Southeast and Southern Highlands
The paucity of information for the eastern mainland south of the Pangani River persists into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is likely that some of the matrilineally organized peoples of the area were already present but relying more Ilea% ily on hunting and gathering than on agriculture Still others arrived in the nineteenth century when the introduction of maize made settlement by somewhat denser populations more feasible. The pattern of scattered communities and small-scale politics continued, although there were minor exceptions.
One group, the Yao, made its appearance in the late eighteenth century as slave raiders and traders responding to the demand for labor generated by the Omani Arabs (who were just beginning to take hold in the islands and on the coast), the Portuguese, and the French (who had established themselves on various islands in the Indian Ocean).
In the southern highlands between lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika a good deal of movement was going on, fed in part by peoples from the east, north, and south. As far as can be determined this was the period in which the small chiefdoms characteristic of the area were formed, and various ethnic groups began to crystallize, although the lumping of some peoples into such groups (for example, the Nyakyusa) took place at a later time.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
