04/04/2025
Welcome to Mang’anjapage!
This page has been created as a plat form for Mang’anja Association, a cultural grouping representing the Mang’anja ethnic tribe, with the aim of preserving the history and culture of the Mang’anjapeople and dispelling any misconceptions that exist about the tribe.
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MANG’ANJA TRIBE.
According to historical records, the Mang’anja people were the first tribe to settle in modern day Malawi in particular, and Maravi Kingdom at large, after the Akafula and to this effect they have a rich and colourful history.
According to oral historical records the Mang’anja people migrated into Malawi from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Katanga (Shaba) Province.
“When the Mang’anja reached present day Karonga District, they divided, others went to the eastern part of the lake while others went along the western shores of the lake”, (source: An Introduction to the History of Central Africa, by A.J. Wills.
Those who went to the western shores encountered the Akafula and engaged in bloody wars. The Akafula were defeated and fled.
Menno Welling, an archaeologist from Holland (Netherlands), who was a lecturer at Chancellor College is on record to have discovered fossils on Mulanje Mountain which were carbon dated to 1000 BC which he believes belonged to the Mang’anja people.
The Mang’anja people were skillful Iron Smelters whose iron products were highly sought after by the Arabs, before they turned to slave trade.
TheMang’anja are reported to have been making high quality hoes, axes, arrow heads, spears, needles and bracelets.
They were also skilled in basket making and weaving cloth. Dr David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary explorer described them as an industrious race.
A.J. Wills in his Book “An Introduction to the History of Central Africa claims that the Mang’anja came into contact with the Arabs by 700 AD, while J.G. Pike in his book Malawi, “Economic and Political history claims that the Mang’anja came into contact with the Arabs by 915 AD and that the Mang’anja were already advanced iron smelters by 400 AD.
Dr. Livingstone wrote an interesting account of the Mang’anja people.
“…………they were,’’ he said, ’’an industrious race. In addition to working in iron and cotton and basket making they cultivate the soil extensively. All the people turn over to labour in the fields. It is no uncommon thing to see men, women and children hard at work, with a baby lying close by beneath a shady bush. Iron ore is dugout of the hills and iron manufacture is a staple trade. Each village has its smelting house, its charcoal burners and blacksmiths. They make good axes, spears, needles, arrowheads and bracelets. Many of their men are intelligent looking with well shaped heads, agreeable faces and high foreheads. We soon learned to forget colour”.That was the scene at Mang’anja Hills (Mikolongwe).
The Mang’anja derive their name from their iron smelting work. They have been described as pertaining to people of the iron furnace (Ng’anjo); ‘anthu a mng’anjo’ and later corrupted to Mang’anja.
When smelting iron, the furnace produces flames (Malawi a moto). They also called themselves aMalawi (MaryTew: “People of the Lake Nyasa Region, 1950.)”
The Mang’anja used the names aMang’anja or aMalawi interchangeably and the country they lived in was called Mang’anja or Malawi.
When Gasper Bocaro (1616), a rich Portuguese merchant visited the Nyasa territory in search of gold, he was disappointed to find iron furnaces. He recorded that everywhere he went he found Mang’anja people and recorded the lake, as Lake Mang’anja. He proceeded to Quelimaneand set up a territorial designation called Villa da Mang’anja or Mang’anja da Costa indicating that he found that the whole area between Luangwa and Zambezi to the west and Indian Ocean to the east was populated byMang’anja people
George Shepperson and Thomas Price in their book “The Independent African”, which documents the JohnChilembweuprising they indicate that “Livingstone found them (the people of this country) in 1858 calling themselves Mang’anja” and the two writers refer to the Mang’anja as the parent tribe.
OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE
In spite of this colourful history theMang’anja tribe which was the first tribe to settle in this country and which suffered persecution from the slave trade, the Mangánja aretoday being disregarded as a tribe.
The atrocities suffered by the Mang’anja people as a result of the notorious Arab slave trade are unbelievable and unimaginable.
During Dr David Livingstone’s travels to this country he observed that the people being enslaved were the Mang’anja although some of them were called the Nyanja. They were nicknamed so because they lived along perennial rivers or along lakes. He was horrified to see that the shire Highlands was completely devastated and skeletons of abandoned slaves were a common sight. He vowed to fight the perpetrators of the slave trade and worked hard to bring Christianity, commerce and civilization to present day Malawi.
According to Dr Livingstone as many as 19,000 Mang’anja tribesman and women were captured and sold into slavery every year (An introduction to the history ofCentral Africa by A.J. Wills, J.G Pike Malawi: Economic and Political History)
Dr Livingstone went on to say the figure of 19,000 did not include an estimated 30,000 others who were being captured through the back door byMario, a Portuguese half caste, who was capturing the Mang’anja between Tete and Lirangwe.
In 1968 Dr Kamuzu Banda, the first president of independent Malawi, decided to reinstate the Paramount Lundu Chieftaincy, as Paramount Chief of the Chewa tribe. This was a calculated strategy to obliterate the Mang’anja tribe from the country’s history. He went further to declare that there is no tribe called Mang’anja. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As a result of Dr Banda’s pronouncement, the Mang’anja were removed from the national census register.
Dr Banda went further to remove Chinyanja as the national language of the country and replaced it with Chichewa.
This was a political decision made unilaterally without any scientific research or historical evidence. Yet Chinyanja is a popular lingua franca Spoken in parts of Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tanzania, and Malawi. It was a decision made under what is called “politics of population control.”
It is an undisputable fact there that Mang’anja and Chewa speak two different dialects of the same language. But this does not make them one tribe if anything, it would be appropriate to say the Chewa are a Sub-section of the Mang’anja tribe.
S.S. Murray, a colonial government official is quoted in the1910 ’’Handbook on Nyasaland” saying:
’’The northern province, with a provincial commissioner stationed at Nkhata Bay, comprises the West Nyasa, the Momberas, and the North Nyasa districts. Arrangements are however, being made to create a new district for the province to be composed of a part of the existing Momberas and the Kasungu area of the Kota Kota district in the Central Province. The natives of the section are all of the Chewa – a branch of the Mang’anja stock.’’
Prof.EdrinnieKayambazinthu, professor of languages at Chancellor College, the University of Malawi, in her research paper titled “Language Planning situation monograph in Malawi” invalidated Dr Banda’s decision and quotes Prof. J.M. Schofeleersauthor of “ Mang’anja Traditional Religion” who states that the Mang’anja tribe was there as early as the 14th century long before the Portuguese colonized Mozambique.
In 2017, the Mang’anja Association wrote the National Statistical Office (NSO) to re-instate the Mang’anja tribe into the national census register. The NSO obliged and in same year the Mang’anja tribe was included in the national census. It was a victory for a tribe that has suffered considerable hemorrhage.
The results of the 2018 census were that the population of the Mang’anja was recorded as 559,887. This was inconceivable since the 1966 census recorded the Mang’anja population at 2.54 million. This could only mean one thing; most Mang’anja people are identifying themselves with other tribes like the Chewa,Lhomwe and Sena because of inter-marriages as well as political manipulation.
FORMATION OF MANG’ANJA ASSOCIATION
Mang’anja Association was initiated in 1984 after a few Mang’anja people who shared the same concerns about their tribe met and agreed to raise awareness about their old tribe. It was initially called Mang’anjaConsciousness.
The association did not come out in the open because of the political atmosphere of the time and operated underground. It would have been political su***de to declare the formation of the association under the one-party dictatorship.
From its inception the objective of the Mang’anja Association has been to preserve and protect the history and culture of the Mang’anja tribe. It is a cultural grouping similar to other tribal groupings that have been formed by other tribes in this country.
In 1994, the association filed an application with the registrar General to register the association. But successive governments did not approve the application until 2012 when the Mang’anja Association received its registration certificate.
WHERE ARE MANG’ANJA PEOPLE FOUND?
People of the Manag’anja ethnic tribe are found in most districts in the Southern region of Malawi as well as Nkhata-Bay and Likoma.
However, the majority ofMang’anja people are found inChikwawa, Nsanje Mulanje, Phalombe and Thyolo, where there are more Mang’anja chiefs than any other tribe.The Mang’anja people are also found in Blantyre, Mwanza, Neno, Chiradzulu, Zomba, Machinga and Mangochi.
FOOT NOTE
The Mang’anja Association decided to make the information public in order to put to rest doubts about the existence of the Mang’anja tribe and to reclaim its right to exist as a tribe. Notribe should be deprived of its identity either for political expediency or any other reason.
