the zimba and the lundu state in the late 16th and 17th century

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The Zimba and the Lundu State in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries Author(s): Matthew Schoffeleers Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1987), pp. 337-355 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/182189 Accessed: 29/11/2010 16:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of African History. http://www.jstor.org

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Page 1: The Zimba and the Lundu State in the Late 16th and 17th Century

The Zimba and the Lundu State in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth CenturiesAuthor(s): Matthew SchoffeleersSource: The Journal of African History, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1987), pp. 337-355Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/182189Accessed: 29/11/2010 16:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheJournal of African History.

http://www.jstor.org

Page 2: The Zimba and the Lundu State in the Late 16th and 17th Century

3tournal of African History, 28 (I987), pp. 337-355 337 Printed in Great Britain

THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE IN THE LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES*

BY MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

ABOUT twenty years have passed since E. A. Alpers first argued that the Zimba, who are on record as having twice defeated a Portuguese armed force and as having occupied a large part of Makualand in the closing decade of the sixteenth century, were actually a fighting force in the service of the Lundul of the lower Shire valley in Malawi.2 Alpers' viewpoint has in the meantime come to be accepted by virtually all students of Malawi's precolonial past, including M. D. D. Newitt, who some years ago made his own authoritative contribution to this discussion.3 However, whereas Newitt is prepared to accept Alpers' contention that the Zimba were the Lundu's warriors, he disagrees on the reputed motive behind the Zimba raids. While Alpers is of the opinion that the Lundu state, together with the rival state of Muzura, was already well established in the second half of the sixteenth century, if not earlier, Newitt holds that these states did not materialize as formal systems before the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In his view the overall situation just before and after i 6oo was rather one in which powerful groups of invaders, including the Zimba, were still in search of a suitable environment in which to set up a feudalistic state system, modelled after the Portuguese enclaves on the Zambezi. Consequently, Alpers' idea that the Zimba were being employed by the Lundu of that time to strengthen his position as an already established ruler against his rival Muzura would be untenable.

Newitt's alternative reading of the early Portuguese documents has far-reaching consequences, for it upsets much of what by now has become standard Malawian historiography. It also considerably weakens the concept of the Maravi states as representing the first clear case of a trade-based as against a tribute-based political power in the East African interior.4 It is

* This paper is based on fieldwork in southern Malawi from October I966 to December i967 and for a number of shorter periods afterwards. Financial assistance was at various times provided by the Nuffield Foundation, London, the University of Malawi and the Free University, Amsterdam. I am also indebted to the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (N.I.A.S.) for facilities to write up part of my material. The present text is a shortened version of a chapter in a book about the Mbona cult in Malawi, which I am completing. It was first presented at the 29th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Madison, Wisconsin, in i986. I am grateful to Marijke Kreuze for drawing the maps and to the following persons for their helpful comments and criticisms: Tom Price, Terence Ranger, Elias Mandala and Kings Phiri.

1 Lundu is both a positional title, comparable to 'chief' or 'king', and a dynastic name. We speak of 'the Lundu', when the title stands by itself, and of 'Lundu', when it is attached to a proper name.

2 E. A. Alpers, 'North of the Zambezi', in R. Oliver (ed.), The Middle Age of African History (London, i967), 78-84; E. A. Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London, 1975), 46-55.

3 M. D. D. Newitt, 'The early history of the Maravi ',J. Afr. Hist., xxiii (1982), 145-62. 4 P. D. Curtin et al., African History (London, 1978), 172.

12 AFH 28

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338 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

L. Ma/awi

'~~~ Kalonga H.Q.

I

L. Chirwa Muzura H.Q. ' '

.041

LunduHQ.

Mbona shrine

Zimba camp

Sena /

Quelimane

Indian Ocean

80km

Fig. i. Southern Malawi, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. -: Approximate boundaries of Maravi kingdoms.

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THE ZIMBA AND THIE LUNDU STATE 339

therefore of more than superficial importance carefully to examine the arguments for and against Newitt's position.

The first comment to be made is that Newitt's alternative reading raises as many problems as it solves, the principal one being to explain where these powerful intrusive groups came from, and what reason they had to leave their country of origin and move into northern Zambesia. The author himself concedes that there is no direct documentary evidence providing information on these questions5 and since it is doubtful that such evidence will ever come to light, the provenance of these groups and the circumstances under which this multiple migratory movement was set in motion are likely forever to remain an unresolved problem. The result, then, would be that one theory, said to be weakly supported by documentary evidence, is replaced by another which seems equally questionable. It is obvious that we have to look for a way out of this impasse, which is what this paper sets out to do.

To begin with, it will be argued that Newitt's criticism of Alpers and others like myself, though evidently correct on a number of points, does insufficient justice to the available evidence with regard to the existence of identifiable Maravi states from at least the second half of the sixteenth century. In line with this, it will be maintained that some of the supposed invading bands were either sedentary ethnic groups or armies in the service of established state organisations. As far as the Zimba are concerned, we regard them, as does Alpers, as an armed force under the Lundu of that time, but it will be maintained against Alpers that they were not local men but refugees from south of the Zambezi, who operated as a mercenary force under the Lundu.

Finally, we hope to show that Muzura, Lundu's successor as the most powerful personage in the Maravi state system, was neither a member of the Kalonga dynasty, as maintained by Alpers, nor a predecessor of the Kalongas, as proposed by Newitt, but the ruler of an entirely different state, centred not on the south-western lake shore but in the Neno-Mwanza area, north- west of modern Blantyre. This idea was originally developed by W. H. J. Rangeley, but it has been lost sight of in the course of the discussion.6 If proved correct, it changes our view of early Malawian history to a consider- able extent, since it will no longer be possible to maintain that after the Lundu's military defeat in I622 political dominance shifted directly to the Kalongas on the lake shore, which has now become the accepted view. Instead, we shall have to get used to the idea that it shifted first to the western Shire Highlands, and only several decades later to the lake shore.

While it is important to get one's facts right, it is equally important to develop a theory explaining why these Maravi states became so expansionist and aggressive in the half-century before and after i 6oo. Newitt has decisively shown that Alpers' 'ivory thesis', according to which this was largely due to the Portuguese lack of interest in the ivory trade, finds little support in Portuguese documents.7 Yet his own theory that the turmoils which took place in that period were due to an anarchic T7lkerwanderung seems equally untenable. The theory to be developed here is (a) that a number of Maravi states were already in existence in the second half of the sixteenth century (although we shall refrain from engaging in the ongoing discussion

5 Newitt, 'Early History', 158. 6 W. H. J. Rangeley, 'Bocarro's Journey', Nyasaland Journal, vii, i (I954), 15-23.

7 Newitt, 'Early history', 149.

I 2-2

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340 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

about their supposed period of origin); (b) that some of these states were involved in a process of rapid expansion in the half-century before and after i 6oo; and (c) that this Maravi expansionism was set in motion around I 572, when the Portuguese, no longer content with straightforward trade, organized a massive military expedition to conquer the Monomotapa kingdom.

It is not difficult to chart the Portuguese penetration of the Zambesian interior from the early sixteenth century onwards, since on that topic a wealth of information has already been made accessible by a number of scholars.8 It is much more of a problem to answer the question what repercussions this had on the Maravi states. The crux as usual is the scarcity of documentary evidence on the internal politics of these states. The only way to solve that problem is to complement the scarce documentary evidence as best one can with data extracted from oral history in the broadest possible sense, including not only straightforward narrative accounts about that period - if such are available - but also mnemonics embedded in religious beliefs, rituals, and even in the physical landscape. It is this which the present paper sets out to do, with the proviso that it will limit itself to the transformation of the Lundu polity. It is fully recognized that the use of oral history poses special problems of verification and interpretation,9 but this need not deter one from making use of it as long as one's sources and one's methods are open to public scrutiny.

The central question is what developments took place in the Lundu state between the middle of the sixteenth and the middle of the seventeenth century in response to the gradual expansion of the Portuguese enclaves. We shall therefore begin with a brief overview of Zambesian history, using the relatively few contemporary sources summed up by Newitt'0 and focussing on persons, events and processes central to our argument. The middle part of our paper concerns itself more or less entirely with the Zimba, their identity, and their relationship with the Lundu of that period, and it is here that oral history in its various guises will be explored. In the third and final section the results of that exploration will be placed in the broader perspective of Zambesian history to find out if and how the expansionist character of the Lundu state was a logical result of Portuguese politics.

I. THE PORTUGUESE PENETRATION OF ZAMBESIA IN THE

SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Until the early I530s, long-distance trade in the lower Zambezi region was largely in the hands of Swahili merchants. From then onwards, however, the Portuguese began to establish their own entrepots at Sena and Tete and along

8 E. Axelson, Portuguese in South Africa, I600-I700 (Johannesburg, 1969); A. F. Isaacman, Mozambique - The Africanization of a European Institution: The Zambezi Prazos, I750-I902 (Madison, Wis., 1972); M. D. D. Newitt, Portuguese Settlement on the Zambesi (London, 1973); P. Schebesta, Portugals Konquistamission in Siid-ost Afrika (St. Augustin, I966).

9 See, e.g., R. G. Willis, 'On historical reconstruction from oral-traditional sources', Herskovits Memorial Lecture (Edinburgh, 1976); J. C. Miller, 'The dynamics of oral tradition in Africa', in B. Bernardi et al., Fonti Orali. Antropologia e Storia (Milan, I 978), 75-IOI; J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (London, I985).

10 Newitt, 'Early history', I5I.

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THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE 34I

the main routes into the Monomotapa kingdom. There are no indications that the relationships between the two parties were particularly strained. On the contrary, we learn from Father Monclaro, one of the few primary sources on this period, that in I572, when he was stationed in Sena, Muslims and Christians were 'as mixed as if they belonged to one creed'." Generally speaking, both sides traded foreign-made cloth and other luxury goods against slaves, ivory and the coarse local cloths, known as machira. These cloths came for the greater part from the lower Shire valley. Judging from Monclaro's indications, the export to the south bank alone must have consisted of thousands of pieces a year.'2 Although part of the production will have been sold directly to customers on the south bank, it appears nevertheless that by far the greater part was sold to Swahili and Portuguese traders, who acted as middlemen.13 The successive Captains of Mozambique did their utmost to gain control over the inland trade, deploring especially the collaboration between their compatriots and the Muslims, but without being able to do much about this.

This began to change, however, with the murder of Father Goncalo da Silveira at the Monomotapa's court in I56i .14 The reasons behind the assassination have never become entirely clear, but the general opinion of Portuguese officialdom was that the Swahili merchants had been able to convince the Monomotapa that Silveira had only come to pave the way for a Portuguese take-over. One of the results of this unfortunate incident was that the Portuguese mounted a military expedition against the Monomotapa under the command of Francisco Barreto, a former viceroy of Goa. It took Barreto almost eleven years, until early I 572, before he and his army set foot at Sena. As far as the Monomotapa was concerned, Barreto had been commissioned to put several requests before him, one of which was for the immediate expulsion of all Moors from his lands, since they were 'enemies of the Christian faith and perpetrators of many crimes '.15 The first group of Moors the expedition felt it should deal with were those at Sena, who were executed in the most gruesome manner after having been accused by Father Monclaro of having caused a number of deaths among the Portuguese.16 The expedition itself was a complete disaster, but it changed once and for all the character of the Portuguese presence in the interior. Instead of continuing to live in small settlements under the protection of local rulers, they now began to carve out autonomous enclaves as outposts of the Portuguese state and the Portuguese church. One of the first missionaries to be sent to Zambesia was the Dominican Friar Joao dos Santos, author of Aethiopia Oriental (I609), which is one of our principal sources of information on late sixteenth-century Zambesian history.'7

II F. Monclaro, 'Relacao da Viagem que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus com Francisco Barreto na Conquista de Monomotapa no Anno de I 569', in G. M. Theal (ed.), Records of South-East Africa, iII (London, I899), 235.

12 Ibid., 229, 234-5. 13 Ibid., 234; Joao dos Santos, Ethiopia Oriental, in Theal, Records, vii (London, I902),

234-5. 14 A critical discussion of Silveira's missionary activities and the possible reasons for

his murder are to be found in Schebesta, Portugals Konquistamission, 66-99. 5 Monclaro, 'Relacjo', 247. 16 Ibid., 235-6.

17 Details of Santos' missionary career are to be found in Schebesta, Portugals Konquistamission, 92-I02.

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342 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

It is clear from Santos that missionary work in those days was limited to the villages and chieftaincies on the south bank over which the captains of the Portuguese forts exercised de facto authority. People on the north bank between Sena and Tete were apparently less receptive to the faith and less easy to subdue. According to Santos, the dominant 'tribes' in that area were the Mumbo (Mbo) and the Zimba, both of which had a reputation for cannibalism. Prior to I 590 the Mbo were living inland opposite Tete, whereas the Zimba's main stronghold lay opposite Sena. Both groups were still in a stage of expansion and as such were trying to extend their control over neighbouring chiefdoms.

Chiefs thus threatened might try to conclude an alliance with the Portu- guese in exchange for military assistance. One such was the headman of Chicorongo, a place some forty kilometres north-east of Tete, which had been ransacked by Quizura, a chief of the Mbo section. The headman called for help from the captain of Tete, who assembled an army consisting of his own men and those of his eleven vassal chiefs. According to Santos, his intervention was a complete success as Quizura and his entire fighting force, amounting to six hundred armed men, were killed.18 In the course of I 592

a similar incident occurred on the north bank opposite Sena, where a local chief, who was in alliance with the Portuguese, had been overrun by the Zimba and called on the Portuguese for help. This is Santos' account:

It so happened at the time I was there that the Muzimba Kaffirs, of whom I previously made mention, who eat human flesh, invaded this territory and made war upon one of these friendly Kaffirs, and by force of arms took from him the kraal in which he resided and a great part of his land, besides which they killed and ate a great number of his people. The Kaffir, seeing himself thus routed and his power destroyed, proceeded to Sena to lay his trouble before the captain, who was then Andre de Santiago, and to beg for assistance in driving out of his house the enemy who had taken possession of it. The captain, upon hearing his pitiful request, determined to assist him, both because he was very friendly to us and because he did not wish to have so near to Sena a neighbour as wicked as the Muzimba.19

However, when Andre de Santiago arrived at the place where the Zimba were supposed to be encamped, he found that they had ensconced themselves within a strong double palisade of wood, surrounded by a deep and wide trench, which it was impossible to take. He therefore called upon the captain of Tete, Pedro Fernandez de Chaves, for reinforcements. The latter immedi- ately prepared to come to the assistance of his colleague with over one hundred Portuguese and coloured men carrying guns, assisted by an African force drawn from his vassal chiefs. In the meantime Santiago and his men may have learned more about these Zimba besides their supposed canni- balism. Thus Santos reported that they had a special veneration for their king:

These Zimbas, or Muzimbas, do not adore idols or recognise any God, but instead they venerate and honour their king, whom they regard as a divinity, and they say he is the greatest and best in the world. And the said king says of himself that he alone is god of the earth, for which reason if it rains when he does not wish it to do so, or is [sic] too hot, he shoots arrows at the sky for not obeying him; and

18 Santos, Ethiopia Oriental, 292. '9 Ibid., 293-4.

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THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE 343

although all these people eat human flesh, the king does not, to seem different from hiis vassals.20

When the Tete party finally arrived within a few kilometres from the Zimba stronghold, they were ambushed and killed to a man. Father Nicolau do Rosario, who accompanied the expedition as its chaplain, though already severely wounded, was taken to the Zimba fortress where, according to Santos, he was killed in the most gruesome manner. This, it is said, the Zimba did because they held him and the other missionaries responsible for all the mnisdeeds of the Portuguese, as the latter did nothing without their priests' leave and counsel.21 One cannot help being reminded here of the massacre of the Muslim merchants, twenty years earlier, at the instigation of Father Monclaro, which took place only a short distance away from the place where the inhabitants of Tete and their priest Nicolau were murdered.

Apparently, Andr6 de Santiago knew nothing about the fate of the Tete party until the following day when

at dawn they [i.e. the Zimba] sallied out of their fortress, the chief clothed in the chasuble that the father had brought with him to say mass, carrying the golden chalice in his left hand and an assegai in his right, all the other Zimbas carrying on their backs the limbs of the Portuguese, with the head of the captain of Tete on the point of a long lance, and beating a drum they had taken from him. In this rnanner, with loud shouts and cries they came within sight of Andre de Santiago and all the Portuguese who were with him, and showed them all these things. After this they retired into their fortress, saying that what they had done to the men of Tete who had come to help their enemies, they would do to them....22

Upon seeing this, Santiago and his men decided to retreat in silence under cover of night, but before they could reach the river and safety, they were fallen upon by the Zimba. Together the latter killed one hundred and thirty Portuguese and coloureds of Sena and Tete as well as the two captains of these forts. This was a severe blow to the Portuguese presence on the Zambezi, and since the Zimba were now more audacious than before, it was feared they mnight do even more damage in the future. Therefore Dom Pedro de Sousa, captain of Mozambique, in I593 decided to put an end to the Zimba threat. IHaving assembled a war party consisting of 200 Portuguese and I 500

Africans, and taking with him several pieces of artillery, de Sousa went up to the Zimba fort. As the artillery proved useless against the thick earthen walls of the fort, the assailants tried to storm it, but they were easily kept at bay. After two months it was decided to retreat and return to Sena. At this point the events of the year before repeated themselves, for the Zimba caught up with those of the men who were still in the camp, killed some of them and seized the greater part of such baggage and artillery as still remained.23

Santos adds, however, that although the position of the Zimba had become even stronger than before, 'he' nevertheless offered peace to the Portuguese of Sena. The fact that Santos at this point uses the singular - no less than seven times in a single paragraph - suggests that he is no longer speaking of the Zimba as a whole but of their leader. The person referred to was one Tondo (or Tundu), whom the new captain of Mozambique, Nuno da Caunha de Ataide, in I 599 sought leave to castigate, since after having defeated Dom

20 Ibid., 295. 21 Ibid., 295. 22 Ibid., 296. 23 Ibid., 297-9.

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344 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

Pedro de Sousa he had become excessively insolent.24 When Ataide made his complaint, the Zimba were in control not only of the north bank of the Zambezi but also of much of the coastal area and the land in between. Whether the conquest of the land between the Shire and the Indian Ocean took place before or after Sousa's defeat in I593, we do not know.25 We do know though that they had reached the coast in I 595, where Santos was once again able to renew his acquaintance with these warlike folk.26

Lundu and Muzura, I600-I635

One of the key figures in Zambesian politics around A.D. i 6oo was the Lundu (Rundu, Rondo) of the lower Shire valley, despite the fact that he is rarely mentioned in contemporary documents. The power of the Lundus was based partly on the valley's strategic position vis-'a-vis Sena and Tete, the principal trading stations on the Zambezi, and partly on its extraordinary agricultural potential due to a combination of wet-land and dry-land cultivation,27 which at times of drought gave it a critical advantage over much of lower Zambesia. One of the consequences of this state of affairs was that in periods of prolonged drought the valley attracted many migrants from abroad, who would attach themselves to local chiefs and headmen as serfs or domestic slaves. Another consequence was that the valley became important to the Portuguese settlements along the Zambezi as a granary in times of scarcity. This was as true in the late sixteenth century as it was in Livingstone's day.28 Commercially speaking, the most important crops were cotton and rice, which were respectively grown on dry land and wet land. We know very little as yet about the organisation of the early cotton industry, but it is entirely conceivable in view of its central importance that chiefs and headmen owned several looms, and that court fines were paid in machira among other things. Apart from this, we know that they later had a right to half of the ivory found in their territory.29 Taking these various elements together, one may conclude that the lower Shire valley constituted an environment in which political power based on trade, given the right conditions, could flourish.

The first mention of the Lundus in a Portuguese document refers to the year I6I4, when the then incumbent was approached by Diogo Simoes

24 Alpers, Ivory and Slaves, 53. 25 Both Alpers (ibid., 5o) and Newitt ('Early History', 156) assume that there were two

Zimba campaigns, one before and one after I590. However, if we leave out the Zimba horde which ravaged Kilwa and Mombasa as unrelated to Lundu's Zimba, there is no evidence left of any Zimba action in Makualand prior to the I 590s. Even Lupi's account, which is one of Alpers' main sources of information, implies no Zimba activity on the east coast before that date. It is therefore possible that the Zimba conquest of Makualand took place only after I590 or even I593.

26 Santos, Ethiopia Oriental, 368-9. 27 W. B. Morgan, 'The lower Shire valley of Nyasaland. A changing system of

agriculture', Geographical Journal, cxIx (953), 459-69; E. C. Mandala, 'Capitalism, ecology and society: the lower Tchiri (Shire) valley of Malawi, I860-i960' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, I983).

28 Santos, Ethiopia Oriental, 268; J. P. R. Wallis (ed.), The Zambezi Expedition of David Livingstone (London, I956), 268.

29 W. E. Chafulumira, Mbiri ya Amang'anja (Zomba, 1948), 20; A. C. P. Gamitto, King Kazembe, I (Lisbon, I960), I27.

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Madeira, then resident at Tete, to help him recapture the silver mines at Chicoa.30 The Lundu of that time is described as a 'lord with many vassals', and Madeira would certainly not have made his request had the person in question not been an important ruler as well as somebody on whom the Portuguese could rely. However, the next we hear of him is that in I622 he was defeated by his rival Muzura in alliance with the Portuguese. Apparently, the Lundu had in the meantime become an enemy of the Portuguese, but the reasons for this turnabout remain unclear.

Next to Lundu, the most important person was Muzura, whose name may possibly be rendered as 'the Uprooter'.3' Father Antonio Gomes, a Jesuit missionary, tells us that Muzura was originally employed as a foreman (capataz) by one of the Portuguese settlers on the south bank, but that, possessed of a boundless energy, he left his master for the north bank, where by his prowess as a hunter he gradually built up a following and in the end managed to unite a number of smaller states into a large kingdom.32 Exactly when this happened is not mentioned, but already by i 6o8 his power was such that the Portuguese enlisted his help against the rivals of Monomotapa Gatsi Rusere. In i6i6 the Portuguese traveller Gaspar Bocarro was entertained hospitably by Muzura at the latter's headquarters for two full weeks, another sign that he regarded the Portuguese as his allies.33 The most important year in his career was I622, when, together with the Portuguese, he managed to defeat the Lundu and thus become the most powerful potentate on the north bank.34

The same event, however, also resulted in a radical break with the Portuguese. Once again the reasons remain unclear, but already in I623 Muzura concluded an alliance with the redoubtable Chombe, an expert in the use of European firearms.35 With Chombe's aid, Muzura attacked a number of Portuguese settlements and raided Karangaland, following Gatsi Rusere's death in i624.36 Although he was in the end forced to withdraw to the north bank, hostilities continued. In I629 the Monomotapa Kapararidze, Gatsi Rusere's successor, who had fled to Muzura, persuaded him to join a grand alliance against the Portuguese.37 This led to the Kapararidze rising of I63I, which very nearly meant the end of the Portuguese presence in Zambesia. Muzura's task was to launch an attack on Quelimane, but he failed to conquer the port and many of his men were killed. In the next quarter-

30 A. Bocarro, Decade written by Antonio Bocarro, His Majesty's Chronicler for the state of India, of the performances of the Portuguese in the east, in Theal, Records, III, 395.

31 The name Muzura may have been derived from the verb /-zula/, 'to pull up by the roots'. /Mu-/ is a common actor prefix, and the consonants /r/ and /1/ are interchangeable in Chimang'anja. Cf. D. C. Scott, A Cyclopaedic Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language (Edinburgh, I982), 68i, s.v. zula.

32 A. Gomes, 'Viagem que fez o Padre Ant.0 Gomes, da Comp.a de Jesus, ao Imperio de Manomotapa; e assistencia que fez nas ditas terras d.e. Alg'us annos' (ed. and notes by E. A. Axelson), Studia, 3 (January, I959), I99-200. The detail about Muzura having been a powerful hunter is probably a legendary cliche (cf. Vansina, Oral Tradition, I39).

33 A. Bocarro, Decade, 4I6-9. 34 The year i 622 is mentioned in G. Schurhammer, 'Die Entdeckung des Njassa-Sees',

Stimmen der Zeit, XCIX (I 920), 449. Schurhammer's source was Father Sebastian Barreto's annual report to the Superior General of the Jesuits, dated December I5, I624.

35 A. Bocarro, Decade, 387-95; Axelson, Portuguese, 4I -2.

36 Axelson, Portuguese, 67; Schebesta, Konquistamission, I I8; Newitt, 'Early history', I6o. 37 Newitt, 'Early history', i6o.

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century, however, Muzura's power came to be overshadowed by the Kalonga, whose capital lay on the south-western shore of Lake Malawi, and who was the first to be referred to by a contemporary author as 'emperor of Maravi .38

II. TUNDU AND THE ZIMBA IN THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF THE

VALLEY POPULATION

In the foregoing we have summarized what is known about the Zimba from contemporary Portuguese sources. We shall now introduce additional information, derived from local beliefs, local topography and various other sources. Our discussion will focus first on the meaning of the two composite forms in which the name Tundu has survived, namely Chitundu and Matundu. Following this, we shall examine the relationship between the Zimba and the Lundu of the time, and the influence of the Zimba on the process of state formation in the lower Shire valley.

Chitundu

In the lower Shire valley the name Chitundu refers to a male spirit who is held responsible for heavy storms and whirlwinds, locust plagues, crop- devouring birds and man-eating lions. The way to appease him is to make an offering to him at the shrine of Mbona, the regional rain-spirit, who is considered to be a relative of Chitundu's.39 However, people believe that, though related to Mbona, Chitundu's homeland is not the Shire valley but some place to the south of the Zambezi, where he is said to have his own shrine. It is this belief which is referred to in a letter by the missionary E. Price, published in I927:

It was said a few years ago, after a great storm, that 'Chitundu', supposed to be a greater rain spirit than Bona, and living near Salisbury [now Harare], had sent Bona back on the great storm; but he did not arrive here, or should we not say that a greater power is working in the minds of the people, and that the gospel is winning its way into their hearts.40

Although Price mentions Harare as Chitundu's homeland - a reflection of the important place held by the then Salisbury in the lives of the numerous labour migrants from the lower Shire valley - people whom we interviewed more usually associated Chitundu with the chiefdom of Makombe, which lies south of the Zambezi, midway between the valley and Harare. The Makombe chiefdom occupies a prominent place in local oral traditions, not only because of Chitundu but also because of its history of resistance against the Portu- guese, which led to bloody reprisals and the flight of many to the lower Shire valley.41

38 M. Barreto, 'Report upon the State and Conquest of the Rivers of Cuama', in Theal, Records, III, 480.

39 Interview with Messrs Mbukwa, Khombe and Kambalame, officials of the Mbona shrine, Mbangu Village, Nsanje District, Malawi, 4 May I967. Interview with Mr. Joseph Thom, the shrine's spirit medium, Thole Village, Nsanje District, i May I972.

40 E. Price, letter in The South African Pioneer, XL, Viii-iX (I927), 103-4. 41 Details on the resistance history of the Makombe Paramountcy in Newitt, Portuguese

Settlement, and A. F. Isaacman, The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique (London, 1976).

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THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE 347

+ 1

0 + + 0 0

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tw- + 0 10 km + )0 0

I + 0 o0

X ,~, - 0 Nsanje / ~~~ 0 0o 00 township

coO

+0 00o Mbon + 0 0 'shrin

+ Plta or elvae conr

+*+ + + + + 0

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V+ + + + + 0 + + 000000

00 0 00 Dinde nd

. oe -+ .0 . .D,

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.. .- 0 C* d marsh

1? 00 0o- ?+ Rie

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fl j i Plateau or elevated country 'ancestor o overlooking the Shire Valley

If/f I Foothills

s r of te Z Woodland and grassland, the main Wtrh gal cultivable areas of the valley f loor

Z i:Flood plain, marsh or dambo

Fig. 2. Location of Zimba base camp.

Chitundu is also referred to as kholo la Azimba42 which literally means 'ancestor of the Zimba', but which can equally be rendered as 'founder' or 'leader of the Zimba'. The names Chitundu and Zimba thus become interchangeable, which explains the striking parallelism between the spirit Chitundu who sends storms, man-eating lions, locusts and crop-devouring birds, and the sixteenth-century Zimba, who in the words of Joao dos Santos were cannibals in the habit of plundering, killing and eating their way through all the kingdoms of Kaffraria.43

There can therefore be hardly any doubt that the Chitundu, who is feared and worshipped in the lower Shire valley as a destructive spirit,44 and who

42 Interview with Mr Fryton Malemia, Malemia Village, Nsanje District 8 August i967. On the different meanings of the noun kholo, cf. Scott, Cyclopaedic Dictionary, 227 s.v.

43 Santos, Ethiopia Oriental, 300. 44 The prefix /chi-/ is often used in the Mang'anja language to convey the notion of

something or someone great or redoubtable. Chitundu may therefore best be translated as 'the fearsome Tundu'.

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348 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

is spoken of as the ancestor of the Zimba, refers to the Zimba leader Tundu mentioned in the Portuguese documents. This association is not in any sense unique, for in Zambesia famous persons, even if they were aliens, could become acknowledged territorial spirits (mhondoro). Abraham has described the mhondoro cults as 'major trace elements precipitated by their history and by their institutional arrangements to perpetuate awareness of the same'.45 Hence when people in the lower Shire valley keep affirming that Tundu and the Zimba originated from south of the Zambezi, and when their statements are supported by a dense religious imagery, one has to take them seriously unless one has good reasons for not doing so.

Matundu

Matundu, the other composite form in which the name Tundu is preserved, is a toponym, indicating a range of wooded hills on the south-western border of the lower Shire valley (see fig. 2), and to a stream, a chief's courthouse and a sacred grove in the same area.46 These hills, which range from over seven hundred to over nine hundred metres in height, also play an important part in the Mbona mythology.47

These hills possess obvious strategic value, since they offer excellent hide-outs, and since at various points they offer an unimpeded view of the surrounding countryside, making it possible to spot a war party from a considerable distance. Furthermore, the plateaux also allow for the culti- vation of a wide range of fruits, vegetables and staple crops, so that food need not be a problem. Throughout the centuries, these hills have been a haven for all sorts of fugitives, but for the same reason it was and is an area kept under close state surveillance.

Matundu may be translated as 'Tundu's people' or, preceded by a locative, as 'the land of Tundu's people .48 There is (or was) another 'Matunduland' opposite Tete.49 The fact that both 'Matundulands' were situated across the river from an important Portuguese trading settlement suggests that one of their functions was to control the traffic between those settlements and the Maravi chiefdoms to the north. It is also likely that the Zimba fortress, described by Joao dos Santos as lying opposite Sena, was

45 D. P. Abraham, 'The roles of "Chaminuka" and the Mhondoro cults in Shona political history', in E. Stokes and R. Brown (eds.), The Zambesian Past (Manchester, I 966), 46.

46 Wallis (ed.), Zambezi Expedition, 76. Malawi Government, Department of Surveys, District Maps, Sheet io, Nsanje (Blantyre, I97 5). Rangeley Papers, The Society of Malawi Library, File 2/ I /I 7.

47 T. Price, 'Mbona's water-hole', Nyasaland 7ournal, vi, i (953), 28-33. J. M. Schoffeleers, 'The Story of Mbona the Martyr', in R. Schefold et al. (eds.), Man, Meaning and History (The Hague, I980), 246-267. J. M. Schoffeleers, 'Oral history and the retrieval of the distant past', in W. van Binsbergen and M. Schoffeleers (eds.), Theoretical Explorations in African Religion (London, I985); M. Schoffeleers, 'Ideological confron- tation and the manipulation of oral history; a Zambesian case', History in Africa (forthcoming I987).

48 On the use of the prefix /ma-/ in Chimang'anja see Scott, Cyclopaedic Dictionary, 299. Also: T. Price, 'The Meaning of Mang'anja', Nyasaland yournal, xiv, i (I 961), 28-33.

49 Gamitto, King Kazembe, I, 28, and route map attached to vol. ii.

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THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE 349

situated in the Matundu Hills.50 The reason for advancing that opinion, as should be clear by now, is the extraordinarily dense concentration of Zimba mnemonics in and around these hills.

The Zimba and the Lundu

If it can be maintained that the Zimba and their leader were immigrants from the south bank, the question arises of their relation to the political establishment in the Shire valley. One possibility is that the Zimba had formed themselves into an army against the Lundu's wish and without the Lundu being able to prevent them from doing so. On the other hand, it is also possible that the Lundu himself had given his consent to the formation of the Zimba army, or that, although it had been formed independently, he was able to use it for his own purposes. The available evidence points to the second possibility, viz. that the Zimba were in alliance with the Lundu of that time and that the latter used them to consolidate his power in the Shire valley and beyond.

That Lundu and the Zimba maintained close relations is suggested by a collection of oral traditions, published by Eduardo do Couto Lupi, which speak of warriors called Marundu, or 'Lundu's men', who ransacked Makualand some time in the distant past. Despite their being remembered as Marundu, Lupi could only conclude that they were the Zimba described by Joao dos Santos, since there were no traditions about another pillaging army.51

The idea of a close relationship is also implied in the passage from Santos, quoted earlier on, in which it was said that the Zimba venerated and honoured their king, whom they regarded as 'the greatest and the best in the world'. Santos does not actually mention the king's name, but if we have to take his testimony at face value, then the reference is most probably to the Lundu of that time. Our reason for saying so is, first, that one can think of no other candidate and, second, that Santos' description of the king contains parallels with Mang'anja oral history which are close enough to suggest that they refer to the same person. Santos, it will be remembered, reported that this king regarded himself as a god, shooting arrows at the sky whenever it was too wet or too dry. What this actually amounts to is that the Lundu who ruled at the time of the Zimba wars enjoyed both political and ritual supremacy in the lower Shire valley. This meant among other things that on the occasion of a drought or a superabundance of rain he was expected to perform the ritual, which Santos describes as 'shooting at the sky'. In one of the Mbona myths we are offered a slightly different account of that particular ritual:

In days gone by, when the rains were late, King Lundu Mankhokwe used to call upon his entire family and other people as well to make preparations for the beating

50 A likely location would have been the Lulwe Plateau, on the south-western edge of the Matundu Hills, which at an altitude of about 500 metres extends several miles into Mozambique in the direction of Sena. The stream draining this plateau is also called Tundu.

51 E. do Couto Lupi, Angoche, Breve memoria sobre uma das capitanais - mores de Districto de Mocambique (Lisbon, I907); Alpers, Ivory and Slaves, 5I-2. Note that the Zimba were known both as Marundu and Matundu, that is to say, both as Lundu's and Tundu's men.

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350 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

of the [rain]drums and the performance, by himself, of the rain dance. The most important drum was called Kamango. While dancing, he would leap in the direction of each of the four winds, pointing [his ritual dagger] in the same direction. In those days God's spirit dwelt in him, which is why he would always make a sacrifice to God, Creator of all things, when a drought or some other calamity threatened his country. One year, when Mbona was still a young man, there occurred a devastating drought. Lundu's people came to their king, saying, 'We beseech you, king, have all your people assembled so that, together with you, they can make a sacrifice, as has been our custom whenever the rains failed to come'. The king complied with the request of his people, arranged for an assembly, and had the rain drums brought out. [This done] he set about dancing the way he used to whenever rain was scarce, leaping forward, backward and upward, and pointing his dagger at the four winds, but God remained unmoved. His spirit kept away from King Lundu.52

The text just cited is the beginning of a narrative, which ends with the rain ritual being transferred from the royal court in the northern part of the valley to the Mbona shrine some ninety kilometres to the south.53 We shall presently return to the political significance of that event, but here we wish to draw attention to the striking similarity between the passage in Santos published in i 609 and this piece of oral history, collected more than three and a half centuries later. True, Santos reports belief in the king's divinity, whereas the informant from the Shire valley describes him as a pious person (who nevertheless lost favour with God). Both, however, refer to him as the ritual head of the country and as someone who in that capacity was regularly called upon to perform a ceremony involving 'shooting' or 'stabbing at the sky'. It is more than likely that Santos, being the keen ethnographer that he was, obtained his information directly or indirectly from people who knew the valley and who had first-hand information on the relations between the king and the Zimba. At the very least, the congruence of Santos' account with the above passage from Mang'anja oral history suggests that it is not a product of his fantasy, but the description of a ritual that actually took place.

These affirmations of the Lundu's ritual supremacy are also noteworthy in that they describe something unknown to the other Maravi states, where rain ceremonies, so far as can be ascertained, were always performed by ritual specialists who were in principle independent of the secular rulers.54 Although we possess a number of traditions to the effect that the latter did occasionally try to appropriate the rain rituals, we know of no case other than the Lundu's in which they were successful. To reach that goal, armed assistance from outside on a fairly large scale was virtually indispensable. This leads us to suggest that it was the Zimba who provided the Lundus with the means to bring off this feat. There is also a fair amount of circumstantial

52 Schoffeleers, 'Story of Mbona', 251-2. The text was recorded during an interview with Mr Chapalapala, an elderly subsistence farmer from Misomali Village, Chapananga

Chiefdom, Chikwawa District, on 3I August I967.

53 This evidently happened after Lundu's military defeat in I622. A more detailed

discussion is to be found in Schoffeleers, 'Ideological confrontation' (forthcoming). 54 See for instance W. H. J. Rangeley, 'Makewana, the mother of all people', Nyasaland

7ournal, v, ii (1952), 31-50. J. N. Amanze, 'The Bimbi cult in Southern Malawi' (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, I986). Rangeley's article is on the Chisumphi cult in the

Central Province of Malawi. For a collection of essays on rain and fertility cults, which

illustrate the structural rivalry between cult and state, see J. M. Schoffeleers, Guardians

of the Land (Gwero, I979).

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THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE 35 1

evidence - apart from people's recollections of Chitundu and the Matundu - that this was a period of extreme repression. For one thing, no other Maravi state possesses a communal cult based on an explicit and elaborate persecution theology.55 As to the reasons behind this repression, we suggest that it was a consequence of the Lundu's aim to obtain total control of production and trade in and around the lower Shire valley. In sum, then, our findings are that the expansionist wars waged by the Lundus in the closing decade of the sixteenth century synchronized internally with a massive attempt at centralisation of political power by means of reducing a large segment of the population to total subjection and by fundamentally restructuring the system of economic production and distribution.

III. DISCUSSION

In the concluding section of his paper on the early history of the Maravi, Newitt rightly notes that the prime objective of the Portuguese penetration of the Zambezi, which began around 1530, was to participate directly in the trade of the region. In the first half-century, that is until about 1580, this process of penetration, as he sees it, developed in four stages. First, there was a growing rivalry between Muslim traders and the Portuguese. This could have prompted the second development, which consisted in an attempt to conquer the supposed gold and silver mines of the interior. The failure of this undertaking then contributed to an increased tightening of the trade monopoly of the captains of Mozambique. The fourth development was the growth in Portuguese political control of Zambesia deriving from agreements made by individual Portuguese with chiefs whom they aided and from whom they obtained commercial and territorial concessions.56

On the whole, one may agree with Newitt's four-stage model, if it is remembered, as Newitt himself suggests, that the four stages cannot be placed in a neat time-sequence. Indeed, the distinction between these stages is sometimes so vague that one might equally regard them as four basic strivings which alternately gain and lose prominence in Zambesian regional politics. Apart from that, it would appear that there is room also for a few minor corrections. Thus where Newitt points to a growing rivalry between the Muslim traders and the Portuguese prior to the attempted conquest of the mines, it would be more appropriate to speak of a growing rivalry between the Captain of Mozambique on the one hand, and the inland traders on the other, regardless of whether they were Muslims or Portuguese. Newitt himself reminds us of this basic fact in an earlier study, when he notes that up to the time of the Barreto expedition the majority of the Portuguese traders were backwoodsmen and freebooters, who worked hand-in-glove with the Muslims and who had no special desire to co-operate with the Captain of Mozambique.57 As far as the Barreto expedition is concerned, it should be noted that, although it did not achieve what it set out to and may in that sense be described as a failure, it remains true that it heralded the beginning of a new policy with regard to the settlements in the interior. The latter, instead

55 The principal sources of the persecution theology referred to here are the Mbona myths. See Schoffeleers, 'Oral history', for a discussion.

56 Newitt, 'Early history', i6i. 57 Newitt, Portuguese Settlement, 34-8.

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352 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

of remaining what they had always been, viz. foreign settlements under the tutelage of local rulers, were now transformed into true Portuguese enclaves, tangibly and visibly connected with the central government and the church in the persons of an officially-appointed administrator and one or more officially-appointed priests. What Silveira and Barreto had hoped to achieve, as it were singlehandedly and in one stroke, was in the end achieved only a little more slowly by their successors.

In this situation slavery too took on a new significance. Already in I572

the ten to fifteen Portuguese households at Sena possessed an average of several hundred slaves each.58 With the increase in the number of households and with the expansion of the Portuguese enclaves one must conclude that the number of slaves also increased. A logical result of this process would have been that the number of fugitive slaves also grew. Not infrequently, the Portuguese had to appeal to neighbouring chiefs to return runaway slaves. If they were not returned voluntarily, the Portuguese might try to use force as in the case of Chief Chombe.59 One of the favourite hide-outs for escaped slaves until well into the nineteenth century was Mt. Morumbala, situated at the south-eastern end of the lower Shire valley.60 Although everything was being done to stop the flow of slaves, the effect was negligible, since for the most part they moved when they liked and attached themselves to whom they pleased. While the majority of escaped slaves would place themselves under the protection of some chief or headman, or perhaps a territorial shrine such as Mbona's, others might band together, build their own fortified settlements and from there raid the countryside.61 It is within this context that one has to understand the origin of the Zimba, the difference being that, rather than striking out on their own, they apparently preferred to put themselves at the disposal of the local ruler.

There are indications in the early Portuguese documents that prior to 1590

one cannot yet speak of sizeable centralized states immediately north of the Zambezi. The impression given is rather of a collectivity of relatively small independent polities, bound together by the requirements of regional trade and shifting alliances. However, small states which were situated towards the interior at the junction of trade routes were at an advantage and could, given the right situation, outstrip their neighbours. One of these was the Quizura chiefdom, which controlled the overland route from Tete to the Shire Highlands. Another was the Lundu chiefdom, which controlled the river route into the Shire Highlands. In both cases we see that after i 5 8o the ruling chief tried to expand in the direction of the Zambezi by absorbing or conquering smaller states lying between themselves and the Zambezi. In both cases we also see that the lesser chiefs who had been dispossessed called on the Portuguese for help and in both cases received it in the form of a Portuguese detachment reinforced with several thousand African troops. The difference, however, is that in Quizura's case the Portuguese inter- vention was entirely successful, while in Lundu's it was an unqualified disaster. This suggests that the change which had taken place on the south bank between I572 and c. Is8 -the Portuguese settlements becoming

58 Ibid., 37. 59 A. Bocarro, Decade, 388. 60 Gomes, 'Viagem', i8o; Barreto, 'Rivers of Cuama', 475. 61 Newitt, Portuguese Settlement, 202.

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colonial enclaves with their own armies and vassals -caused the more important state systems on the north bank also to embark on a programme of expansion and centralisation so as to bring the north bank under their control. While Quizura and Lundu may have begun moving at about the same time, Quizura had the misfortune of having to face the Portuguese when he was not yet sufficiently prepared. This may have given the Lundu an opportunity to intensify his own expansionist policy, and it may have been at this point, between Quizura's defeat and Lundu's own encounter with the Portuguese, which is roughly between the mid-i 580s and I592, that Lundu co-opted the Zimba. It is around this time, too, that Lundu may have wiped out the existing rain cult and other foci of religious resistance. After the Portuguese had been defeated in 1592, and again in 1593, it would have been relatively easy for Lundu to occupy the entire north bank between Tete and the coastal settlements.

After i6oo, the situation on the north bank became more complex, when Muzura was on the rise. At first, the Portuguese seem to have befriended both sides, for we see that Muzura was approached in i 6o6 to assist them against the enemies of the Monomotapa, and that in i614 the Lundu was asked to help the Captain of Tete. Soon afterwards, however, they must have dropped Lundu since in I622 they defeated him with the help of Muzura, who now became the effective ruler of the southern Maravi states. Once this had been achieved, Muzura turned against the Portuguese until the abortive rising of I 63 1. There ended the story which began seventy years earlier with the arrival of Silveira and which reached its intermediate culmination points in the massacres of the Swahili merchants in 1572 and the Portuguese in 1593. The question which remains is: why did Muzura turn against the Portuguese after i622? A good guess is that he and Monomotapa Kapararidze had come to realize that a continuing Portuguese presence would gradually lead to the total subjection of their lands. The alternative was to restore the Swahili trade to its former prominence, but this could not be achieved without exterminating the Portuguese. This they tried to do in I 63 I, though without success because the Portuguese had managed to build up their own network of alliances with local rulers on whom they could rely on that decisive occasion.

SUMMARY

This article is a partial answer to M. D. D. Newitt, who proposed that settled Maravi states were established only as a result of the rise of Muzura in the first half of the seventeenth century (cf. J. Afr. Hist., I982, ii). Newitt thereby challenged the more orthodox view that a formal Maravi state system existed already by the middle of the sixteenth century, if not earlier. It is argued here that the orthodox view is still valid in the case of the Lundu state in the lower Shire valley, and perhaps also in the case of some of the neighbouring states. It is shown that around i 590 the then Lundu incumbent embarked on a course of strong state centralisation during which he appropriated the power of the traditional rain priests and thus became both the secular and the ritual leader of the country. It is also argued that this unusual degree of centralisation was achieved and could for a time be maintained with the help of the Zimba, an army of fugitives from the south bank of the Zambezi. However, the present article challenges Malawian historiographical orthodoxy on a very different point, by maintaining that Muzura is not to be identified with the Kalonga dynasty on the south-western shores of Lake Malawi,

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354 MATTHEW SCHOFFELEERS

but with a separate state system in the western Shire Highlands, which gained prominence well before the Kalongas came to the fore.

DISCUSSION

With Dr Schoffeleers' permission, the Editors obtained the following comment on his article from Dr Malyn Newitt (Exeter University):

The suggested identification of the Zimba leader, Tondo, is a useful contribution to the debate on Maravi origins, and one that Matthew Schoffeleers is well-qualified to make. Some of the rest of his argument does, however, appear to need more explanation. The article develops the 'theory' (p. 339) that 'a number of Maravi states were already in existence in the second half of the sixteenth century'. Without any argument, the author then starts to talk (p. 340) of a 'Lundu polity' and in the next paragraph, of a 'Lundu state', yet the first actual mention of Lundu is in a document of I6I4. The existence of Maravi states in the sixteenth century (which is what the debate is all about) seems to have been proved merely by asserting that they existed.

The reader might well be confused when the leader of the Zimba is called Tondo (p. 343) but an argument is later developed (p. 349) to show that the Zimba king was Lundu. Those uninitiated in the mysteries of the Maravi might like this explained.

The key to the argument about the origin of the Zimba south of the Zambezi lies in the traditions (cited on p. 346-347) which the author himself admits are heavily influenced by the Makombe rising and Barue resistance in the early twentieth century. Deductions from these about events in the sixteenth century would seem to need very careful treatment since contemporary observers in Zambesia were, apparently, unaware of this origin and do not mention it.

Finally, the conclusion (p. 35I) that Zimba expansion 'was a consequence of the Lundu's aim to obtain total control of production and trade ... synchronised internally with a massive attempt at centralisation of political power... fundamentally restructuring the system of economic production and distribution', is absolutely without any supporting evidence either in the paper or in any original source.

Dr Schoffeleers has replied to this comment as follows:

I am grateful to Malyn Newitt for his stimulating comments, although I don't necessarily agree with all of them. Thus, where he says in the last paragraph of his comments that I have failed to produce evidence for the existence of a Lundu kingdom before A.D. I614, I suggest that the evidence he asks for is contained inter alia in my discussion of the identity of the Zimba king. The conclusion I have reached there, on the basis of a careful examination of Santos' text and Mang'anja oral tradition, is that the king referred to can have been no other than Lundu. If this is correct, which I think it is, the conclusion must be that there was already a powerful Lundu king by 1590, that is to say, a quarter of a century before the first documentary reference.

The confusion pointed out in the second paragraph of Dr Newitt's comments solves itself when it is remembered that Tundu was the military leader of the Zimba, whereas Lundu was king of the host country. I might perhaps have emphasized a bit more that the functions of king and army leader were separate, at least at that particular stage in the history of the Lundu kingdom.

I am well aware, as my commentator notes himself, that the traditions about the origin of the Zimba south of the Zambezi have to a certain extent been influenced

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THE ZIMBA AND THE LUNDU STATE 355

by the Barwe migrations to Malawi in the early twentieth century. I am aware also of the fact that the local people have no explicit tradition of the sixteenth-century Zimba having come from south of the Zambezi, at least not any explicit tradition that I know of. What, then, are my arguments for accepting a southern origin for the Zimba? One argument is that in the course of the present century the Shire valley has also witnessed immigration waves from the east (Lomwe/Makua) and from the west (Nyungwe), but only immigrants coming from the south, and more specifically from the hinterland of Sena, have been associated with the name 'Zimba'. The question is why this was done and whether it would have happened, if there had not been a pre-existing tradition. My second argument is that the traditions and rituals concerning Tundu constantly associate him with the south. I have further shown that in the liturgical and toponymical traditions of the valley Tundu epitomizes the entire Zimba experience. This amounts to another set of associations of the Zimba with the south, this time mediated by Tundu's person. The importance of these Tundu/Zimba mnemonics is that they demonstrably antedate the recent Barwe immigrations. The conclusion must therefore be that there is reason to believe that the association of the Zimba with the south - and vice versa - is part of an ancient tradition, antedating the modern period. I am not maintaining that it is therefore necessarily rooted in objective history (since it may also be wholly mythical), but there is a fair chance that it is. It is the oral historian's job to examine that possibility and to see if it provides us with a more coherent picture of the past. My idea is that such is the case, for one thing because it gives a more satisfactory explanation of the rise of the Lundu kingdom than Alpers' 'ivory thesis', or my commentator's 'Volkerwanderung thesis'.