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Chewa. INTRODUCTION The Chewa originated in the country of Zaire, but they emigrated
to northern Zambia and central Malawi where they now live. ...
Submitted by kiwimami on December 5, 2005
Category: History Other
Words: 3595 | Pages: 15
Views: 155
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INTRODUCTION
The Chewa originated in the country of Zaire, but they emigrated to northern Zambia and central Malawi where they now live. The Chewa people are the largest ethnic group in Malawi and live primarily in the Central Region. The Chewa established their first kingdom around the year 1480. There are presently over 1.5 million Chewa people throughout Malawi and Zambia, however they are not considered people of Malawi, nor people of Zambia, but people of the Nyanja group of Bantu. The major languages spoken by these people are Chewa and English, but they also speak Nyanja (they call their language Chichewa).This research will be on the Chewa people historical facts, traditions, and daily life of these people.
The Chewa people first originated in Malambo, a place in the Luba area of Zaire, where they emigrated to northern Zambia, and then south and east into the highlands of Malawi. They migrated to Malawi during the 14th or 15th century. Their settlement was somewhere before the end of the first millennium. The first Chewa kingdom was established sometime either before 1480 or after that time. By the 16th century there were two different systems of authority, one controlled by the Banda clan at Mankhamba, and the other by the Phiri clan at Manthimba. By the 17th century, around the time the ‘Malawi’ state became unified, the Portuguese made contact with the Chewa. Portuguese never reach the heartland of the chiefdom, but they had well documented records that occurred between 1608 and 1667. By 1700, several ‘Malawi’ dynasties had consolidated their positions to various parts of central Malawi. The Chewa people had distinguished themselves from their neighbors through language, by having special tattoo marks called “nembo”, and coordinated a religious system based on the nyau secret societies.
HISTORY
By the 1500s, the Phiri were the paramount family. They ruled over several semi-independent chiefdoms in the eastern part of Central...
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