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Updated: June 10, 2025
The Manganja, or Wa-nyassa, are an aboriginal race; they have great masses of hair, and but little, if any, of the prognathous in the profile. Their bodies and limbs are very well made, and the countenance of the men is often very pleasant.
Their superciliousness shows that they feel themselves to be the dominant race. The Manganja trust to their old bows and arrows; they are much more civil than Ajawa or Waiyau. As a rule, the Manganja are extremely clever in all the savage arts and manufactures.
Two shots had been fired at guinea-fowl a little way off in the valley; the women fled into the woods, and the men came to know if war was meant, and a few of the old folks only returned after hearing that we were for peace. The beer had come to him from a distance; he had none of his own. Like the Manganja, these people salute by clapping their hands.
After a weary march we halted at Makolongwi, the village of Chitimba. It stands in a woody hollow on the first of the three terraces of the Manganja hills, and, like all other Manganja villages, is surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of poisonous euphorbia. This tree casts a deep shade, which would render it difficult for bowmen to take aim at the villagers inside.
Maxinga, or Machinga, means "mountains" only; once or twice it is put down Saxa de Maxinga, or Machinga, or Mcanga, which translated from the native tongue means "rocks of mountains, or mountains of rocks." 10th November, 1866. We found the people on the Mando to be Chawa or Ajawa, but not of the Waiyau race: they are Manganja, and this is a village of smiths.
Certain it is, from the potsherds strewed over the country, and the still remaining ridges on which beans, sorghum, maize, and cassava, were planted, that the departed population was prodigious. The Waiyau, who are now in the country, came from the other side of the Rovuma, and they probably supplanted the Manganja, an operation which we see going on at the present day. 4th August, 1866.
South-west of this the Manganja begin; but if one went by them, there is a space beyond in the south-west without people. The country due west of this is described by all to be so mountainous and beset by Mazitu, that there is no possibility of passing that way. I must therefore make my way to the middle of the Lake, cross over, and then take up my line of 1863. 2nd June, 1866.
In illustration of the manner in which the native knowledge of agriculture strikes an honest intelligent observer, it may be mentioned that the first time good Bishop Mackenzie beheld how well the fields of the Manganja were cultivated on the hills, he remarked to Dr.
"Kill them," cried the Manganja; "they are going up to the hills to kill the English," meaning the missionaries we had left at Magomero. But having no prospect of friendly communication with them, nor confidence in Manganja's testimony, we proceeded down the river; leaving the Ajawa sitting under a large baobab, and the Manganja cursing them most energetically across the river.
They all agreed to take half-pay until they too had learned to work; and we found no scarcity of labour, though all that could be exported is now out of the country. There had been a drought of unusual severity during the past season in the country between Lupata and Kebrabasa, and it had extended north-east to the Manganja highlands.
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