The Angoni are variously known as Mazitu, Mavitu (Maviti), and, in more northern regions, as Magwangwara, Wamachonde, and Ruga-Ruga.
From this time forward, Chekusi’s Angoni raided Yaos and Anyanja impartially for some years. The former fled to the hill-tops, the latter to islands in the Shiré. When the invaders retired, they came from their hiding-places and cultivated their gardens in the plains, but only to have their crops swept off by fresh raids, as soon as they were ripe, and (as we have previously mentioned) their women and children carried off as slaves beyond the river. These raids occurred with unfailing regularity, till the settlement of the Mission party at Blantyre in 1876. There was an alarm in July 1877, but the invasion did not take place, probably owing to the presence of the Europeans.
The last of these raids took place in 1884, but was brought to a peaceable conclusion. The Rev. D. C. Scott, accompanied by Mrs. Scott and Dr. Peden, visited Chekusi’s kraal and succeeded in coming to a friendly understanding with that chief; and thenceforth the only Angoni hosts to cross the river were gangs of porters, or of men seeking work on the plantations. Chekusi died subsequent to the proclamation of the British Protectorate in 1891; his son was executed by the British administration after the ‘rising’ of 1896; and Mandala, whose village, after the delimitation of 1901 was found to be in Portuguese territory, was taken prisoner and died on the march to Tete. Mpezeni’s son and successor is a minor, and Mombera has been succeeded by a chief who has but little real authority, so that the prestige of these Zulu clans is now a thing of the past.
We have already seen how the Makololo came to be settled on the Shiré.
The Tambuka, or Tumbuka, according to their own account, ‘came from the north,’ where they were one tribe, ruled over by one chief, named Chikulamayembe. This was in some indefinite time long ago, before the Angoni had come. When they separated, they were living on the Rukuru river, where it flows through a natural arch of rock. Here ‘they worshipped a hill called Chikangombe; there is there a hot spring which they worshipped also.’ They split up and went in different directions, living much as the Mang’anja of the Shiré Highlands did before they were displaced by invaders. ‘They lived separately. One said, “I am chief,” and another said so also. They did not build big villages, but small ones of a few huts, containing their slaves, wives, and others.’ When they elected a chief, they anointed him with lion’s fat. ‘Chikulamayembe’ seems to mean ‘giver of hoes,’ and this chief was so called ‘because they saw his kindness and bounty to the poor. When a person had no hoe, he came to the chief and asked one, and he got it.’ Hoes are used as money by some tribes—as by those of the Upper Congo, and formerly by the Baronga of Delagoa Bay.
Chikulamayembe’s people moved on from the Rukuru to the hill Zabula, which appears to have been regarded with superstitious awe. ‘The old people of the tribe thought this hill could give rain.’ Here another separation took place, and, soon after, they were attacked by the Angoni. ‘The Tambuka had many cattle and goats,’ says the native account, ‘but the Ngoni hearing that they had cattle came and fought with them. The Ngoni killed the Tambuka, took their cattle, and sent them to their chief Zwangendaba. Thus the Tambuka failed to withstand the Ngoni, through their living apart and being scattered.’ For a time the invaders carried all before them; then they met with a temporary check, being defeated by three Tambuka chiefs in succession. The last of these, Chigamuka, inflicted such a crushing blow on them that, ‘to-day, if a Tambuka reminds a Ngoni of Chigamuka, the latter will strike him, because the Ngoni died and were beaten there.’
They recovered, however, after a time, and resumed their career of conquest. ‘To-day,’ said Dr. Steele’s informant, in 1893, ‘they are the masters of the Tambuka, Tonga, Chewa, Bisa, and Senga. There is no chief of the Tambuka, but the Ngoni alone. The records of these wars and migrations are necessarily very imperfect. They serve, however, to explain the great mixture of types which attentive observation shows us in most tribes of the Bantu race. Probably, if we may judge by analogy from similar processes in the past, the ultimate result will be the building up of several distinct nationalities, each with a well-marked type of its own, and institutions modified by so much of European culture as they can receive and assimilate. But such speculation belongs to the future. Our business here is only with the present, and our attempt has been to give some notion of these people as they now are, or (in cases where they have been influenced by contact with Europeans) as they were until lately.
Note.—It appears that there were really two Zulu migrations, the second one led by Ngola, Chekusi’s predecessor. It was the latter who fought with Mpezeni’s people, as stated on [page 281], and Champiti’s account must probably be taken to refer to them. It seems that at one time they even reached the sea at Mozambique.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 355.