PEOPLE

Bantu Roots & Migrations

The Nyanja are part of the “Maravi cluster” of Bantu-speaking matrilineal peoples living north of the Zambezi River and south of the Rovuma River in south-east Africa. These groups live predominantly in the modern nation states of Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. The long journey that would take them there started approximately 2000 years ago somewhere near what is today the Cameroon/Nigeria border. From there, scholars suggest, farmers with iron smelting technologies moved to Katanga in the present-day Congo Basin, and thereafter began migrating in rolling waves across southern Africa (Oliver 1966).

Between 500 AD and the late 19th century, groups of Bantu-speaking peoples spread as far north as Sudan, as far east as Kenya, and to the southern edges of the continent, filling in virtually every parcel of arable land between and pushing out or absorbing previous inhabitants. Migration routes were circuitous, and have been tentatively traced and dated using archaeological, linguistic, and botanical data, supplemented with oral traditions (Eggert 2005; Hammond-Tooke 2004; Ehret 2001; Vansina 1995; Schoenbrum 1993). This is how we can know the history of the Nyanja people before they were even the Nyanja. 

Maravi Cluster

Groups typically labeled Maravi include the Chewa, Mang’anja, Chipeta, Mbo, Nsenga, Zimba, and Nyanja (Isichei 1997:113; Morris 2000:16–19; Schoffeleers 1968:103). Cultural affinities are also strong with the Yao, Macua/Lomwe, Sena, and Tumbuka. Key shared (though not unique) characteristics of Maravi populations include: emphasis on sibling relationships, loose marriage bonds but strict enforcement of fidelity within recognized unions, supreme importance placed on physical reproduction; childhood initiation ceremonies, especially for girls; a male-only secret society; and a decentralized political organization with chiefs primarily concerned with spiritual matters. While it is important to remember that each population has experienced distinct historical trajectories, environmental pressures, and political alliances, their cultures retain remarkable parallels that suggest validity in using material from one group to support and make sense of data from another.

Lago Nyanja

​Those in Metangula called themselves and those north through Ngoo (the last major village before Cóbue) the Amalaba Nyanja. They distinguished themselves from the Ahuti Nyanja north of Ngoo, who Amalaba informants said were more like the Chewa – they received Malawian radio stations, did their traveling in Malawian towns (for linguistic as well as logistical reasons), used the Malawian kwacha as currency, and spoke a dialect reminiscent of Chichewa. Amalaba informants referred to residents of the three villages south of Metangula (Malango / Nkholongwe, Mchepa, and Meluluca) as Amalimba Nyanja, and those south of Meluluca as Chewa. Despite these distinctions, Amalaba, Ahuti, Amalimba, and Chewa populations are largely indistinguishable, and social organization and behaviors of eastern lakeshore Nyanja populations broadly resemble those of other Maravi groups