Natives Songs From Nyasaland 1921

by Mrs. Ella Kidney

Source: Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 20, No. 78 (Jan., 1921), pp. 116-126

Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society 

IT was with great pleasure I accepted your invitation to give a lecture this evening, and I feel it an honour to do so among you who are so learned in things African. Long ago I remember reading, with much interest, Sir

Harry Johnston's wonderful book on British Central Africa, and you will know that it was greatly owing to the wisdom and tact of your President that treaties were successfully arranged with the slave raiders, whose persistent and warlike operations were a constant trouble in that little corner of the world. And when a British Protectorate was afterwards proclaimed, the first Commissioner appointed was Sir Harry Johnston. So you will know all about the geography and history of Nyasaland.

But in bringing the subject of her music before you, I hope it will reveal a new interest, and I should like to say that I have written the music exactly as it is, untouched by European influence, and before degeneration had set in, as it has in the case of the negro music of America. In some of the settings I have tried to suggest the complex atmosphere of the quickly changing emotions. Anyone who has heard a native telling stories to his companions round a camp fire at night will know of the subtleties of expression and change of voice that he puts in, and the acute way he portrays each character in the yarn he is telling. And so it is in his music; and I suppose because it rings true to life it accounts for the occasional strange kinship to our modern musical thought.

Most of the music which we are to consider comes from Nyasaland, a land of lakes and mountains in the highlands of Africa, but some of it is from the sandy, tropical rivers flowing from the heart of the continent.

Nyasaland is called the "Cinderella" Protectorate by those who love her and believe that a fair future lies before her, but is more familiar to home communities as the land of Livingstone.

I should like you to understand that this music was sung or played by the various native tribes entirely for their own ceremonies, enjoyment, or amusement-never for European ears. There are certain melodies sung when travelling, known to those who are observant of such things, but the average person travelling, or even living, in Nyasaland is unaware of the extent of native music and of the very large part that music takes in the native life. Whether in highlands or lowlands, of warlike or pastoral habits, the natives are very shy of singing their choruses except among themselves, and quickly hush when it is known a stranger is approaching. During my first year in Africa I was often travelling up and down the Zambezi River, and was then able to study the boat songs. At that stage I could not understand their meaning, but later found it fascinating to follow the tilt of the

words also. At the end of a year I left the Zambezi River, and my home for sixteen years was among the mountains further north.

As time went on the natives around gradually gave me their confidence, and dusky visitors came often, bringing presents of sheep, beadwork, or skins from various parts of the country. At certain seasons of the year I occasionally visited other parts of the mountains, or went to Lake Nyasa, and thus was brought into touch with a variety of native life. I must confess that primarily my interest was among the women, and their customs and thoughts, and being a keen musician I gradually formed a collection of their songs. Looking back, I can see I could not have chosen a better way to gain the confidence of the menfolk and thus learn their music also. But it was a long labour, and at times discouraging- I have waited three, or even five, years for one song or chorus.

More than once, however, apparently in recognition of some slight service I had rendered to wife or child, a man would tell me of certain dances or war songs sung in his village, and knowing I had what to him seemed a mad craze in that direction, somehow persuaded his friends to let me hear them. On two occasions a little party of ten or twelve men even came to my garden, and sitting on the grass under the trees, sang their short repertoire to me, accompanied, native fashion, by a combination of sounds, crude enough, but, truth to tell, very effective with the voices.

In such a native orchestra there is first, a stringed instrument, something like a small lute, which has three strings and is plucked by the fingers.

Second, there are metal rattles to be shaken, giving tinkling sounds.

Third, rattles made of gourds, bringing in (shall we say?) the wood-wind !

Fourth, the tapping of small sticks on a large hollow bamboo (suggesting perhaps the xylophone).

Fifth, the rhythmic clapping of hands. And last, as a good foundation for all, drums, large and small.

These little performances were given on the distinct understanding that there should be no stranger present, and also that native women should not be allowed near. I suppose they felt it a little beneath their dignity to be seen entertaining a woman, even if she were white, but whatever the reason, the conditions were faithfully kept.

Before a more detailed account of the actual songs, I should like to convey something of the atmosphere of their surroundings, and ask you to imagine the care-free, open-air life of the primitive people who live there, and you will understand their natural effort to find expression of their emotions in music, crude though it may be.

The Rev. Dr. Norman McLean, who visited the country some few years ago on behalf of the Church of Scotland, and contributed a series of articles to the Scotsman, in one of them wrote: " It is strange to think how this great Lake of Nyasa lay here in the heart of Africa, with villages scattered thickly on its shores, and canoes gliding on its waters, and the wooded hills along its sides, and the glory of sky and cloud, sunrise and sunset, glowing on its bosom as on a polished mirror, while the centuries rolled and knew not even of its existence. As one sails out into the lake's deep and wide spaces, one forgets that it is an inland lake-it seemeth

as the sea. And there are ramparts of hills along its sides, and here and there valleys and dells opening among them. Its vastness appeals to the imagination; there is a haunting flush of loveliness on the face of Lake Nyasa."

* * * * * * *

It is rare in these enlightened days to come across music, untouched by softening and civilising influences-its rugged and melodic outline preserved-and from an historical point of view you will regret with me that it is so rapidly disappearing. In the last ten years I have often heard the younger natives singing, or rather murdering, good old English hymns and tunes, and the children are ignorant of the wild music of their fathers.

And now as to the circumstances of our first illustration, a very simple song sung by the Chikunda tribe, and written twenty years ago while on a little river flowing north from the sandy reaches of the Zambezi, within a short journey of the sacred spot where, by the river bank, Mrs. Livingstone was buried. A lovely glimpse of silvery water between mountains covered with primeval forest, grassy plains, a barge, dignified by the name of houseboat, intense heat, slow, lazy travelling-these all make up the journey. On each side of the deck of the barge stand eight brown figures, their supple, well-built bodies showing to perfection under the bright light of a tropical sky.

Each holds a long pole for punting, and their only clothing is of leopard or other skins, fastened around their loins. They make a picturesque group, with their silhouettes clear-cut against the sky. Were it not for their singing and slow, rhythmical movements, one could almost imagine them to be Greek statuary, so graceful and full of suggested strength is their wonderful poise. They sing in antiphonal fashion first one side, then the other taking up the refrain. The barge goes lazily on with the sixteen men punting while singing their slow songs, the time varied to the movements of their poles.

I have written English words, thinking they would be more interesting to you.

1. Out from the waters deep

Arose a misty cloud.

The palm-tree sprang from sand; it rears its head.

The white bird sings.

2. Now on the silvery stream

The grasses nodding float.

The sand-bird builds her nest, her cry is heard.

The sun sleeps on.

3. Low in the West she goes,

The rocks are dark and cold.

The village fires rise high with red and gold.

The night-jar sings.

The women do not take part in native music, and there are two distinct classes of male voices among Nyasaland Bantu tribes :-the first of high pitch, somewhat similar to falsetto in quality, much admired by the natives, and always used for solo parts when available; and the second, which approximates to our baritone, but is of a very rough description, and is the voice of the majority of the men.

Some of their music is founded on the Pentatonic scale, but not all of it by any means. Occasionally, but not often, certain notes were sung slightly, but definitely sharp or flat. These notes did not depend upon the idiosyncrasy of the singer, but belonged primarily to the song itself, and they were always sung in this manner though by different singers. In my manuscripts I have marked these specially inflected notes to indicate how they should be sung.

I have been surprised to discover among the natives their accurate sense of absolute pitch. It is natural to me, but I always carried a tuning fork as a check, and observed that the same songs and choruses sung on various occasions and by different people were practically unvarying in pitch, and in the spirit in which they were sung, though other words were often substituted.

The next illustration is from the Angoni, a race descended from the Zulus, who, resenting the fierce rule of Chaka, went North and settled on the shores of Lake Nyasa, intermarrying with the people there. These are two short songs sung by solo and chorus chiefly at dances during harvest time. The first is somewhat of nursery type about a little chicken with a little cry, but has a fascination of its own. You will notice the interweaving of the parts, and it is wonderful to watch the precision of the entries, remembering there are no conductors or trained singers there.

1. The little chicken ka-lira,

Oh! hear its grief and sorrow!

Cries softly,

Cries "Peep-peep "

Oh! hear its grief and sorrowl

2. The little chicken ka-lira,

Flut-t'ring its wings and feathers:

Cries shrilly,

Pecks gently,

Oh! hear its grief and sorrow!

The second is a merry-hearted impudent song of mischievous boys calling one another, and stealing Indian maize from the fields in the absence of the owner.

Robbers! Come to gather in your neighbour's field!

Lightly I Quickly come and gather up his corn.

Stealing softly in among the golden grain,

Gather! Pluck the fruit and hasten on again.

Golden corn. Seel It's ripe

Quickly come and gather up your neighbour's grain.

Now we turn to the songs of the road. When native chiefs or Europeans wish to go a long distance, they are carried in a canvas hammock called a machilla, slung on strong bamboo poles, and the teams of natives who bear these poles on their shoulders frequently amuse and encourage one another along the road by means of these songs while carrying out their arduous labours. They can carry a machilla a distance of two hundred miles at the rate of twenty miles a day, camping by the roadside at night, and it is no uncommon thing for them to make a single journey on foot of from forty to fifty miles in one day while assisting in the bearing of a heavy machilla.

While being carried thus I have been enabled to write many of these songs, and when halting for a rest in the middle of the day during the great heat, the natives making a fire and cooking their food, I have often elicited interesting information about the songs they had been singing. Some of these songs are sung by Angoni, of whom I have already spoken, and others by Ajawa or Yao tribes.

In the next illustration, the first originated among the boys who had been captured and driven from their homes by slave raiders, and then forced to work in strange countries, where their hearts hungered for their homes and kinsfolk.

1. Our work now is bitter: grievous. Howa-Howa.

Our work now is bitter: grievous. Howa-Howa.

Our brothers are smitten.

Our homes are forsaken: desolate.

Our children are scattered: homeless. Howa-Howa.

2. Our brothers are starving: hungry;

Our spirits are weary: hopeless.

Our shoulders are heavy: broken.

The day brings us sorrow and darkness.

Our work is bitter.

The second of these road songs is in a happier strain-of contented, strong workers looking forward to a good meal when they had reached the end of a journey. I need hardly remind any of the audience who have experience of coloured labour, of the unconcealed delight of the natives at the prospect of a lucky shot at game, which will provide them with a welcome meal.

1. Come, my people-come for fresh meat.

Come, my brothers-come and seek food.

Come, my people-come to buy meat.

Distant going-runs the wild buck,

Horns upraised, and eyes a-glowing.

Come and find him, quick we'll slay him.

2. 'Neath the thorn-tree, 'twixt the branches,

Round a valley, cross the streamlet,

Up the mountain now we track him,

Speed the arrow Hear its laughter!

Spear the wild buck! On the rafters

High we'll place his horns among us.

There are many of these travelling songs, but it is impossible

in a lecture to give more than an "impression " of them.

There are also many "calls "-long-drawn whistles and other sounds used by the natives to communicate with one another, each having its own particular meaning, and I was interested in making notes of them when possible. Although living among the natives so many years, I have never been able to obtain direct information about these "calls," so well are they guarded. When questioned concerning them, the individual always pretended not to understand. So, apart from general knowledge gathered from overhearing or taking part in native conversations, it was only by keen observation over an extended period that I was gradually able to make out the definite communications intended by definite sounds.

Among these children of Nature the sense of rhythm is evoked with intensity, and they are brothers to the modern student, who with a keen ear for the finish of phrases and gradation of tone, concentrates chiefly on the manner of singing, and the regular recurring pulsations, but I am afraid you would be horrified to hear the rough quality of many of the voices. It is interesting to note that I have never come across a song which might be classed as analogous to the civilised so-called "love-song," and this perhaps indicates their attitude of mind. They are very fond of their children, and are generally kind to their fathers and mothers, but singing a love-song to a dusky fair one is-unheard of! We will now turn to a side which in so many countries is voiced in passionate song--that of mourning and lamentation.

The first song of the next illustration is monotonous by reason of its having only three notes, but it vibrates with a real passion when sung in its homeland. The singer is in trouble, and the words present, not the literal meaning, but the native picturesque way of describing his sensations. The allusions to his pipe and his smoke mean his nearest and dearest. His smoke is much to him.

This will be immediately followed by a two-part boat song, from the Elephant March on the River Shire, and represents the villagers turning out of their huts to frighten away the large and fierce eagles they see flying overhead with evil intentions of carrying away any young birds or animals for their prey.

In the settings I have tried to convey that, although only three notes are sung in the first, it is sung in a varied manner and worked up to a certain climax, and also in the second to give the feeling of the gentle rocking movement with which the boat-song is sung. The first part of the former is accompanied by the deep sound of large drums, and later by both large and small. The words are.

1.Oh! my soul! Oh! my pipe! Troublous waters round me.

Oh the sunshine! Ah my smoke! My brother now is starving.

Alas! the moon. Alas! my pipe! You are in the forest.

Ah! The starlight! Ah! my smoke I Here are thorns and briers

Gathering round about me.

In the thicket now I go-none is near to help me.

In the clouds artf fear and woe-down the depths I'm falling.

Troublous waters round me, darkness round about me.

Splashing! Splashing! Splashing! My very soul is torn.

"The approach of the Eagles."

2. Presage of evill Bringer of fearl

Eagles of might are hov'ring near.

Gather around the lambs and the sheep.

Call the strong men to smite them.

Pinions outspread as slowly he flies.

Lizards glance up! The wee chick cries.

Bring our your arrows! Throw your spears!

Hasten! The strong men conquer.

In order to voice more passionately true mourning and lamentation, the art of drum-making is followed, and there is a system of tuning, rough and ready perhaps, but in skilled hands marvellously answering the purpose. This making of drums is prepared for many months beforehand. Likely trees are felled and cut into sections, some large, some small, all proportionate to their girth, ranging from a yard across down to four or five inches only. The inside of the section is burnt and cut out after the wood is considered seasoned; the animals are shot and their skins prepared and stretched. When the drum-makers start their work, assisted by many willing hands, they take the largest section and stretch the skins across the top of these pieces of hollowed trees, and

fasten them round tightly with wooden pegs. Then they prepare the next largest in size, and so on until the smallest is completed, and the material is all used up. The drums are then placed with the hollowed side downwards in a grass hut, and are left there some weeks "to settle."

At the end of that time, starting on a night with a full moon, the singers and musicians are called in by the village people, and there is a great gathering of happy people out to amuse themselves, something like an old English fair. The chief musician is highly decorated on his person by clothing of various handsome furs, long imposing coloured feathers on his head-dress, and weird bead-work and charms on his limbs, and he is generally highly skilled in his own particular way. It is his duty, with his assistants, to test each of the drums, a lengthy process, as there are often a hundred or even more. Some prove unsuitable; the tone is not resonant, or the wood is insufficiently seasoned and has split. The smallest drums are tested first, and great is the satisfaction of the onlookers when their excitement is worked up to the ceremony of testing the larger ones, and a particularly fine drum is passed as "quite good." The chief musician tests them all, even the very smallest, for they each have a use in the scheme.

From the good ones, however, there is a further and most critical selection, and this is how it is made. The singers sing their songs belonging to the village repertoire, and as they are singing, the musician gently taps a drum, and decides if in his opinion the sound of the drum goes with or clashes against the song, and it is chosen or rejected accordingly. Thus their tuning, and the results, are often most effective, and not to be lightly condemned by more learned folk.

These discarded drums, good, but not suitable for their particular songs, are sold among their friends in neighbouring villages, who carry out a similar process of selection, and it is considered a great honour among the native chiefs to be presented with an approved drum.

The following song is without drums. it has both melody and rhythm, and is sung during the final ceremonies of mourning among some mountain races. On the night of a full moon the chief singer stands on the top of a hill, and with hands raised to direct the sounds from his mouth across the valley below he sings the "Lament," with high voice and declamatory manner, while at the foot of the mountain hundreds of villagers sit huddled among the trees to sing a refrain between the sentences of the Lament. You will notice this refrain has a harmonic basis, and is really a series of broken chords.

I. There death now has come to the homestead,

Enter not, my brother.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

A maiden, alas, there is sleeping.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

2. Her rest is dark and unending.

She returns no more.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

Her spirit has passed on a journey.

Ho-ya-ho-ya-ho.

The last is a splendid War Song, accompanied by small drums, the brandishing of spears and movements of the body meaning courage and defiance.

1. Fight now! Come and fight now!

Slay them! We'll brandish spears!

Straight forth doth speed your arrow.

Tremble! Yes They tremble!

When we draw near,

And far they'll flee as we approach them!

2. Sharpen keen your arrows I

Brave heads upraised and shouting

Loudly our defiance.

All there who oppose us

Quickly our spears

Shall pierce their breasts. They will be scattered.

This last illustration brings our lecture to a close. Naturally in this short time I have only been able to reproduce, or perhaps suggest, a slight atmosphere of the original, but I hope these little glimpses may have roused some interest in the music of a far-away people.

ELLA KIDNEY.

Footnote

1. This paper was read at a meeting of the Society held on December 9th' 1920. For report of other proceedings on this occasion, see page 140.

Interpretation of Dreams in Dowa Nyasaland

Dreams in Central Africa. By A. G. O. Hodgson.

Source: Man, Vol. 26 (Apr., 1926), pp. 66-68
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

The following information was obtained from ten headmen of theYao, Ngoni, Nyanja and Chewa tribes in Dowa District, Nyasaland, having regard to the questions suggested by Professor Seligman in MAN, 120, 1923. Two of the informants profess Mohammedanism, two had attended Mission schools for short periods, and all were  middle-aged or elderly. Although questioned separately, they gave the same interpretation in most cases.

A person dreams because he has a spirit which survives after his death; if he did not dream, he would have no spirit and would perish utterly. No instance is known, however, of a man or woman who has never dreamt; many dream regularly every night in the cool season, and all do so more frequently in cold than in hot weather. Their dreams are usually of common occurrences in the everyday world, but occasionally also of connected stories with obvious meanings or with confused and nonsensical content. No contributory cause is alleged, but dreams of the latter classes have generally accepted meanings, and dreams are generally referred to only in cases where the dreamer is ignorant of the interpretation and seeks the advice of an older man or woman. Some such interpretations are as follows:-

(1) Flying.-If one dreams that oneself or anyone else is flying in the sky like a bird, the person flying will enjoy long life and good health.

(2) Fire.-If one dreams of a fire burning, the dreamer will be involved in a serious misfortune, generally in a law-suit. If the fire goes out, the dreamer will emerge from his suit satisfactorily, the rise and decline of the fire symbolising the outbreak and subsidence of the case. To dream of a great bush fire augurs the advent of war, but if ashes and smoke only, without flame, are observed, the war will come to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion.

(3) Climbing.-To dream that oneself or another is climbing a tree or ascencding a hill signifies that the climber will be promoted to chieftainship or other high rank.

(4) Loss of a tooth or teeth-Is taken to indicate that the dreamer will shortly lose his wife or child or other near relation. One (Chewa) informant interpreted this dream to mean that the dreamer's wife would bear a son who would grow up to be a strong man.

(5) Oedipus.-If one dreams that one is having connection with one's mother or sister, the dreamer is being bewitched by some unknown person, and may procure medicine to put in his house to catch his enemy, though usually he is too ashamed to take any action or to mention the matter.

(6) To dream of a flood of water in a river has the same signification as in No. (2), though the informant quoted in No, (4) stated that it might also mean that the dreamer's wife was commencing her period.

(7) To dream that someone is sick means that the person dreamt of will not be ill for a very long time, and to dream of the death of someone who is in reality sick at the time of the dream augurs the speedy recovery of the patient.

(8) A dream of frequent occurrence is one of being chased downhill by a lion, the common symbol for chieftainship. If the dreamer escapes, he himself will become a chief or otherwise rise to importance: but if he is seized by the lion, it means that a chief is plotting against him.

(9) To dream of crossing a river signifies death; but the informant quoted in Nos. (4) and (6) gave the same interpretation as in No. (2), the dreamer winning his case if successful in crossing the river.

(10) To dream of digging a pit or of hoeing nthumbira (raised mounds for maize or potatoes) signifies that the dreamer will soon be digging a grave for one of his relations, the pit being suggested in the second instance by the depression between the mounds.

(11) To be afflicted with lice is a lucky dream, as the dreamer will acquire great wealth, or, if hitherto a childless woman, will produce a son.

(12) Rain symbolises mourning at the funeral of a relation.

(13) To dream of a snake round one's leg means that the dreamer will be bound in prison, or, in former times, as a slave.

(14) Drinking beer symbolises the drinking of mwabvi (ordeal poison). 

(15) To dream of falling through space signifies approaching sickness, but if the dreamer rises after the fall, he will duly recover.

(16) To dream of a hearth stone (fua) means that one will shortly see a chief, as the hearthstone always remains in one place, like a chief, and is not thrown away after use.

(17) If one dreams of an ant-heap, one's wife is pregnant by another man, the likeness being due to the fact that an ant-heap is always slowly increasing in size.

(18) If one dreams that one is catching fish, the dreamer will find a bag of money; but if the fish are of a slippery variety, like mudfish, the dreamer will not be able to keep the money, which will soon be lost or stolen.

(19) It is unlucky if one of the objects of the dream is confused or grotesque, as, for example, if a person or animal has some of the characteristics of another. The spirit of the dreamer is troubled, and must be appeased by the dreamer washing his person in medicine made from the roots of the mtsizi tree and by a beer dance.

(20) If one dreams of a dead relation wearing a black cloth, the dreamer will be in mourning for a long time owing to continual deaths of his relations.

A. G. O. HODGSON.

Nyasaland Tribes, Customs and Poison Ordeal 1902

Author(s): L. T. Moggridge

Source: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 32 (Jul. - Dec., 1902), pp. 467-472

Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

Tribes.

MY work has hitherto lain almost entirely in the Shire Highlands and at the south end of Lake Nyassa, so that there are a good many of the Nyasaland tribes whom I have had no opportunity of observing in their homes. However, I will stick to what I really do know, and I hope some of it may be useful.

The Manganja (also called Anyanja or Anyassa) must at one time have been spread all over the southern shores of Lake Nyassa and the Shire Highlands; they are a very unwarlike tribe-they themselves say with perfect unconcern that "every Manganja has the heart of a chicken." For fifty years or so before the Administration pacified the country in 1891-92 they must have been perpetually harried, raided and enslaved by the neighbouring tribes, and particularly the Ajawa and Angoni. There are still considerable settlements of them on the southern shores of Nyassa, but the remnants of the tribe settled most thickly round Mlaiyi and Cholo Mountains, whose steep sides afforded them hiding-places from war parties. In their present security they are lazy and slovenly to a greater degree than the other tribes; yet they are not without intelligence, and some of them who have been taken in hand by missionaries and others have been educated into excellent interpreters and skilled labourers. Their language has become a sort of lingua franca all over southern Nyassaland, owing, no doubt, to their having been the slaves of every tribe.

That peculiarly ugly ornament the mpelele is almost universally worn by Manganja women. As young girls the upper lip is pierced and the hole is enlarged by the insertion of pieces of stick of increasing size till a small rnpelele-a saucer-shaped metal disc-can be inserted. As they grow older they insert larger and ever larger mpelele, and I have seen old hags with their upper lips distended and thrust forward by a disc as large as a five-shilling piece.

The Achikunda are perhaps more nearly related than any other tribe to the Manganja, their language and habits being very similar. The Achikunda are essentially a river people, being settled thickly along the Shire River below the Murchison Rapids,-and stretchinig downstream through Portuguese territory to the Zambesi, where they are known as Achishma (" people of Sehma '). On the Zambesi they are very skilful metal-workers and in other ways are more advanced than their relatives upstream. This is probably due to centuries of contact, and,  to some extent, of interbreeding with the Portuguese. Near the Anglo- Portuguese boundary on the right bank of the Shire is a village which is regarded as sacred concerning which there are much more definite superstitions than I have come across in the Highlands, but as my knowledge of it is vague and second-hand I will not attempt to describe it at present.

The Ajawa-slovenly pronunciation has led to this tribe beilng commonly spoken and written of as Yaos-are physically the finest of the South Nyassa tribes. They are also renmarkable for a hig,her sense of persolnal decency, or modesty, and lower morals than those of other tribes. Tlle Ajawa and Amachinga (a subdivision of the same tribe) are widely spread over the Shire Highlands and, in Portuguese territory, downi the Ravuma nearly to the sea. They have a strong tendency fowards Mahommedaniisin which, especially about Fort Johnston in South Nyassa, has takeni a real hold among them. Its influence is certainly elevating; the Fort Johnston Ajawa are cleanly in their habits and self-respecting; the better class of them dress neatly in white Arab kanzas (a garment suggestive of a long loose nightshirt) and, frequently, Zanzibari jackets of a Mahommedan type. A slight strain of Arab blood is not unconmmon among them; many of them can talk, or even write Swahili; and all like to be thought to know it. On the other hand prostitution-unknown among other tribes in their natural state-seems to have come naturally to the Ajawa, and this tendency with its consequent evils is more obvious in Fort Johnston than elsewhere. The Ajawa were great slave-traders in the old days, and in most villages are one or two -men who have been as far as Zanzibar; they are distinctly the aristocrats of British Central Africa. In 1890-92 they made more of a fight against the British than any other tribe, and have since proved the best material for native troops under British officers.

Angoni.-Some fifty or sixty years ago, as far as can be judged, a party of Zulus--said to have been a defeated impi who dared not return home-trekked north and settled on the high plateau west of Lake Nyassa and the Shire River. It seems that they brought but few women with them, and this fact no doubt started them on the slave-raiding career which they carried on till the British occupation. They married slave women, and seem as a rule to have treated their male slaves after a time as members of the tribe, with the result that their Zult characteristics rapidly disappeared. The people now known as Angoni, who come down in large numbers to work as carriers, etc., in the Shire Highlands, are of mixed race, in which the Manganja element and characteristics predomninate. In Angoni-land proper, I am told that there are still some two hundred of pure Zulu blood; but the tribe, which is now very numerous, seems as a whole to have lost the warlike tendencies that imade it a terror to its neighbours in past years, when the Ajawa alone seem to have held their owln against them. With the exception of the Wa Ukonde of North Nyassa, the Angoni are the only cattle-rearing tribe in British Central Africa.

The Atonga are a numerically weak tribe settled oln the east coast of Lake Nyasa. They will probably take a leading place among British Central African tribes in the new order of things, as they show an intelligence and enterprise, coupled with an appreciation of the value of wealth, which is very marked by contrast with the apathy of their neighbours. Five years ago large gangs of Atonga used to come to the Shire Highlands to work on the plantations for monley, but they have found out tllat nlore can be made by collecting rubber for sale to traders or slipping across the border and finding their way down to the high wages of South Africa, and they do not niow often appear as labourers in the Shire Highlands, though many of them work as store boys and skilled labourers. They are the most expert and daring thieves of British Central Africa. They make good soldiers and are largely used-though not in the same numbers as the Ajawa-in the composition of the two British Central African Battalions.

Anguru.-This large tribe have for many years followed their own devices in the no-man's-land known as Portuguese territory south-east of British Central Africa. Now that the Portuguese are establishing forts along our boundary, and thence sending out parties of uncontrolled Black Police who murder, rape and loot under the name of tax collection, large numbers of Anguru are crossing into British territory and settling there.

They are the most thoroughly uncivilized natives I have come across; I have seen gangs from the south-east of Mlaiyi Mount, in which both the men and women were entirely naked, though as a rule a small strip of bark cloth is worn. An idea of their intellectual capacity may be formed from the fact that in a gang who worked on my plantation some four years ago the best counter owed his superiority to the size of his mouth, in which he found room to stow the ends of all his fingers one by one, counting up to ten as he did so. At this point-his fingers being all disposed of and his toes not available-he broke down. He could get as far as ten but no further, and the moment he withdrew his fingers from his mouth his mind became a blank again. However, as no other member of the gang could get as far as ten, his erudition was thought remarkable.

The Anguru, whom we are now encouraging to settle, seem to be slightly more advanced than those with whom I had to deal in my planting days. They build their own huts anid settle down contentedly to work for the Ajawa in return for food until they can raise their own crops. They adapt themselves quickly to their new surroundings, and should soon be seeking work in large numbers and making themselves very useful as carriers.

Religious Tendencies.

Excluding newly introduced religions (Christianity and Mahommedanism), religion seems to have no part in the lives of British Central African natives. It is true that on Cholo Mount there is a sacred stone, and that sometimes, after a severe drought, parties of natives go up to the stone and leave old hoes there with an idea that rain may follow. Most natives, when asked, will say that there is a God (mlungu); and one, an Atonga, once told me that a great snake lived below, and ate bad men when they were dead; but I attribute this to ill-digested recollections of missionary teachings, which have been more or less disseminated through the country for twenty years or more; in any case the existence of a Deity, though admitted, is not a fact which impresses the native or dwells in his mind. I have come across no religious ceremonies of any sort.

The Ajawa make neat little graves for their dead, in graveyards near the villages, fence them in, and erect a shelter over them. They leave the huts of the dead to rot and fall to pieces of themselves. The burying of a person of any importance is an excuse for much drum-beating and beer-drinking.

The Manganja select a piece of forest and bury their dead there; they place the burnt-clay cooking-pots of the dead man near his grave, having first made holes in the bottom of them which render thein useless to the living. Whether this implies an idea of an after-life, and that the pots are supposed to be for the use of the dead, I have not been able to discover.

These cemeteries are never encroached on, so that a Manganja cemetery is always indicated by a clump-covering perhaps 1/4 acre-of fine well grown trees, a rare object in British Central Africa; as, owing to the wasteful methods of native cultivation, few bits of land are left uncultivated for more than thirty years or so, and bush-fires do not allow trees to attain a great size in that time.

Both Ajawa and Manganja have a horror of a body that has died a violent death. I have observed, after an expedition against an Ajawa village, the bodies of a couple of men, who were shot, left to rot where they fell, as their friends would not touch them. Again, I have killed a crocodile which on being cut up was found to have the brass bangles of an Achikundu woman in its belly; my Ajawa and Manganja carriers immediately left the beast and would not touch it again. Some Atonga, however, were not so particular, and dined off the crocodile.

The only tribal ceremony I know of is the nyago, an initiation-dance for girls on reaching a marriageable age. Sir Harry Johnston in his book describes this in dog-Latin, if I remember rightly; it cannot very well be written in English. The Ajawa also have a nyago for boys, of which circumcision is the principal feature.

Another Mahommedan custom which is universal among the Ajawa is the abstention from (1) the meat of an animial whose throat has not been cut sufficiently soon after death for blood to come, and (2) pig flesh. More than once, when, in a hungry camp, I have killed wart-hog, the Manganja and other natives have at once fallen to and had a great feed, while the Ajawa sat apart, looking unihappy, but resolutely refusing the meat. Meat of any sort is a great luxury to natives, and the behaviour of the Ajawa must have cost them a considerable effort.

The Muavi Poison Ordeal.

The poisonous bark of the muavi tree is the principal factor in a form of trial by ordeal which is firmly believed in by all the Nyassaland tribes with whom I have any acquaintance. The natives now recognize that, for some iilexplicable reason, the white man disapproves of muavi and is apt to show his disapproval in an unmnistakable way; and with their usual docility they are gradually dropping the use of it.

All natives (so far as my experience goes) profess, when questioned, absolute ignorance of what the tree is like or where it is to be found. Their invincible obstinacy on this point is probably due simply to fear of being thought to know anything about the forbidden traffic, and not at all to a desire to prevent the white man from destroying every muavi tree in the country, which would be a very simple cure for the whole trouble. The tree must certainly be uncommon, as natives have to travel long distances to procure the bark.

The old-fashioned trial by muavi under the auspices of a chief is getting rare now, as the chiefs in the more settled districts are afraid to try it. Their hold over their villagers is very slight now, and a muavi trial almost always results in a relative of the victim straightway reporting to the Boma (Collector's Court).

During the eight months that I was Acting Collector at Blantyre I only had one genuine case of the sort, though one or two trumped-up stories were brought in, with results unpleasant for the accuser. In this case (which is pretty typical) a petty Ajawa chief living near Blantyre had had a considerable quantity of calico stolen out of his hut, and decided to go into the case himself with the help of an elderly relative who enjoyed some reputation as a medicine man.

Lots were cast to discover the criminal; the preliminary casting indicated a village near Soche Mount, whither the detectives adjourned with a considerable following. They went through this village trying each hut, and finally the lot fell on a young man who, I should say, from such evidence as I could afterwards collect, was nowhere near the scene of the theft when the calico was stolen. In justice to the medicine man I should also say that I could find no evidence of any quarrel between him and the man against whom the lot fell.

The young man was bound and taken back to the village whence the calico was stolen, some three miles away, and was there compelled to drink mnavi-the bark, pounded and mixed with water. His brother Salimu followed and watched the proceedings, and the muavi having been drunk, was allowed to talke charge of him. Salimu remained with his brother under a tree near by for some three hours, and then he vomited and Salimu carried him back to his home- weak, but not permanently the worse. This vomiting, which saved his life, should according to native ideas have been a proof of innocence, but when confronted with the dilemma that the lot had apparently fallen on an innocent man they gave their opinion that he must have stolen the calico, whatever the muavi had to say about it, for the lot could not lie. Salimu having deposited his brother in his own hut, came to the Boma to report. Fortunately natives are not clever enough to be very far-seeing liars, and though all his villagers perjured themselves stoutly in defence of the chief, they broke down badly under cross- examination, and the truth was easily arrived at. The chief and medicine man were allotted three years' imprisonment apiece.

As to the method of casting lots, I have only the unsupported and possibly imaginary story of my interpreter to go on. The witnesses (fearing no doubt that an admission of knowledge would get them into trouble) one and all returned that most irritating answer kaya (" I don't know ") to all questions on the subject. There is no doubt that a horn of a sable antelope which was produced in court, stuffed with roots, odds and ends of calico and other dirty-looking charms to keep it in a state of magical efficiency while out of use, was the prinlcipal instrument in the lot casting. This horn I brought home with me.

My interpreter's account is that the horn is filled with white beans, with onie black one among them, and that these beans are shaken out, one for a village, or individual, as the case may be, till the. appearance of the black bean indicates the guilty persoli. This is very likely true, but my experience is that an intelligent rative, when asked for information by his master, will, in his anxiety to please, prefer inventing a story to giving none at all, so I accept information of this sort with caution.

Mwavi trials of this sort are, as I have said, getting less common; the use of muavi, which it is most difficult to stamp out, is one for which heavy punishmenlt seems absurd. Women are usually the offenders; after a quarrel with another woman or with her husband which has reached the pitch of accusations of adultery or witchcraft -mfiti, wizard or witch, implies thle possessiorn of something like evil eye; an mfiti is also supposed to add to his or her supernatural powers by corpse eating-it is not uncommon for a woman to drink muavi to prove her innocence of the charge. As a rule the taste of the muavi does away with her excitement and shakes her faith in the harmlessness of the poison to an innocent person; then if her village is near the Boma she rushes off and explains matters to the Collector, and a powerful emetic sets matters right again.

Where the woman obtains the muavi from on these occasions I have never been able to discover; probably there is a medicine man in most villages who keeps a supply, but the other natives will never give him away; being, I suppose, too frightened of him rather than too loyal. Some deaths have been reported to me following incidents of this sort, and no doubt a good many more take place and are kept quiet.

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.