding Mpale were included in a successful program to relocate the animals to Majete Game Reserve in the Lower Shire Valley. The ‘Mangochi Elephants’ as they came to be known are now free to roam majestically within the 75, 00 hectares of Majete’s savannah landscape. All that remains of the elephants at Mpale Cultural Village is the village folklore of ‘Yalidji Ndembo Sitatu’ (The Three Elephants), legend has it that in order to evade capture during the translocation program 3 elephants hid from game rangers in the vast bushes by night and during the day magically transformed into human beings. After successfully evading capture the elephants became over confident and were cornered be a tranquilizer wielding game ranger , knowing that they were about to be captured the smallest elephant pleaded in a human like voice (‘Please don’t shoot us’), astounded by what had just happened the game ranger fled dropping his tranquilizer gun on the spot. Find out for yourself, visit Mpale Cultural Village.
