WITH ITS SPARKLING LAKES AND GREEN MOUNTAIN SLOPES, landlocked Malawi can claim to be one of the most beautiful countries in Africa.
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CLIMATE |
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Malawi has a dry season lasting from May to October and a wet season from November to April. Conditions vary greatly according to altitude, with the highlands being cooler and wetter than the lowlands.
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Forest Dwellers and Ironworkers, Kings and Chiefs
Between about ten thousand and four thousand years ago, scattered bands of hunters and gatherers probably arrived in the equatorial forests and mountains of Malawi (mah-LAH-wee). These peoples were related to the San people of southern Africa (see BOTSWANA and NAMIBIA) and the small-statured forest dwellers who were the ancestors of modern groups such as the Twa (see BURUNDI and RWANDA).
The Bantu-speaking family of peoples probably began to enter the region about nineteen hundred years ago from central western Africa. Little is known of the identity of the earliest Bantu (BAN-too) immigrants, but they worked iron and farmed shifting plots of land cleared from the forest. Bantu immigrants mixed with and absorbed the San peoples already living there.
Malawi takes its name from the Maravi Confederacy, a state founded in 1480 by groups of Bantu-speakers related to the Luba peoples of the Congo basin (see CONGO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF). The confederacy was ruled by a king called the karonga (kah-RONG-gah). Power was centered southwest of Lake Malawi (also known as Lake Nyasa). Eventually the Maravi karonga ruled a very large area, stretching from the Luangwa (loo-ANG-wah) River in what is now Zambia to the Indian Ocean coast, and from the Zambezi River north to Malawi’s Dwangwa River. The Maravi Confederacy lay on wealthy trading routes between the coast and the interior and dealt in ivory, iron goods, farm produce, and slaves. Soon traders from the Mozambique coast—Portuguese, Arab, and Swahili—were striking bargains with local chiefs, who became increasingly independent. The karonga began to lose control of the empire. By the 1700s the great Maravi Confederacy had broken up into small groupings.
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FACTS AND FIGURES |
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Official name: Republic of Malawi Status: Independent state Capital: Lilongwe Major towns: Blantyre, Mzuzu, Zomba Area: 45,747 square miles (118,485 square kilometers) Population: 13,000,000 Population density: 284 per square mile (110 per square kilometer) Peoples: 32 percent Chewa and Nyanja; 16 percent Lomwe; 10 percent Yao; 8 percent Ngoni; 7 percent Tumbuka; 3 percent Ngonde; 3 percent Sena; 2 percent Tonga; others include Kokola, Mpoto, Zulu, European, and Asian Official languages: Chichewa and English Currency: Malawi kwacha National day: Republic Day (July 6) Country’s name: The name comes from the historical Maravi Confederacy, meaning "land of fire." This may refer to the sun reflecting like fire in Lake Malawi, or it may refer to the furnaces of Bantu iron workers.
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In northern Malawi the Ngonde kingdom grew powerful in the 1600s, founded by a dynasty of chiefs from what is now western Tanzania. During the 1700s immigrants from the eastern shores of Lake Malawi settled the lands to the south, founding the Chikulamayembe nation.
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Caravans of Slaves |
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The slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean has tended to dominate African history books, but the trade from the African interior to the east African coast, Zanzibar, and the Indian Ocean was equally appalling. Operated by Swahili-Arab traders in collaboration with local peoples all the way into central Africa, it reached its height about 150 years ago. Perhaps 100,000 people a year were kidnapped or sold into slavery. The chief Malawian base for the slave trade was Nkhota Kota, on the midwestern shore of Lake Malawi. There, the slaves were packed into wooden ships, which carried them across the lake. They were then marched to the Mozambique coast in shackles. Many died of starvation or thirst on the way.
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From about 1810 wars associated with the Zulu nation far to the south led to the displacement and migration of peoples from the Natal (nuh-TAHL) region of South Africa (see SOUTH AFRICA). One displaced group was the Ngoni (ehn-GOE-nee), who invaded southern Malawi during the 1830s. The Ngoni set up military encampments, which later became chiefdoms.
Malawi was also settled at this time by the Yao (YAH-oe) people, from what is now Tanzania. The Yao were farmers who were to play an important role in the trade between the Indian Ocean coast and the interior. From the 1830s the slave and ivory trades increased, and the Yao profited by selling the local people into slavery or by using them as laborers. Swahili people from the coast also settled in the region to control the slave trade.
