Monday, July 4, 2011

The Migrations of Yao and Kololo into Southern Malawi In 19th Century

Author(s): Nancy Northrup
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1986), pp. 59-75
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center

A major theme in African historiography has been the influence of migrations in the history of the continent. Some of these migrations, such as those of the Bantu- and Nilotic-speaking peoples, were vast in time and space, and are accessible to historians only indirectly through the analysis of information culled from other disciplines: linguistics, archaeology, even botany and biology. While the findings of these disciplines can provide the historian with hypotheses dealing with the causes, routes, ands cultural and economic effects of migrations, they cannot describe the actual events surrounding these migrations. More recent, and more clearly defined migrations, such as those of the Jaga in Angola in the sixteenth century, and the great Ngoni incursions into East and Central Africa in the nineteenth century, are better understood in their general outlines and are documented through oral traditions and eyewitness accounts. For these reasons, and because of their dramatic, often violent nature, these migrations have been the subject of more detailed accounts.

However, to concentrate solely on these types of migrations is to obscure the major importance of less dramatic, but more common forms of population movement in African history. Throughout most of the history of man in Africa, as elsewhere in the world, migration has been a relatively slow, and generally small-scale affair, involving kinship groups moving short distances to find more plentiful resources or to escape tensions and turmoil in their homeland. Unfortunately, this type of migration in pre-colonial Africa is usually difficult to document in any detail because of the paucity of eyewitness accounts.

One area for which this is happily untrue, at least for the latter half of the nineteenth century, is southern Malawi. In the midnineteenth century, southern Malawi was entering a period of intensive change brought about in large part by the arrival of new groups of people wishing to settle in the area. Southern Malawi had historically attracted migrants because of its natural resources. It was inhabited by the Mang'anja, people of some agricultural skill and technological sophistication. This in combination with other factors enabled the area of the middle Shire Valley and Highlands to support a more dense population than was possible in the surrounding area.l

Throughout their history, the Mang'anja were in contact with their neighbors, fighting or trading with them, and emigrating to or accepting immigrants from the surrounding, culturally related regions. This interaction was intensified in the nineteenth century as southern Malawi became the focus of numerous migrating groups, including Ngoni, Yao, Kololo and British settlers. It is with two of these groups, the Yao and Kololo, who established themselves as political authorities in southern Malawi in the 1860s and 1870s, that this paper is concerned. The quantity and quality of available evidence, both oral and written, makes it possible to examine these migrations in some detail. A closer look at certain aspects of these migrations; their composition, the factors which pushed and pulled the migrants, the impact of economic and political circumstances in the "host" region, and the factors which determined their ultimate success or failure, will produce a clearer picture of these migrations, and suggest some general observations about the process of migration in pre-colonial Africa.2

The migrations of the Yao and Kololo, which took place concurrently and in contiguous regions, cover a broad area on the spectrum of types of migration. The Yao migrations, which focused on the highland region, involved groups moving relatively short distances in small or large numbers and settling down, peacefully where possible and by conquest where necessary, among people of similar culture with whom they had, in some instances, long-established contacts. The Kololo represent another, less common, type of migration, that of a small group of individuals who travel a considerable distance to establish themselves as chiefs among alien peoples. In a sense, they provide a case study of the convention, common in oral traditions, of chiefly invaders or wandering hunters who founded new states.3

Although the original movements of Yao groups into the area of southern Malawi, beginning as early as the 1830s, seem to have been impelled by a combination of political and economic forces, the role of raids against the Yao in their homeland by Lolo/Makua peoples living to their south was remembered as pivotal. Duff Macdonald's Yao informants, for example, stated in the 1870s that the migrations began when a group of invaders, referred to as "Angulu" or "Walolo," attacked the Machinga Yao. At least some of these attacks were for the purpose of capturing slaves to sell at the coast for cloth. Being armed with guns, the invaders were able to defeat the Machinga, who fled into the territory of their neighbors, the Yao living around the Mangoche hills.4 Additional information concerning these events is provided by Yohanna B. Abdallah, who cites internecine warfare among the Makua brought on by famine as the cause of the attacks. In this version the defeated Makua fled, armed with guns, to invade Machinga Yao country, thus setting off the chain reaction in which group after group was dislodged and fled before invaders, in the process becoming invaders themselves.5 An alternative or supplementary explanation is offered by E.A. Alpers, who suggests that the growth of the slave trade at Mozambique and Ibo supports the theory that slave raiding by Makua in the Meto district may have played a part in these events.6

Incursions of the type ascribed to the Lolo/Makua in these accounts cannot have been rare in pre-colonial times, but their impact remains difficult to analyze in the absence of first-hand accounts. While attacks aimed at the seizure of people or food would certainly cause disruption, especially among people less well armed and organized than their invaders, it seems likely that this disruption would be temporary, since the incursions would, by their nature, have to be sporadic. What then could explain the apparent size and intensity of the disturbances caused by Makua-Lomwe in Yao country? Perhaps the culprit here, as in the later upheavals in the Mang'anja area, was not the intrusion itself, but the devastation of farmlands and the disruption of the normal agricultural cycle, which led to famine. Grain crops, such as millet and sorghum, which were the staples of the Yao diet at this time, are especially vulnerable as they require a more rigid cycle of planting and harvesting than do root or tree crops, and, as Alpers has pointed out, Yao agriculture was not highly intensive and productive.7

In the evidence for the Yao migrations into southern Malawi, a number of general features stand out which characterize their migrations as a whole. These general characteristics arise from both the character of Yao polities and society and the particular circumstances in which they found themselves.8

In the first place, it is clear that there was no single "migration" or "invasion." Among the two main Yao groups which settled in southern Malawi, the Mangoche and the Machinga, migration was highly decentralized, as Yao polities were, and migrating groups underwent processes of dissolution similar to those which continually split Yao villages. According to Mitchell, the migrating groups consisted of "the chief and his younger brothers together with their sons and slaves, and some unrelated followers."9

The Chiefs who led the various groups into their new territories are remembered, but their chieftaincies were quickly split by members of the families and followings who broke off from the original group to form new chieftaincies. Such was the case with the major Machinga invaders: Nsamala (whose group split into the Nsamala, Mponda and Kalembo chieftaincies) Nkata (who gave rise to three chieftaincies, Nkata or Jalasi, Nyambi, and Mkumba) and Kawinga (whose junior relative Liwonde established his own chieftaincy).10

It is worth noting that, although the Machinga and Mangoche are treated as separate groups, and apparently identified themselves that way at the time of the invasions, the names are basically geographical. In the 1890s, Hynde commented on the insignificance of the differences between all of the Yao groups, noting that there was little difference in language between any of them.11 Although the Machinga as a whole had pushed the Mangoche as a whole out of their homeland and into southern Malawi, political rivalries did not necessarily split along these lines. One of the bitterest rivalries existed between two Machinga chieftaincies, Malemia and Kawinga, whose enmity lasted from at least 1860 until 1895 when Kawinga was defeated by the British with the connivance of Malemia. On the other hand, there appears to have been some cooperation between Mangoche and Machinga chiefs even during the period of migration.

It is obvious that ethnic differences also were less important than immediate political or economic considerations in determining alliances and enmities on the frontier that was created by the various migrations. Yao might ally with Ngoni or Kololo against Yao, and Mang'anja frequently joined with any of these against Mang'anja. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that ethnic awareness was heightened in the frontier situation which was developing in southern Malawi in the mid-nineteenth century. The juxtaposition of different groups
sharpens the awareness of each of the uniqueness of its own customs at the same time as the competition for available resources imposes on each the necessity for justifying its own position in opposition to the others. The rate at which each group developed a group or ethnic identity varied with the historical and contemporary experiences of the group. The Ngoni, for example, seem to have arrived with a ready-made sense of identity which grew out of their earlier experiences. Others, such as the Kololo, quickly developed a largely fictitious identity in order to strengthen their position as a small minority, and to provide an umbrella of identity under which others might cluster. The Mang'anja, on the other hand, seem to have lacked a larger sense of group identity at this time, hindered perhaps by historical rivalries.12

Although the Yao migrations initially consisted of matrilineal kinship groups, their slaves, and followers, these groups were frequently joined by others whom they met along the way. These were people who had been displaced themselves and who needed to attach themselves to a group for security. In this way, Yao groups could become quite large. One settlement in the highlands near Magomero was estimated to contain two to three thousand people. These large groups, however, were of necessity only temporary, since, as a European
observed at the time, "Want of food, division among themselves, and the incapacity of the land to support any great number of people in one place would compel them to separate, and settle in various parts of the country."13 While some people joined the migrating groups through choice, others seem to have been impressed. Lovell Proctor believed that all of the women in the Yao camp which the U.M.C.A. missionaries fought in August 1861 were captives. One woman told Proctor that she had come to Chikala with Malemia, but had stayed behind and settled with the local people when he moved on. However, when Malemia returned to Chikala, she was enslaved by him. Thus, groups of migrants might increase or decrease over time.14

Not all the Yao who entered southern Malawi and settled there came in groups, and not all migrants were a source of disruption. There were Yao settled in the area before the major migrations, Yao who had come into the region as traders and remained, or who had come, like one Ntula, to buy food, only to find himself captured and enslaved. In other cases Yao migrants were undoubtedly welcomed by local Mang'anja chiefs because of the goods they could provide as traders. Similarly, in later times, the Mang'anja welcomed Zimba and Phodzo migrants because of their skills as elephant and hippopotamus hunters, and Mwenga because of their abilities in working metal. The Yao settlers themselves later welcomed coastal traders who came to southern Malawi, settled at Yao towns to carry on the slave and ivory trade, and were a source of much desired goods from thecoast.15

While, as Mitchell points out, "the Yao invasion of Nyasaland was not a military incursion of the Ngoni type," neither was it possible in the circumstances for such a large scale migration to take place completely peacefully.16 Livingstone and other British observers in the 1860s, interpreting the Yao migrations mainly from the viewpoint of their Mang'anja hosts, saw the Yao as slavers preying upon the peaceful and helpless Mang'anja. As Livingstone described it:

The usual way in which they have been advanced among the Mang'anja has been by slave-trading in a friendly way. Then professing to wish to live as subjects, they had been welcomed as guests, and the Mang'anja, being great agriculturists, have been able to support considerable bodies of these visitors for a long time. When the provisions became scarce, the guests began to steal from the fields; quarrels arose in consequence, and the Ajawa having firearms, their hosts got the worst of it, and were expelled from village after village, and out of their country.l7

Decades after the event, when Nyasaland, and the Yao, had fallen under British control, a different interpretation of these events was offered:

Pressed south, they came to the country round lake Shirwa, and, as there was plenty of land, they would have settled peaceably, but for the Mang'anja or Nyasa race, who fought with their weary (and perhaps thieving) guests, and sold them in crowds to the Portuguese.... By degrees the Yao found themselves the stronger, and turned the tables on the Mang'anja, selling them to the Portuguese.... 18

Which then, if either, were the Yao migrants: insidious immigrants, taking advantage of the hospitality of a peaceful agricultural people in order to seize control of their land and drive them out, or hapless refugees
driven into southern Malawi where they met, not hospitable farmers, but belligerent slavers? Perhaps both of these extremes describe part of what took place during these migrations, but each simplifies the events,
ignoring the importance of the political and economic setting in which they occurred.

According to Schoffeleers, the Lundu state which had been established by the Mang'anja in the sixteenth century, and which at its height had extended from the Shire to the Indian Ocean north of the Zambesi, had collapsed in the seventeenth century due to the tripartite challenge of internal separatism, external migration and invasion, and long distance trade.l9 These three factors were still important in the second half of the nineteenth century, and were not without relevance in the Yao conquest of southern Malawi. By the nineteenth century, the "loose confederation of chiefdoms" which had made up the Lundu heartland, and which had been held together by a system of perpetual kinship in which the Lundu was recognized as the senior chief, and by a network of territorial shrines controlled by the ruling clans, had disintegrated. This absence of centralized power made it easier for the Yao to defeat and take over the individual Mang'anja chieftaincies. Although it may be easier for a centralized military force to take over a centralized state which provides an easily discernable target in its government, for relatively small, uncoordinated groups such as the Yao migrants, the small, individually weak Mang'anja chiefdoms provided a more manageable opposition.

While the political weakness of the Mang'anja had historical roots in the disintegration of the Lundu state, there were also contemporary factors which exacerbated their problems. In 1862, as the Yao were beginning
their move into the highlands of southern Malawi, ecological disaster struck in the form of a severe drought and consequent famine which took its extreme form in the lower river valley where there was little enough rainfall in normal times, but which also affected the highlands. The famine was probably a decisive factor in the Yao migrations. Mitchell hit upon an important point when he noted that "informants maintain that many of the first immigrants came into the country peacefully and in small family groups."20 No doubt these early immigrants, because they were few in number, were able to settle in the area without putting too much strain on the resources of the highlands.

The famine which Livingstone and the newly arrived U.M.C.A. missionaries observed and described in the early 1860s was worsened by the arrival of thousands of Yao who, needing food, raided those crops which the highland Mang'anja were waiting to harvest.21 The failure of rains in 1862 caused devastating famine in the river valley and in the lower plateaus where rainfall as a rule was uncertain. One observer estimated that 9 percent of the river Mang'anja died during this famine.22 These Mang'anja were replaced by others fleeing from the Yao in the highlands. While the Kololo are sometimes credited with containing the Yao in the highlands and preserving the river below the cataracts as a Mang'anja area, it was probably this famine which kept the Yao from moving down to the valley where conditions were anything but inviting, thus giving the still weak Kololo time to consolidate their position in the region.

Among the early immigrants who seem to have come peaceably into the highlands was a group which the missionaries had a chance to observe. This was the large group of two to three thousand Yao previously mentioned, which had fled south before the attacks of the Machinga chief Malemia, and had settled near Magomero shortly before the U.M.C.A. established their first station there. By 1861, these Yao had established villages and intermarried with neighboring Mang'anja and were raising crops.

This state of affairs was short-lived, however. In 1861 a second Mangoche chief, known as Chowe, or Jowi, arrived on the scene, "plundering and burning in every direction." In 1862 war broke out between Kampama and the local Mang'anja chief, Bawi, who had always refused to give permission for the Yao to settle in his territory (although one European observer believed they had received permission from the chief Chisamba).23

The early peacefulness of Kampama's settlement was not to be characteristic of the migration as a whole. The Yao, whom the missionaries found settled near Magomero in 1861, were only the southernmost pocket of the vast migration which would soon engulf the highlands. Within a few months, the Yao had moved in force into the southern highlands, and the local Mang'anja chiefs were forced either to flee or to attempt collaboration with earlier Yao settlers against the greater threat of the latest invaders. Even the English missionaries took the conquest as a fait accompli at this point, and attempted a reconciliation with the future rulers of the country.24 For many of the Mang'anja, however, collaboration turned out to be too little or too late. In April 1863, Horace Waller noted:

Sotchi has met with the fate we prophesied for him. The Achawas allowed him and his people to grow a great deal of corn and now he has to flee for his life while his proteges eat his corn.25

Two months later, Waller recorded the flight of two more Mang'anja chiefs:

Chinsunzi and Kankomba have gone to the Anguru country, they say and there seems to be literally an absence of Mang'anja in the land where thousands were when we arrived and tens of thousands on its discovery by the Doctor.26

Despite the fact that these descriptions leave little doubt that the Yao invasion at this stage was not accomplished peacefully, the military technology available to either side was not sufficiently advanced to cause great loss of life in battle. The evidence indicates that both sides possessed guns, but it is clear that neither was equipped with sufficient firearms or ammunition to make firepower a significant factor, other than psychologically. Although the Yao are often credited with superior weaponry, they claimed to have been driven out of their own country in the first place because the Makua had guns and they did not. In one of the first military encounters between the Yao and the Mang'anja in the southern highlands, the Mang'anja made up an army of 500 men, fifteen of whom carried guns, but none of whom had ammunition for their fire-arms.27 On the other hand, Livingstone described an early encounter with a "large body" of Yao in August 1861 in which the missionaries and their followers engaged in battle. Although four of the Yao had guns, the mission group was shot at with poisoned arrows.

Lovell Proctor also noted that the Yao living near Magomero at that time had "a few guns, but very little powder."28 It is impossible, however, to generalize very far from this. At the end of 1863, Livingstone, travelling north to the southern tip of Lake Malawi commented that "the secret of [the Yao's] success is the possession of firearms," and noted the presence of "a large party of Ajawa ... all armed with muskets" at one village. At this point, it may be that what the sources reveal is a difference between the Mangoche Yao and the Machinga, who may have been far better armed due to their more extensive involvement in the slave and ivory tradewith the coast.29

The character of the first contacts between the Yao invaders and the Mang'anja was determined not only by current political and economic conditions in southern Malawi, but also by earlier contacts which the Yao had had with the area. Unlike migrants whose original homelands lay far from southern Malawi, such as the Ngoni, the Yao were moving into an area which had long been familiar to them. It is impossible to document in any detail the pre-invasion contacts between the Yao and the various Maravi peoples of the southern Lake and Shire region, but there is sufficient evidence that these contacts had been considerable.

It is, as E.A. Alpers points out, likely that intermarriage was fairly common in areas where Yao and Maravi peoples lived in close proximity. This type of social interaction could have been accomplished with little friction between peoples whose customs and cultures were as similar as those of the Yao and Maravi. Numerous nineteenth century observers commented on the similarities between these two groups, and some even suggested that they must be related.30 Better evidence is available for contacts between the Yao and the Maravi through trade. Most of this evidence, tracing these contacts back at least to the seventeenth century, has been collected by Alpers for his study of Yao trade. He points out that, although the Maravi supplied many of the items for the long distance trade to the coast, including ivory, slaves, and the so-called enxadas de Mujao, or Yao hoes, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they had scant involvement in transporting these items beyond the limits of their own territory. Rather, they acted as middlemen, transferring goods from Bisa traders coming from the west to Yao caravans, or as suppliers of goods to the Yao caravans which came to Maravi country to trade and carry the goods to the coast. cites oral testimony to the effect that the Machinga first came into Maravi country to trade for iron goods, while Stannus suggests an even closer link when he says that the Yao learned the skill of ironsmelting from the "Anguru and Anyanja."32

Abdallah also mentions the trading links between the Yao and the Maravi, links which he claims pre-dated the slave trade. The Yao, he says, took goods from the coast "to the Anyasa, the Amanganja peoples south of Chikala, buying salt and cattle from them ... others went to the lake shore at Ng'omba, to Likowe and further south where CheMambe (Mponda) now lives."33 The trade across the southern lake and the Shire was most likely carried on by local middlemen who, unlike the Yao, were experienced in the handling of canoes.

Established trading contacts and trade routes seem to have been a significant factor in determining where the Yao settled on moving into southern Malawi. Lance Klass recorded a tradition that Mkumba I had given Matipwiri and Kuntilamanja gunpowder with which they were to capture Chiperone Hill from the Amalolo. "Matipwili and Kuntilamanja stayed there as Mkima I had told them, so that Mkumba's people would have a place to rest on their way to trade on the coast at Ciwambo."34 This Matipwiri's successor is said to have moved his headquarters to Mt. Mlanje, from which vantage point he could control trade passing from the southern lake to Quelimane. Alpers points out that Yao traders bringing slaves, ivory and iron hoes were well-known at Quelimane by 1859, that is, before their settlement in southern Malawi had taken any clear shape. It is certain that when the Yao did settle down, the most important chiefs chose to settle at places which would give them control over this previously existing trade route. This may have been part of an effort tooffset their loss of control of the ivory trade west of the Shire to the Bisa.35

Further evidence for long-standing contacts between the Yao and the peoples of the southern lake region can be found in certain cultural similarities, such as tshe sharing of clan names. As Mitchell points out, certain clan names among the Yao (Phiri, Milasi, Mbewe, Banda, Simbiri, Mwale, Ngoma) also appear among the Chewa, Mang'anja, Chipeta, Mbo, Lakeside Tonga, Mpotolo, and Lomwe peoples. These clan names do not appear among the Yao in Tanzania or the Acisi Yao under Katuli. No Yao group has any traditions of origin to explain these clan names, nor are these names common words for objects in Yao as they are in Chewa. On the basis of this evidence, Mitchell suggests that the Yao may have acquired their clan names through contact with the peoples of the Maravi empire.36 

Clan names were also of significance in determining the pattern of settlement of the Yao in southern Malawi. Mitchell points out instances in which the sharing of clan names is remembered as important, and suggests that a common clan name was used as a claim for protection and as an excuse for settling in an area.37 A most interesting and well documented case of the use of shared clan name by an intrusive group is that of the Machinga chief Malemia who moved into an area controlled by a Nyanja chief named Nyani whose clan name was Mwale, as was that of Malemia. Mitchell finds no reason to think, as Stannus claims, that Malemia purchased land from Nyani for a red blanket. Mitchell prefers the explanation that Nyani placed himself under Malemia's protection, thereby giving Malemia the chieftainship, an explanation which he supports by pointing out that the present-day Nyani is only a village headman in Malemia's area, and that Malemia was the acknowledged chief by 1878.38

Two additional instances where clan names were of significance can be cited. Mitchell cites a second case of a Machinga chief, Kawinga, who, on fleeing from Chikala to escape raids by the British, crossed the border into Mozambique, and settled there with a Mpotola chief named Nkanyele, whose clan, Mbewe, was the same as Kawinga's.39 Hodgson, writing in 1933, noted that though the distinctions of clan are falling daily deeper in disregard, a Mchewa will treat a Myao of the same clan as his mbaZa, or brother, and recently, when the Chewa chief, Mwase, died at Kasunga, the Yao chief Makanjira, living on the lake shore made a journey of fifty miles to attend his funeral ceremonies because both were members of the Phiri clan.40

The Yao and Chewa also share a tradition of origin which may spring from long contact, or from Yao invaders assuming the traditions of the local people.41 According to the Chewa tradition, the Chewa people originated in a place called Kapirimantiya, where footprints mark the spot where man and animals were created. Hamilton and Marwick, studying this tradition and another which places the origin of the Chewa in Luba country, have deduced that these two myths record the origins of two segments of the Chewa, the first
account belonging to the Banda, who are traditionally the clan closely related to the land and rainmaking, and possibly derived from the earliest settlers, and the second recording the origin of the chiefly Phiri clan, who may have come from the Luba country as chiefly invaders. In the comparable Yao tradition, the first men were supposed to have come from west of Lake Malawi where, on a hill called Kapilintiya, two pairs of footprints, those of a man and a woman, are still visible in the rock.42

Once the Yao had established themselves in southern Malawi, the similarities of custom between them and the Mang'anja made accommodation possible for both sides. Duff Macdonald was so struck by these similarities in the 1870s that he concluded that "in their natural state, the Anyasa have the same customs as the Yao."43 Although his conclusion was overstated, his observation is suggestive. Although many Mang'anja fled before the original Yao migrants, others remained or soon returned, and intermarriage was a regular feature of Yao-Mang'anja relations from the start. Both were matrilineal and uxorilocal in their marriage customs. The practice of preferred exogamy made intermarriage more acceptable than it might otherwise have been, and the practice of polygamy, especially by chiefs, made it easier for Yao chiefs to establish important family connections among the local people.

Although Islam would later become the dominant religion among the Yao, many of the first Yao invaders found it useful to adapt themselves to Mang'anja religious customs, especially when they wished to gain access to the spirits associated with the land. Macdonald noted that the Yao chief, Kapeni, continued to invoke the aid of Kagomba, his Mang'anja predecessor, when rain was needed. The belief that those chiefly ancestors who controlled the land could best be invoked by their own descendants made it necessary for Kapeni to seek assistance from those of his Mang'anja subjects who could trace some connection with Kangomba. In this way, the Mang'anja were able to retain an important position in their country.44

Politically the Yao and Mang'anja shared similar, largely decentralized systems. Mary Douglas observed that the Mang'anja "system of administration was sufficiently like that of the Yao for the Maravi headmen in Yao dominated areas to become incorporated into the Yao political system."45 The Yao system consisted of a land chief who controlled a defined territory which was divided into villages each of which had its own headman. The chief ruled his capital and was responsible for arbitrating serious disputes, protecting his headmen, and leading his followers into war. He acted with the advice of a council of headmen. In return, his headmen were expected to send him the ground tusk of any elephant killed in his territory, to provide fighters in case of war, and, if they were senior headmen, to act as members of his council. The Mang'anja system was basically the same, although in theory it included a further level of centralization. In practice, however, the existence of the Lundu was irrelevant, and once the important Mang'anja chiefs were replaced, the lesser chiefs or headmen were able in many circumstances to remain

In contrast to the Yao were the Kololo who were introduced into southern Malawi, more or less incidentally, by David Livingstone. When Livingstone returned to Barotseland in 1860, he found Sekeletu suffering from leprosy, and his conquest kingdom showing signs of stress under his leadership. On leaving Barotseland to return to the Shire region, Livingstone was accompanied by two Kololo, Ramakukan and Mloka, their servants, and a group of canoemen. Ramakukan and Mloka, whom Sekeletu designated as the headman of the group, were to return to Sekeletu with medicine for his leprosy. In the end, however, none of the party returned to Sekeletu, who died in 1863 and whose kingdom was overthrown by Lozi insurgents shortly thereafter. It was this group of about fifteen migrants which carried out the consolidation of power in the Shire valley during the next two decades.

The introduction of the Kololo into the Shire at this time was to have important consequences. Within a few years this small band of foreigners, who arrived unable to speak the language and without wealth or means of support, managed to gain control of the whole river from the Ruo to the cataracts. Although documentation for the Kololo takeover in this area is spotty, the process deserves close attention for what it can reveal about the intriguing problem of how such "chiefly invaders" and "wandering hunters" operate. Lucy Mair has postulated three prime factors in the assumption of rule without conquest: the recognition of the privileged status of the incoming group, the use of polygamy to increase the size of the group, and the availability of unattached (that is, unprotected) people to form a following.46 All of these factors played a part in the establishment of the Kololo on the Shire, but their situation involved other factors as well.

Contemporary observers tended to regard two factors as decisive in explaining the success which the Kololo achieved. Of foremost importance was the disruption caused by the famine suffered throughout the area in 1862-1863 and exacerbated by the incursions of Yao and Portuguese slavers. The second factor, which is usually emphasized, is the intervention of David Livingstone who is seen as having deputized the Kololo as protectors of the Mang'anja upon his departure and provided them with arms and ammunition for this purpose. 47 While it is true that Livingstone gave guns and ammunition to the Kololo, his role in their success should not be overemphasized. In fact the Kololo had already begun their bid for power before Livingstone was recalled, and they had acted largely without his consent, and even against his expressed wishes since he continued to attempt to force them to return to Sekeletu.48

While these factors played a significant part in the success of the Kololo, they exclude one essential factor. Given the necessary prerequisite of the breakdown of political stability, the most significant factor in the Kololo success was undoubtedly the customs and abilities which they brought to this area from the conquest state in Barotseland, and which proved to be uniquely well-suited to the situation in which they found themselves in southern Malawi. They had an early introduction to this situation when they accompanied Livingstone in the summer of 1861 on a journey to Lake Malawi, travelling up the left bank of the Shire where they saw "thousands of Mang'anja fugitives living in temporary huts on that side, who had been driven from their villages on the opposite hills by the Ajawa."49 The Kololo were settled on the river below the cataracts under the auspices of Chibisa, an upstart chief who had established friendly relations with Livingstone, and on their journeys to the U.M.C.A. station at Magomero they observed people fleeing from the wars in the highlands.

The establishment of new villages along the river was a common occurrence among the Mang'anja, many of whom set up temporary villages on the river to farm in the dry season. After the Kololo were left at Chibisa's in 1861, they had either to return to Barotseland or to fend for themselves. Their solution was to establish a village of their own where they built up a following of numerous refugees, and planted gardens to feed themselves and their followers. In this, their previous experiences meshed well with their current needs. At first they put themselves under the protection of Chibisa, who may have felt the need of well-armed allies at that time, and who gave them permission to start gardens, ordering any of his people who had more than one garden to give one to them. The Kololo also began to accumulate wealth by raiding the herds and gardens of neighboring Mang'anja.50 Horace Waller believed they did this with Chibisa's consent, that they were so "hand in glove with him all proceedings of this kind were winked at if not even favored in order that a share might come to him."51 Whether they acted in complicity with Chibisa or not, it is clear that they were acting much as they had in Barotseland, where Livingstone had observed that the King sanctioned cattle raiding among neighboring groups.52

It was apparently a fairly easy matter in the circumstances to build up their small numbers. Following the early habit of the U.M.C.A., they went around breaking up slave caravans and taking the liberated slaves under their protection. The women frequently became their wives, and the men served as farm labor or aided in their
plundering expeditions. They also attached to themselves a number of Yao and Mang'anja from among those who were displaced by the famine and wars on the highlands. Livingstone commented in 1862 that the Kololo at Chibisa's were "living in true native style with many wives." Most of these wives were Yao women; the Kololo claimed that the Mang'anja would not allow them to marry their daughters.53

This may have reflected a resistance among the Mang'anja to marrying their daughters patrilineally. Monica Wilson noted that the Chewa exhibited a similar resistance to marriage with Ngoni men, despite the prestige the Ngoni enjoyed and the cattle they offered, because in Chewa society status derived from the number of followers a man commanded.54 Apparently Chibisa did not share this reluctance. Mloka married a daughter of his, thereby winning the right to reside at Chibisa's village. Whether this affiliation with the local political authority played a role or not in Mloka's rise to power, Livingstone mentioned in April 1863 that "there was some talk of making Mloka a chief."55

While there is conflicting evidence on the importance of guns to the Yao migrants, the possession of guns (though few in number) was a major factor in the success of the Kololo. The Kololo seem to have made great use of their guns. Rowley noted that they "went nowhere without their guns, which they invariably carry loaded and on full cock."56 They used their weapons for a variety of purposes. They acquired a reputation for breaking up slave caravans which passed through their territory on the way to Tete. They also had a less savory reputation gained as a result of their pillaging and the heavy handed justice they meted out to those under their control. On the other hand, their possession of guns gave them the military power to secure their area against Yao and Ngoni incursions on occasions, and guns were an important underpinning of their economic success. With guns provided by Livingstone, they were able to hunt elephants and trade the ivory for more guns and ammunition.57

The Kololo were apparently able to organize their own group quickly into a small government centered at Chikwawa. Primacy fell first to Mloka, and later to Ramakukan, who, as has been noted, were the only true Kololo in the group. The introduction of patrilineal succession was a vital step in holding power. As Rangeley pointed out, This was not in respect for the only two pure Makololo among them, Maloka and Kasisi (Ramakukan), although they all called themselves Makololo. Mobita and Zomba, for instance; we know were of the matrilineal BaRotse. They had no alternative but to adopt patrilineal succession if the Makololo blood was to survive at all in the chieftaincy.58

While the Kololo found it convenient to remain under the protection of Chibisa when they first arrived in the region, this solution to their problem was no longer tenable after Chibisa moved away from the river to Doa to the southwest, and was killed late in 1863. At this point, having alienated many of the river chiefs by their marauding and their alliance with Chibisa, the Kololo may have found it necessary as well as advantageous to consolidate their position by destroying the traditional political authorities in the area. Just as Sebituane had found the internal divisions among the Lozi could be used to his advantage, so the Kololo on the Shire were able to use divisions among the Mang'anja, and enmities between Yao and Mang'anja, to defeat the local rulers.

Their first target was Chibisa's old rival, the current Lundu, Sakhonja. Their challenge to the Lundu's control of agricultural land and his right to control elephant hunting in his territory led to sporadic fighting and finally to an attack on his village at Livunzu in 1863,59 At about this time Sakhonja sent a tusk of ivory to Senor Ferrao, a Portuguese trader of great influence at Sena, requesting that he take possession of his country in order to protect it from the Kololo. Ferrao refused this invitation on the grounds that the Lundu's territory was too far away.60 It might also be noted that Ferrao had by this time established himself as a middleman for the Kololo ivory trade, so he had an interest in the continued success of the Kololo. At any rate, Sakhonja was left to the Kololo. Following a final quarrel over ivory hunting rights, the Kololo and their Yao followers attacked him and burned and looted his village. With the Lundu out of the way, the Kololo then turned to Tragonja Lundu at Mbewe and Mgundo Kaphwiti at Mtope north of the cataracts, both of whom were killed.61

While the Kololo had the advantages of superior arms and experience in the building of a conquest state, and a single-minded determination to defeat their enemies, some of the responsibility for their success rested with the Mang'anja themselves, who were frequently willing to aid the Kololo, as they had sometimes aided the Yao, in an effort to weaken their old enemies. In return, the Mang'anja were effectively organized for defense by their Kololo rulers. While often harsh in dealing with their subjects, the Kololo earned a certain amount of loyalty and respect for their ability to protect their followers not only from the Yao and the Portuguese, but from the formidable Ngoni, just as Sebituane had protected the Lozi from the Ndebele incursions, and thus won for a time the loyalty of those subject people.

By the middle of the decade the Kololo had established themselves firmly on the middle reaches of the Shire, and were "the chiefs of the country round about."62 Their further expansion was prevented by the presence of the Ngoni and the Machinga chief Mponda to the north, and by the Portuguese and the Mang'anja chief Tengani to the south. The land over which they had gained control remained under their power until the imposition of British rule at the end of the century.

The Yao and Kololo experiences offer instructive examples of the way in which successful migration and settlement could occur in nineteenth century Africa. They point up the significance of local conditions in the early stages of migration. In the case of southern Malawi, economic conditions, including the existence of longdistance trade routes, made this an attractive area. The traditional political patterns in the area, which included the absence of centralized authority, the historical failure of the inhabitants to form alliances for mutual protection, and the frequent emergence of upstart chiefs, all offered a receptive setting for migrants. In addition, the particular disruptions caused by drought and famine, and by the political disturbances in the Portuguese sphere to the south provided additional opportunities for better armed or better organized migrants.

Success in the long run, however, depended not only on local conditions, but also on the attitudes and capabilities each of the migrant groups brought with it to this situation. Every group, like every individual, is molded by its past experience, and it is to some extent a matter of chance whether that experience proves functional or otherwise in a given situation. For the Yao and the Kololo, past experience proved to be a useful guide for future success in the unsettled conditions of southern Malawi in the 1860s and 1870s. The Kololo, coming from a recently organized conquest state, carried with them knowledge of the practices of successful conquerors, while the Yao were able to draw on a long history of contact with the people of the region, and both groups were able, using previously acquired skills and knowledge, to take advantage of the economic opportunities which this region offered.


Footnote

1.Although it is not possible to estimate the population in the period under discussion, the pattern was noticeable at the time, and continues today, especially in the Highlands where there are some of the highest population densities in Africa. See William Hance, The.Geography of Modern Africa, 2nd ed. (New York, 1975), 477-478.


2.The original version of this article appeared as a chapter in my dissertation, "Southern Malawi, 1860-1891: A Case Study of a Frontier" (U.C.L.A., 1978), the research for which was conducted in archives in Portugal, England, and Scotland under a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant. Revisions have
been made utilizing the more abundant published material now available outside Malawi, but without access to the richer sources available only in Malawi, as the fieldnotes of the Zomba Oral History Research Project. The generous and helpful comments of an anonymous reviewer have also been incorporated.

3.Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna (Madison, 1966), 18. In his useful discussion of migrations, Vansina chose to use the term "migration" only for "movements of population on the scale of politically sovereign communities, or at least of politically organized communities from the village upwards." Although the Kololo were neither of these, they did become a "politically sovereign" group, and their impact was comparable to that of larger groups. For this reason, and for comparative purposes, their movement into southern Malawi is referred to as a migration. In considering how the Kololo episode can cast light on the convention of chiefly invaders, however, it is necessary to keep in mind the sort of distortions which can enter into accounts of this type of event. For example, E.C. Mandala points out that traditions among the northern Mang'anja have shaped the Kololo intrusions to fit the model of the earlier Phiri occupation of the region. E.C. Mandala, "The Nature andSubstance of Mang'anja and Kololo Oral Traditions: A Preliminary Survey," The Society of Malawi Journal, 31, 1 (1978), 7.

4.Of the four main divisions of the Yao listed by Mary Tew Douglas, Peoples of the Lake Nyasa Region (London, 1950), the Chisi, Masaninga, Mangache, and Machinga, we are concerned here only with the last two, which settled in the region southwest of Lake Malawi and along the upper Shire River. Duff Macdonald, Africana (London, 1969) [1882], I, 31 and 334-336.

5.Yohanna Abdallah, The Yaos, trans. and ed. by Meredith Sanderson (Zomba,1919), 36.

6.Edward A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London, 1975), 250-251.

7. Ibid., 30. Robert Laws, who arrived in Malawi in 1875 to found the Livingstonia Mission, noted the relationship between agricultural practices and political stability. "When travelling through a district in early days," he wrote, "I used to consider that, if I came across cassava as the principal produce of the native gardens, the soil was either very poor, or the country was politically in a very disturbed state...." Robert Laws, Reminiscences of Livingstonia (Edinburgh, 1934), 251.

8. A useful description of these migrations is to be found in Violet Lucy Jhala, "The Yao in the Shire Highlands, 1861-1915: Political Dominance and Reaction to Colonialism," Journal of Social Science, 9, (1982), 1-21.

9.J. Clyde Mitchell, The Yac V-"'17-, . Study in the Social Structure of a Nyasaland Tribe (Manchester, '1966), 68 69.

10.J. Clyde Mitchell, "Preliminary Notes on Land Tenure and Agriculture among the Machinga Yao," Nyasaland Journal V, 2 (July 1952), 18.

11.R.S. Hynde, "Among the Machinga People," Scottish Geographical Magazine VII, 12 (December 1891), 658.

12.Jhala, "The Yao in the Shire Highlands," makes an interesting case for the importance of ethnic awareness among the Yao during the colonial period, pointing out how their image of themselves as a dominant group helped to shape their reactions to the opportunities and challenges of the colonial period. E.C. Mandala, "The
Nature and Substance of Mang'anja and Kololo Oral Traditions," 6-7, points out that continued immigration has had an impact on Mang'anja identity. Contrasting the Nsanje administrative district, where the Mang'anja account for only about 25 percent of the population, with the Chikwawa district where the comparable figure is close to 50 percent, he shows how being a sociological minority has led to a more rigid pattern of identification among the Nsanje Mang'anja.

13.Henry Rowley, The Story of the Universities: Mission to Central Africa. 2nd edition (London, 1867), 152-153, 406.

14.Lovell Proctor, The Central African Journal of Lovell J. Proctor, 1860-1864, edited by Norman R. Bennett and Marguerite Ylvisaker (Boston, 1971), 107, 144.

15.Bishop Mackenzie's Journal, 29 September 1961, U.M.C.A., I. Al (B), United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, London. A.W.R. Duly, "The Lower Shire District, Notes on Land Tenure and Individual Rights," Nyasaland Journal, I (July 1948), 23. Ian Linden, Catholics, Peasants, and Chewa Resistance in Nyasatand, 1889-1939 (London, 1974), 22.

16.Mitchell, The Yao Village, 25.

17. David Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambeai and Its Tributaries; and of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864, (London, 1865), 497.

18.A.E.M. Anderson-Morsehead, The History of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, 1859-1909, 5th ed. (London, 1909), 21-22.

l9. Matthew Schoffeleers, "Livingstone and the Mang'anja Chiefs," in Bridglal Pachai, editor, Livingstone: Man of Africa. Memorial Essays 1873-1973 (London, 1973), 114.

20.Mitchell, The Yao Village, 25.

21.Horace Waller Papers, vol. V, 16 December 1861, Rhodes House, Oxford.

22.U.M.C.A., Al. II, Rowley to Bishop of Capetown, 22 January 1863, in South African Advertiser and Mail, 2 June 1863. Rowley, Story, 366.

23.Proctor, Central African Journal, 188-259. Rowley, Story, 152-153. U.M.C.A., Al. II, Scudamore to Mother, 17 March 1861. U.M.C.A., Al. II, Rowley to Rev. Mr. Glover, I May 1862.

24.Lovell Proctor wrote in his Journal in December 1862, 380: Kainka (Kawinga) & the Machinga have come down in force from Chikala and destroyed Chinsunzis and Kankamba's places, and ... Bawi and Chigunda have ended by following Sotchi's example and uniting themselves with the Achawa for safety. It only remains for us to try to get a footing among the new Possessors of the country.

25.Waller Papers, vol. V, 29 April 1863.

26. Ibid., 1 June 1863.

31 Ian Linden
27 Rowley, Story, 128.

28 proctor, Central African Journal, 103.

29 Livingstone, Narrative , 361 and 496. This conclusion is confirmed in Kings M.G. Phiri, "The Pre-Colonial History of Southern Malawi: An Interpretive Essay," Journal of Social Science, 8 (1980/81) 36.

30 Edward A. Alpers, "The Yao in Malawi: The Importance of Local Research," in Bridglal Pachai, editor, The Early History of Malawi (London, 1972), 169.

31.Edward A. Alpers, "The Role of the Yao in the Development of Trade in East-Central Africa, 1698-c. 1850" (D. Phil. Thesis, University of London, June 1966).

32 Linden, Catholics, 22. Hugh Stannus, "The Wayao of Nyasaland," Harvard African Studies, Varia Africana II. Cambridge, 1922, 344.

33 Abdallah, The Yaos, 28.

34 Lance J. Klass, "The Amachinga Yao of Malawi: Field Research Papers." Unpublished papers based on field research in Nyambi area, November 1968-1970. In possession of Dr. E.A. Alpers, U.C.L.A.

35 Alpers, Ivory and Slaves, 246.

36 Mitchell, The Yao Village, 71.

37 Ibid., 73. The importance of clan names may have been more generalized among the Yao and the Mang'anja. Audrey Lawson suggests that villages were tied together by cross-cousin marriages and that these ties may have been based on affinities between pairs of clans which treated each other as relatives, cousins for the purpose of marriage. See Lawson, "An Outline of the Relationship System of the Nyanja and Yao Tribes in South Nyasaland," African Studies VIII, 4 (December 1949) 190. Most recently the significance of shared clan names has been pointed out by Megan Vaughan, "Which Family?: Problem in the Reconstruction of the History of the Familyas an Economic and Cultural Unit," Journal of African History, XXIV, 2 (1983), 179.

38 Mitchell, "Outline," 21.

39 Mitchell, The Yao Village, 73.

40.A.C.O. Hodgson, "Notes on the Achewa and Angoni of the Dowa District of the Nyasaland Protectorate," The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, LXIII (1933), 143-144. Abdallah, The Yaos, 40, states, however, that Makanjira was a Chewa by birth.

41.Alpers, "The Role of the Yao," 62. Macdonald, Africana I, 74-75, states that Yao legends "state that the Wayao, Anyasa, Angulu, Awisa and others sprang from a common stock, and explain how these tribes separated through one going to one side of the country and another, another. The chief cause of such separations is said to be war."

42 S.S. Murray, editor, A Handbook for Nyasaland(London: Crown Agents for the Colonies for the Government of Nyasaland, 1932), 81, 86. M.G. Marwick, "History and Tradition in East Central Africa, Through the Eyes of the Northern Rhodesian Cewa," Journal of African History, IV, 3 (1963), 378.

43 Macdonald, Africana I, 199.

44 Ibid., I, 70 and 141.

45 Douglas, Peoples, 45.

46 Lucy Mair, Primitive Government (Baltimore: 1966) 121-122.

47Macdonald, Africana, I, 198; Rowley, Story, 277; H.H. Johnston, British Central Africa (London, 1887), 6, Douglas, Peoples, 36.
e, David, The Zambesi Expedition of David Livingstone, 1858-1863, edited by J.P.R. Wallis, vol. II (London, 1956), 225.

48,Livingstone
49 Livingstone, Narrative, 388.

50Proctor, Central African Journal, 216, 259; 15 March 1862: "According to Makololo customs, the fact of anyone possessing a goat near them is sufficient to bring 2 or 3 of them down to seize it."

51Waller Papers, vol. V, 21 June 1862.

52Livingstone, Narrative, 299.

53. National Library of Scotland, Records of Established Church and Free Church of Scotland, MS. 10715, 1 January 1862 and March 1863.

54.Monica Wilson, "Changes in Social Structure in Southern Africa: The Relevance of Kinship Studies to the Historian," in Leonard Thompson, ed., African Societies in Southern Africa (London, 1969), 76.

55.Livingstone, The Zambesi Expedition, II, 230.

56.Rowley, Story, 168.

5
58 W.H.J. Rangeley, "The Makololo of Dr. Livingstone," Nyasaland Journal XII, 1 (January 1959), 97. It should be noted that it was not the Lozi ("BaRotse') who were matrilineal, but many of their subjects.

59.aller Papers, vol. V, 17 November 1862.

60.Livingstone, The Zambesi Expedition, II, 236.

61Waller Papers, Vol. I, 19 August 1863, N.L.S., MS. 10715, Livingstone to Waller, March 1863, Proctor, Central African Journal, 373.
 
62.Edward Young, "Report of the Livingstone Search Expeditions," The Journal the of Royal Geographical Society, XXXVIII (1868), 112.






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