Maravi
Kingdom of Maravi malaŵí (Chichewa) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| c. 1480–1891 | |||||||||||
 The Maravi Kingdom at its greatest extent in the 17th century. | |||||||||||
| Capital | Manthimba, Mankhamba | ||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||
| Kalonga | |||||||||||
• 15th century | Chinkhole | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Established | c. 1480 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1891 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | |||||||||||
Maravi was a kingdom which straddled the current borders of Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, in the 16th century. The present-day name "Maláŵi" is said to derive from the Chewa word malaŵí, which means "flames". "Maravi" is a general name of the peoples of Malawi, eastern Zambia, and northeastern Mozambique. The Chewa language, which is also referred to as Nyanja, Chinyanja or Chichewa, and is spoken in southern and central Malawi, in Zambia and to some extent in Mozambique, is the main language that emerged from this empire.
The Maravi Confederacy was founded by Bantu people immigrating into the valley of the Shire River (flowing out of Lake Nyassa) around 1480 AD. It prospered into the late 18th century, extending to reach what is now belonging to Zambia and Mozambique.
At its greatest extent, the state included territory from the Tonga and Tumbuka people's areas in the north to the Lower Shire in the south, and as far west as the Luangwa and Zambezi river valleys. Maravi's rulers belonged to the Mwale matriclan and held the title Kalonga. They ruled from Manthimba, the secular/administrative capital, and were the driving force behind the state's establishment. Meanwhile, the patrilineal Banda clan, which traditionally provided healers, sages and metallurgists, took care of religious affairs from their capital Mankhamba near Ntakataka.
Name
[edit]The name Maravi is a Portuguese derivation on the word Malawi, which the Chewa had used to refer to themselves.[1]: 1 In Chichewa, malaŵí means "flames".[2][3] According to Samuel Josia Ntara's Mbiri ya Achewa (1944/5), "Malawi" referred to an area along Lake Malawi where a Chewa king and his people settled long ago.[1]: 15 Chewa tradition says when they first saw Lake Malawi from the highlands, it looked like a mirage or flames. Subsequently, the land between Lake Malombe and the Linthipe River was called Malawi, and they referred to themselves as Amalawi.[4]: 39
History
[edit]Origins
[edit]The Chewa have two competing traditions of origin. The first holds that Chiuta (God) created the Chewa and animals at Kaphirintiwa Hill, where there are patterns of seemingly human and animal footprints in the rock. Thus it holds that the Chewa have always inhabited their present homeland.[4]: 40–41 The second is in agreement with the most widely accepted models of the Bantu expansion, where most Chewa traditions hold that they migrated from Uluwa or Luba in Katanga, DR Congo to modern-day Malawi, and they are associated with Naviundu pottery in Katanga dated to the 4th century.[5]: 22, 32 The Banda clan and other smaller clans arrived in Malawi first, while the Phiri clan migrated later. Scholars use the name "Maravi" to refer to the Phiri, and "pre-Maravi" to refer to the Banda and others.[4]: 37–39
According to tradition, when the pre-Maravi reached Malawi, they found a pygmy people (called Akafula, Abatwa, or Amwandionerakuti) who they fought a battle against (near Mankhamba) and drove south across the Zambezi River. They are said to have also met agriculturalists, called BaKatanga, BaPule, or BaLenda, with archaeological research indicating Malawi was inhabited by agriculturalists from the 3rd century CE. This group likely intermarried with the Chewa and was absorbed. The pre-Maravi settled at Msinja, below the Dzalanyama range and near Kaphirintiwa Hill which, likely following the discovery of the patterns of footprints, became the society's ritual centre with a kachisi (rainmaking shrine). Msinja had good agricultural conditions, with good quality soil and lots of water. Makewana, head of the Banda clan and priestess, held the most authority. Scholars such as Jan Vansina have characterised the pre-Maravi as a state, where Makewana, as leader, appointed Matsano (spirit wives) to hill-top shrines, of which there was a hierarchy with Makewana's Kaphirintiwa shrine considered the "mother" of shrines. While these figures specialised in ritual authority, they also held substantial secular authority, although Kamundi (of the Mbewe clan) likely nominally held secular leadership.[4]: 43–46
After leaving Katanga in DR Congo, tradition has the Maravi stop at various places in the search for a place to settle. One these was Choma, either a river in Zambia flowing into Lake Mweru which the first Kalonga (king) and his people was said to have crossed, a mountain in Mzimba District, Malawi (thought to have a burial site of a Kalonga), or a place in southern Zambia. Clan names are said to have been created there. Prior to this settlement, the Maravi are said to have had the same female ritual leadership as the pre-Maravi. According to tradition, they met an Arab trader named Hassan Bin Ali (possibly al-Hassan ibn Suliman of Kilwa or representatives of him) who convinced them to have him as their first king, however he died before he could be initiated, interpreted as divine intervention against enthroning a foreigner. Instead, Chinkhole was appointed the first Kalonga and religiosity shifted to the veneration of rulers. Chinkhole died and was succeeded by Chidzonzi. Possibly due to lack of land for their growing population, the Maravi left Choma. Another stop was Chewa Hill, where they are said to have derived their endonym from, however scholars have alternative theories on the word's origin.[4]: 48–50
Apogee
[edit]After contact with the Portuguese, trade intensified. It included such items as beads of the Khami type and Chinese porcelain imported via Portuguese intermediaries. The first (colonial) historical account of the Maravi was by Gaspar Bocarro, a Portuguese man who traveled through their territory in 1616.[6] The picture presented in the 1660s by Father Manuel Barretto, a Jesuit priest, was of a strong, economically active confederation that swept an area from the coast of Mozambique between the Zambezi River and the bay of Quelimane for several hundred kilometres into the mainland. An account from the following century implied that the western limits of the confederation were near the Luangwa River and that it extended on the north to the Dwangwa River.[7]
Decline
[edit]In the 18th and 19th centuries, the state declined as many clans grew more autonomous.[8] Maravi was invaded by Ngoni people fleeing the Mfecane[9] and was frequently raided by the neighboring Yao people (East Africa), selling captive Maravi on the slave markets of Kilwa and Zanzibar. In the 1860s, Islam was introduced into the region through contact with Swahili slave traders. The region was visited by David Livingstone and stations were set up by Protestant missionaries in 1873. A British consul was also sent there in 1883. David Livingstone visited Lake Nyasa in 1859, and other Protestant missionaries soon followed.
Government
[edit]The state was headed by a Kalonga (king/queen), and other titles included Nyangu (reserved for either the Kalonga's mother or sister) and Mwali (the Kalonga's main wife). As a matrilocal society, Nyangu was head of the Phiri clan. Makewana or Mangadzi was a female priestess and rainmaker, and also head of the Banda clan.[4]: 38
Society and culture
[edit]The Phiri clan held secular authority. The Banda clan were in charge of religious matters and held ritual authority, and were relied upon for the society's prosperity. Their head, priestess Makewana, was supported by Matsano (spirit wives) and members of the Mbewe clan. Kamundi was a senior member of the Mbewe clan who fulfilled the role of Thunga (a snake). The shrine at Kaphirintiwa Hill had a sacred pool, which, during rainmaking rituals, Makewana, according to tradition, would disappear into it for days on end when calling for rain. It also has a sacred drum (mbiriwiri) said to have been left by the Akafula when they were displaced. Only Tsang'oma of the Mwale clan was and is permitted to beat the drum, and drum playing was forbidden in Msinja.[4]: 38, 45–46
References
[edit]- ^ a b Juwayeyi, Yusuf M. (2020). "Introduction". Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84701-253-1.
- ^ Conroy, Anne (2006), Conroy, Anne C.; Blackie, Malcolm J.; Whiteside, Alan; Malewezi, Justin C. (eds.), "The History of Development and Crisis in Malawi", Poverty, AIDS and Hunger: Breaking the Poverty Trap in Malawi, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 14–32, doi:10.1057/9780230627703_2, ISBN 978-0-230-62770-3, retrieved 2025-03-10
- ^ Mkandawire, Bonaventure (2010). "Ethnicity, Language, and Cultural Violence: Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda's Malawi, 1964-1994". The Society of Malawi Journal. 63 (1): 23–42. ISSN 0037-993X.
- ^ a b c d e f g Juwayeyi, Yusuf M. (2020). "The origins and migrations of the Chewa according to their oral traditions". Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84701-253-1.
- ^ Juwayeyi, Yusuf M. (2020). "The Bantu origins of the Chewa". Archaeology and Oral Tradition in Malawi: Origins and Early History of the Chewa. Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-84701-253-1.
- ^ Huhn, Arianna. "History".
- ^ "Maravi Confederacy | historical empire, Africa | Britannica".
- ^ "Maravi Confederacy | historical empire, Africa | Britannica".
- ^ "Axis Gallery". Archived from the original on 2006-01-09.
https://axis.gallery/exhibitions/nyau-masks/