Nyakyusa

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The Nyakyusa (also called the Sokile, Ngonde or Nkonde) are an ethnic and linguistic group who live in the fertile mountains of southern Tanzania and northern Malawi. They speak the Nyakyusa language, a Bantu language. In 1993 the Nyakusa population was estimated to number 1,050,000, with 750,000 living in Tanzania and 300,000 in Malawi [1].

The Nyakyusa people trace their origins to Nyanseba, a Nubian Queen who was abducted by a ruthless warrior and his herdsmen. These herdsmen turned the rulership of Empresses to Emperors, but the power and influence of women among the Nyakyusa can still be seen through the naming of children. The boys take their mother's clan name while the girls take their father's. That was to enforce the fact that her name would remain with equal prestige among the nations.

Each year at the beginning of the rainy season, the Nyakyusa assemble at a place called Pa Chikungu where their chief Kyungu calls for rain. All villagers are told not to light fire in their homes in the morning of the ritual raincalling ceremony. All the villagers wait for the sacred fire from the shrine called moto ufya to be distributed.

They were called the Ngonde below the Songwe River in British Nyasaland and Nyakyusa above the river in German territory. The two groups were identical in language and culture, so much so that the Germans referred to the Nyakyusa region above the Sonogwe River and its people 'Konde', at least until 1935.

The Germans considered the area to be 'a Garden of Africa', seeing it as the most fertile part of 'German East Africa'.

The Scots had founded Karonga in 1875. In 1889, the treaties of H. Johnson finally reduced the state of regular war (spears were broken) between the Konde Chiefs and the Arabs, and in 1895 the British hanged Mlozi . Finally the area was incorporated as 'British Central Africa' with Karonga itself fortified with palisades on the lake and defended on the other three sides with trenches, which could be swept from brick bastions. Gates protected the trenches of the fort with two cannon, one Norden field machine-gun, and 300 to 400 armed inhabitants, who were ready even during peacetime. Administrators and warehouses were to be found inside, the houses of the inhabitants were outside, within their own palisades, protected by the guns of the fort. It is said that slave raids were conducted almost within sight of Karonga, leaving the Nyakyusa and others uncertain as to whether or not to support Mlozi or a European power. (Three to five hundred warriors finally supported England.)

Karonga was important as England's main support base for the 'Stephenson Road', from Lake Nyasa to Lake Tanganjika, which by 1892 was already falling apart due to a lack of funds.

In contrast to the Ngonde, the Nyakyusa were unsophisticated and isolated from contact with the outside world, had unfortified villages, little to do with the ivory trade, slavery, or Arabs, or anything east of the effectively protective Livingston Mountains, and kept their over one hundred small chiefdoms independent, at least until the Europeans came. Being warriors, they were able to repeatedly repulse the attacks of the Sangu of Merere and the Ngoni.

The Nyakyusa are traditionally thought of as being related to the Kinga of the Livingston Mountains who had themselves spread westwards as immigrants. 'Nobles', ruling the land, were credited with divine powers, lived in strict religious seclusion, their chiefs (Princes), being strangled by their councillors in old age or illness in order to maintain rain, fertility, and the health of the village. The chief's advisers were never his kinsmen; but only non-hereditary commoners with considerable power over the chief.

They lived in very small chiefdoms, not in groups of relatives, but in groups of age-mates attempting to live in harmony to avoid misfortune. The Nyakyusa were eager agriculturists, 'boasting of the strength and diligance'. They practiced intensive crop rotation with corn, beans, squash, sorghum, millet, yams, etc., with banana plantations stretching for miles. Clearing and hoeing the land three to four hours a day was the responsibility of the man and his sons, never the women. The crops were used for food, beer, and hospitality, as well as for sale and barter. Neither old age nor high status excused a man from his duty to hoe. They were said to fear leaving their area for concern of being unable to exist without their accustomed food of meat, milk, bananas etc.

Outside the chiefdom the world could be dangerous. A journey of twenty-five miles could take three days because of the need to often take cover. Not only were there unfriendly villages, but also because leopard, elephant, buffalo, hippo, crocodile, etc., were plentiful.

The Nyakyusa were primarily herders and banana-cultivators, with cattle and milk being most important. Small cattle, being their greatest pride, were tied up at night and milked only by the men. Women were not allowed to have anything to do with cattle, and played no part in public life, were expect to show obendience, respect, and use 'yes, my lord' when addressed and were reported to be totally dominated by the men, but were still thought, by the missionaries, to have a position higher and better than that of other tribes. Cattle for bride-wealth, however, was considered vital and gave men even more control, even though the missionaries assumed the position of women was not bad.

The outbreak of renderpest may not have devastated their herds until 1892 - 1896. The protection of cattle from raiders by day and witches by night, long remained the traditional community activity.

People continued to use bark, home-woven cloth, or animal skins, at least until German calico came in. The chief's power depended upon his right to demand food, high bride price for his daughters, and the anticipation of entertainment.

Economic links between Princes was flimsy at best and exchanges were most commonly within a chiefdom, (there was very little trade between the various chiefdoms) for a state of war always existed amojng the Nyakyusa, whether actual or potential. The weakness of any central authoriy was indicated by the recurrent civil wars before the Ngoni invasion.

It was the Nyakkyusa's practice to work together in community groups, each family doing so two or three times each year. From the missionaries point of view, while tending to be unreliable, lying, and stealing they found 'fireside company' very important and stressed the obligation of eating and drinking together with urban manners and friendliness. They found merry conversation to be a discussion between equals, finding it to be an outstanding example of the sustainable comfort obainable in African life within a simple Iron Age culture.

They were a colonizing people where success and survival depended on individual effort. Slavery was reported as being totally unknown in 1892, although the slave trade certainly existed in the vicinity of the Konde of Karonga

The women were dominated by the older men. They lived at their husband's residence, married ten years earlier than the men, lacked solidariy, developed little leadership, and had no kinsmen to protect their interests. Missionaries reported adultery, divorce, litigation, and marital instability to be widespread. The Nyakyusa were accused of having a 'frivolous' attitude towards marriage, for few women of thirty were still married to their first husband and were very often on their fifth or sixth. Women spent thirty hours a week fetching wood and only when co-wives were sisters, or an aunt or niece, were they expected to work together regularly. (Intense competition for the position of favorite among a man's various wives was thought by the missionaries to be at least partly responsible for the low status of women, which was still considered higher than other tribes.)

Age dominated their whole lives. Boys guarded the fields and cattle and lived in separate camps starting at about ten years of age and lasting a lifetime. Since the women married much earlier than the men, incest was of great concern to the Nyakyusa and was resolved by putting fathers in one village and sons in another. Up to the age of ten or eleven the boys herded their fathers cattle in groups, then hoed the field of their fathers and contiued to eat their mother's food. They no longer slept in the houses of their fathers but joined an age-grade village of boys with a separate leader, laws, and customs and could be considered members of two villages. Men and boys are expected to eat regularly with age-mates and are encouraged to bring home two or three friends to eat; parents being proud when they do so, for if a young man often came home alone to eat, his father could beat him, or even take a spear and wound him. Isolates were not easily tolerated. 'This great fool comes alone to my place, again and again, it is good to eat with friends or go around in groups of four or five'. Eating with age-mates was considered right, proper, and moral. It was considered improper, unseemly, and somewhat immoral to eat with juniors or women. Women ate alone with their young children and unmarried daughters.

Sexual morality depended on the separation of the sexual activities, 'If he sleeps at home he will hear what his parents talk about at night, the night is always full or lewd talk; he may even see them undressing. He will grown up a fool.'

When an oversupply of young bachelors and a shortage of unmarried girls was created, it was resolved by forming another settlement. It was only after a young man had his wife permanently with him that he was able to have his own fields and eat its produce. Cultivation of land demanded the cooperation of a man and a woman, while elaborate cooking demanded a woman. Until the man was married he still worked his father's fields and ate at his father's house.

Cultivation carried prestige and provided for the hospitality on which the Nyakyusa community rested and depended. Great stress was placed on geniality and praise was placed on man for being a good mixer. Considerable pressure compelled both men and women to cultivate diligently, but not too conspicuously for each must keep in step with his neighbors. Pressure helped keep laggards up to the mark and kept the energetic from getting too far ahead. (Before the German missionaries, the Nyakyusa just 'cast their dead away' or left them at 'itago' to die.)

When the oldest sons of a chief reach thirty-three to thirty-five years of age the father handed over the country's governmant to them in the 'coming out', a ceremony of great pomp. All fires were now extinguished and new fires, kindled by friction, were lit. Since the sons were now new owners of a chiefdom, other princedoms were raided for cattle and food; they also raided their own father's land for milk, cattle, and bananas.

There were no clans, or descent groups with a common name and by the third generation kinship bonds were often forgotten. Tradition rarely mentions warfare, although boundary disputes were normal and could lead to fights. Hunters, not warriors were heroes, and they hunted for the protection of life and property, although the selection of weapons indictes they also organized for war. Missionary Nauhaus was told of boundary dispute in November, 1893, in which six men fell on one side and only one on the other. Such friction was not called war, "I was told it only happens so that there would be something to talk about".

While the Nyakyusa were expert mat makers, they produced no pots, cloth, iron, or salt, and trade remained very small. The only trade was with the Kinga when the Nyakyusa exchanged their surplus food for weapons and agricultural implements of considerable artistic merit. While the trade in weapons and tools with the kinga was important, marriage partners with Kinga women was not, for Kinga women were condidered too dirty to marry. There was, however, some small trade between the various small princedoms.