Group of Anguru: Women with “Pelele”
The Anguru, or Alolo, are a tribe belonging to the Makua group who occupy the country inland from Mozambique. Some of them live in the Mlanje district. The Lomwe country, which is entirely inhabited by them (A-lomwe is either a synonym for Alolo, or the name of a tribe closely allied to them), is west of Lake Chilwa. Some Alolo were, about forty years ago, living at the back of Morambala. A correspondent tells me: ‘Anguru are localised on the east side of Shirwa round the Luasi hills, and are a sort of mongrel lot, as these hills seem to have been a sort of junction of Yao, when they were driven from the north, Lomwe driven from the east, and Mang’anja, on the Shirwa shores.’ The Anguru speak a dialect of Nyanja, the Alolo one of Makua, a language, as Father Torrend points out, resembling Sechwana in several important particulars, in which the intervening languages differ from both. The Lomwe country was for many years harassed by slavers, and its people were continually at war with one another—so much so that, in 1894, the villagers did not know the names of hills more than a day’s journey from their own homes, and travellers could not get guides except to the next village ahead of them. Perhaps this state of things accounts for the comparatively poor physique of the Alolo.
The Batumbuka. These are a set of people considered by Sir H. H. Johnston as indigenous to the plateau west of Lake Nyasa, and including, besides the Batumbuka proper, the Wapoka, Wahenga, and Atonga. These last live along the western shore of the lake, to which they were driven by the conquering Angoni, under Mombera. Father Torrend, however, supposes that they are a branch of the Batonga on the Zambezi, whom he thinks ‘the purest representatives of the original Bantu.’ In that case, they have either disused or greatly changed their original language; that which they now speak being closely allied to Tumbuka, Henga, and Poka, which are virtually identical. The Atonga are well known at Blantyre, as they are (or were some years ago) in the habit of coming down in gangs to work in the plantations, or otherwise. They are usually tall, strongly built men, with well-developed muscles, and (like the Alolo) very dark skins.
The Awa-nkonde, or Nkonde people (this is said by some to mean ‘people of the plain’) live at the north end of Lake Nyasa—some of them in German territory. They include the Awakukwe, Awawiwa, and several others, whose names we need not enumerate. They are very dark, usually tall, and sometimes described as extremely well shaped; but to judge by the photographs reproduced by Sir H. H. Johnston and Dr. Fülleborn, a good many of them would seem to have a tendency to bow-legs, and to be what is called ‘in-kneed.’ The legs are also, in some cases, of excessive length in proportion to the rest of the body. M. Edouard Foà[4] says that the Awankonde are, on the whole, good-looking, and, both men and women, ‘plump and well-liking,’ in consequence, no doubt, of their diet, and the pleasant, easy life they lead—now that they are no longer raided by Arabs and others. They are, with the exception of the Angoni and Achewa, the only people in the Protectorate who keep cattle to any great extent; and they live chiefly on milk and bananas.
The Angoni were originally a Zulu clan who came from the south, under Zwangendaba, about 1825, and incorporated with themselves large numbers of the tribes whom they conquered by the way, so that there are now few, if any, of unmixed descent remaining. The ‘southern Angoni’—formerly known as ‘Chekusi’s people’—are mostly Anyanja; but there were, in 1894, a few head-men and others, besides Chekusi’s own family, who spoke Zulu, and some of the elders wore the head-ring, but of a different pattern from the Zulu isigcoco (which is a smooth, round ring), being more like a crown done in basket-work. The northern Angoni (Mombera’s people) all speak Zulu, with considerable dialectic modifications, such as the gradual elimination of the clicks, and the substitution of r for l. But their speech is quite intelligible to Zulus from the south. As already stated, there is a great variety of types. The young warriors introduced to me under the name of ‘Mandala’s boys’ (Mandala was the brother of Chekusi or Chatantumba, at that time chief of the southern Angoni) were big, swaggering, long-limbed fellows, somewhat vacant of face, and, I think, somewhat lighter in colour than the sturdy little men who went to work on the Blantyre plantations. But whether the difference between them was a matter of race, or merely of an easier life and a diet of beef, I would not venture to say; for these warriors must have been, in part at least, recruited from the sons of the small, dark, hard-working Anyanja, who lived on scanty rations of maize and millet porridge in the Upper Shiré villages. These were always liable to have their growing lads sent for ‘ku mdzi’—i.e. to the chief’s kraal in the hills—where they had to herd Chekusi’s cattle, and, later on, entered what we may call the ‘Life Guards.’
The history of the Angoni and their migrations will be considered in a later chapter.
The Makololo of the Shiré valley, though they cannot be enumerated as a separate tribe, have had no small influence on the affairs of the Shiré valley tribes, and must not therefore be passed over without notice. Their history will help to illustrate what I have already mentioned and shall have to come back to later on—the ceaseless drifting backwards and forwards, and consequent intermingling of the Bantu tribes, which has gone on, more or less, ever since Europeans knew anything about them, and may be compared with the movement which brought the Germanic peoples into the Roman world, and for which we seem to have no compendious designation equivalent to the German word Völkerwanderung. The original Makololo were a Basuto tribe, driven from their home by the onslaughts of the Matebele, about 1823. Under the name of ‘Mantatees,’[5] they spread terror and desolation among the Griquas and Bechuana, and finally, under the leadership of Sebituane, made their way northward and settled in the Barotse valley on the Zambezi, where Livingstone visited them in 1851. They had even then begun to incorporate with themselves the Barotse and other darker tribes about them, and had introduced their language into the country, where it is still spoken, though the Makololo were expelled, after Sekeletu’s death, by Sipopo, one of the former line of Barotse chiefs. Sekeletu, Sebituane’s son, furnished Livingstone with an escort, when he left Linyanti for Loanda in 1853, and again when, after his return from the West coast, he started down the Zambezi. These Makololo (most of whom, however, belonged to the subject tribes—Baloi and others) remained behind at Tete when Livingstone returned to England; and though, when he came out again in 1858, he offered to take them all back to Sekeletu’s, some preferred to stay where they were. Some others, among whom was the well-known Ramakukane, came back with him from Sesheke, after he had taken the rest home in 1860. In course of time, having settled on the Shiré below the Cataracts, and married women of the country, they became powerful chiefs, and, though somewhat oppressive towards the Anyanja, they were a check on the Yao advance from the east. One of these chiefs, Mlauri, is still living, and as active as ever, in spite of age. Masea, whose village was on the west bank of the Shiré, two or three miles below Katunga’s, died a few years ago. In 1893 he was still a very fine, vigorous old man, and his numerous family of sons and daughters (some of them educated at the Mission) are mostly noticeable for good looks and intelligence: they show their descent in the lighter complexion. Livingstone says that Sebituane was ‘of an olive or coffee-and-milk’ colour. As far as language and customs go, these descendants of the Makololo are now completely merged in the Anyanja.
As we have seen, the breaking-up and absorption of one tribe by another has gone on to such an extent that, though in some cases we might confidently pronounce a man to be a Yao or a Nyanja from his build and personal appearance generally, yet very often it would be quite impossible. A surer criterion—though even that is nowadays beginning to fail us—is that afforded by artificial deformations—such as the filing and chipping, or even removal, of the teeth, the boring of noses, lips, and ears for the insertion of ornaments, and the scarifying and tatuing of the skin. These arts seem to be resorted to all the world over by people who do not go in for much clothing—apparently on the principle that the human face and figure need some modification in order to differentiate them as such. If your teeth are not chipped, you might as well be a dog—such, in general, seems to be the native line of reasoning.
