20/08/2017
KNOW YOUR ORIGIN
NYAKYUSA TRIBE;
Introduction about Wanyakyusa
The Nyakyusa (also called the Sokile, Ngonde or Nkonde) are an African ethnic and linguistic group who live in the fertile mountains of southern Tanzania and northern Malawi—former German East Africa. They speak the Nyakyusa language, a subset of the 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]. Historically, 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 Songwe River and its people as ‘Konde’, at least until 1935.
Origin
The Nyakyusa people can trace their origin to Nyanseba a Nubian Queen who was raided and captured by a Ruthless warrior and herdsmen who turned the rulership of Empresses to Emperors, but the Power and influence of women among the Nyakyusa can still me seen through the naming of children. The boys take their mothers Clan name while the girls take their fathers. That was to enforce the fact that her name would remain forever with equal Prestige among the Nations even time to come.
Each year at the beginning of the rain season the Ngonde assemble at a place called Pa Chikungu where their chief Kyungu calls rain. All villgaes are told not to light fire in their homes in the morning of the ritual raincalling ceremony. All the villages wait for the sacred fire from the shrine called moto ufya that is destributed to all the villages. The people themselves believe that rain cames that very day.
Culture and Society
The Nyakyusa ‘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.
Each year at the beginning of the rainy season, the Nyakyusa assemble at a place called 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.
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.
Banana plant in nyakyusa
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.
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.It was the Nyakyusa’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.
Men and women relationships…
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, in**st 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 un******ng. 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…
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 government 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”.
Trading…
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 Nyakyusa princedoms.
A perfect Arcadia…
European travelers, being strongly impressed with cleanliness and neatness, seem to have found it north ofLake Nyasa. J. Thomson, in (to theCentralAfricanLakesand Back, 1881,) comes close to describing the Nyakyusa, “It seemed a perfectArcadia…. Imagine a perfectly level plain, from which all weeds, garbage, and things unsightly are carefully cleared away. Dotted here and there are a number of immense shady sycamores with branches almost as large as a separate tree. Every few spaces are charmingly neat circucular huts, with conical roofs, and walls hanging out all round with the clay worked prettily into rounded bricks, and daubed symmetrically with spots. (These have always been considered normal and typical, but do to the German ‘hut tax’ the rectangular huts began to dominate) The grass thatching is also very neat. The ‘tout ensemble’ renders these huts a place in any nobleman’s garden.”
Merensky in his, (Deutsch Arbeit am Nyaßa), quotes a missionary. “We wandered through magnificent banana groves and elegant, cleanly built huts of our Nyakyusa. When one contemplates the people it appears as though they celebrated a festival every day. They look as clean as though they knew no work. One sees women and children picking fallen fruit from the ground while men and young people walk mostly hand in hand…. The entire image gives a charming picture, really more lovely than words can express.” Missionary Richard is quoted in much the same way. “One could imagine being in a garden onLake Geneva.” Quoting Major von Wissmann, “They are as happy as Africans can be…modest, hospitable, and have until now been able to keep danagerous enemies off of their necks and keep their independence.”
Swaggering parades provided feast, dances, the exhibition of beautiful bodies, and the physical strength of both men and women. Parading ornaments, fine clothes, or splendid cattle were all part of it. A father would say ‘swagger first’, if a son wished to marry young.
Fierce warrior…
Since a bachelor was thought to be a fiercer warrior than a married man, marriages were often delayed, for while urbanity and good temper were praised, readiness to fight was a valuable quality useful in war. ‘We did not drive away violent men in the old days; they will fight with us in the future’. Swagger display was felt to be appropriate, particularly in bachelors, but married men also fought with skill, and none developed a military kingdom. They just raided for their neighbor’s cattle, leaving the missionaries confused.
Beliefs…
Witchcraft was vital in the world view of the Nyakyusa. It was believed that certain people flew on pythons harming people and cattle at night. These witches inherited their power and pythons from a parent and greed were the typical motive for harming men and cattle. Pythons lusted for the meat and milk available at the funeral of those killed. (Sexual dreams were not thoght to come from witchcraft even though the witches always went naked, flew through the air riding their pythons, while throttling is a polite word for sexual interourse)
Some people in a village had the power to see and fight witches in their dreams and were called ‘defenders’ (the most impostant being the village headmen). The visions and power of the defenders came from the same source as the witches and pythons. The defenders worked within the law and morality, while the witches acted selfishly against the law and morality. Defenders workded through dreams at night, were powerful, used their power to punish wrongdoers, and acted particularly to protect cattle, dor all ived on bananas, beans, and the milk of cattle, and even though withches culd avoid defenders they were considered pillars of society. They could see and drive away witches and cause them or their children to fall ill, all through the ‘Power of the Python, the Breath of Man, the Curse, or General Public Opinion’. No one admitted to having python power, it would have been boastful, proud, and ill mannered.
It was not just the lack of hospitality that shocked people and could bring on the ‘Breath of Man’. Bad behavior towards parents or in-laws, swearing at or hitting a husband, having children after a daughter-in law has reached puberty, and indications of pride, could all bring on lingering illness. Still, in general the Konde were thought of as brave and intelligent.
Witches are usually described as isolated and unpopular, proud men who treated neighbors with disdaim and were silent in public; women who were glum and failed to greet other women and inquire after their children. Witches seldom act without reason, they act from greed or hatred, and those against whom they have a grudge.
Beginning with childhood, most Nyakyusa have lively fear of witchcraft, lasting a lifetime. When a man was convicted of witchcraft hie could be forced to more from a village and sometimes from the chiefdom. A woman was generally divorced, but who soon remarried. Rarly was a supposed witch killed, for a witch was too useful in war to be lost to the chiefdom.
If there were doubts retgarding accustions of witchcraft, ‘Umwafi’ was resorted to. If in drinking Umwafi a person did not vomit, he or she was thought to be guilty. Doubters claimed that each family chose members who vomited easily. At times entire groups of people were tested with the ‘Umwafi Ordeal’ in order to see where the trouble was coming from. (The last case seem to have been in 1932.)
Medicines were important: winning success, cultivation, herding, hunting, love, war, treatment of the sick, protection and retaliation, or even directly harming an enemy and defending against witches. It could be used against a thief or adulterer or put on houses or fields to bring ills quite legally. Just as with ‘python power’ medicine could be good or evil, legal or illegal, it could be used to help or to harm.
Arbitration by a friend or neighbor is considered very important. The headman or prince had no power to enforce decisionos and while there was no attempt to quiet a quarrel it is considered most proper to arrive at a settlement through some group opinion of equals, established before adolescence resting on friendship, assistance, and cooperation.
The Nyakyusa stood naked before evil. Notions of reward and punishment in an after-life were lacking. Religion was this worldly and concerned with fertility and prosperity. They feared punishment on this earth; ‘a moman’s bareness was the result of her failings and whe would be apprssed with guilt’. Only the coming of Christianity did the fear of burning in hell appear with rewards and punishments reserved for an after-life.
Religion…
Christians did not find it an obligaion to share a feast, pagan did. Fornication, adultery, disobedience, or disrespect towards ministers or priests, was considered sin, while hospitality towards stranger, not neighbors, was considered vital for Christian salvation.
Missionaries got around to producing a Nyakyusa grammar book only in 1800 and a translated bible in 1896. Christianity still barely touched the Nyakyusa lives in 2001.
