Lambyan history

The Establishment and Expansion of the Lambya Kingdom c1600-1750Author(s): Owen J. M. KalingaSource: African Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Sep., 1978), pp. 55-66Published by: African Studies AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/523661Accessed: 01/12/2009 05:34

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THE ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF THE LAMBYA KINGDOM c1600-1750

Owen J. M. Kalinga

This article focuses upon the history of the Lambya kingdom, a small polity in Chitipa District, which forms the northernmost tip of the modern Republic of Malawi. It was a small political unit but nevertheless historically important because its inhabitants belong to a larger cluster of peoples hereafter referred to as the Ngulube group, which comprises Safwa, Bena, Kinga, Nyakyusa and Ndali of southern Tanzania and the Sukwa and Ngonde of Malawi. Ideally the traditions of all these peoples should be correlated for a fuller understanding of what constitutes one historical area. The article discusses four main themes: the problem of sources, the establishment of the Lambya state, its relations with its neighbors and its early territorial expansion.1

Ulambya, as the country of the Lambya is called, covers an area of 367 square miles and has a population of roughly 20 thousand people with an average density of 36 persons per square mile, the largest concentration being in the more fertile valleys of Kaseye, and the Songwe (Stobbs and Young, 1972: 40; Young and Brown, 1972: 30). The Lambya share a border to the north with the Ndali of Tanzania and the Nyiha on the west with the Namwanga of Zambia, on the south with the Fungwe, Tambo and the Tumbuka-speaking peoples of Mwenewenya, and on the east with the Sukwa. The Lambya are worthy of attention for a number of reasons. Ulambya is one of the oldest states in the area and the dating of its regnal list should assist in the problem of working out a chronology of the Ngulube group. A study of the Lambya should also contribute to an understanding of the problems that attended the early development of small polities and give the Lambya a proper place in the early history of the wider zone.

Unlike some parts of East Central Africa, there are no written sources relating to the early history of Ulambya. Portuguese and Arab travelers' accounts do not mention the Lambya or their immediate neighbors. Joseph Thomson (1881) whose journeys took him through Unyiha just north of the Songwe River was the first known European to pass near Ulambya, but though he describes the Nyiha and their country, he makes no mention of the Lambya. The first written reference to Ulambya is that by Dr. Kerr Cross (1890: 228), a medical missionary of the Free Church of Scotland who worked at the short-lived Mweniwanda mission (some- times called Ncherenje) in the present-day Chitipa District in the 1880s. Kerr Cross described the mwaulambya (king) of the time as "an infirm man, who is living on the greatness of the name that has long its glory." He also describes how his

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"guides led him reverently to a small hut inside the village raised over the spot where the late Nyondo [mwaulambya] sleeps. The villagers constantly make offerings of food and beer to the spirits of the departed." So although Kerr Cross did not leave any other details about the Lambya kingdom, and though it is questionable whether the kingdom was in its decline as suggested, he confirms its existence, and by mentioning the offerings made to the dead mwaulambyas he indicated a developed cult of the royal ancestors.

Neither Kerr Cross nor the other missionaries who worked in this part of Malawi seems to have recorded traditions and customs of the Lambya as D. R. Mackenzie

(1925) and Cullen Young (1932) did for the Ngonde-Nyakyusa and Henga- Kamanga, respectively. No published works exist on the Lambya such as Y. M. Chibambo's (1949), S. J. Nthara's (1965) Mbiri ya aChewa, or Apollo Kagwa's (1971) numerous books Baganda. No manuscripts written by the Lambya them- selves have been discovered. A number of Lambya family heads possess single page outlines of their history which usually consist of clan genealogies. The Lambya do not feature prominently in the North Nyasa District Note Books in which early colonial administrators recorded the traditions and customs of the people they governed. In these notebooks large sections are devoted to the Ngonde and the Henga of Mwafulirwa, but little attention is paid to the other people of the then North Nyasa District. The Lambya are discussed in passing and, even then, they are treated as part of the Ngonde and their history.3 In a comment on the Lambya of Isoka District of northeastern Zambia, W. V. Brelsford (1956: 56) devotes six lines to the Lambya of Malawi, and in a survey of the Malawi-Tanganyika corridor, Monica Wilson (1958: 28-32) briefly discusses the history of the Lambya of Tanganyika but not those of Malawi.4 Yet the Lambya of Malawi form the major core of the ethnic group, those located in Zambia and Tanzania being the result of later expansions outward from the "Malawian" heartland.

As there are no written sources for the early history of Ulambya, therefore, a researcher has to depend on oral traditions to reconstruct the history of the state and people. In general Lambya traditions are what Vansina (1965: 22-26) calls free, that is, they are unstructured narratives that are passed from generation to generation. There are many custodians of Lambya traditions. The first is the mwaulambya himself who is expected to know the history of the kingdom which he is supposed to learn from other members of the royal family and court officials, the latter being the recognized authority on matters concerning tradition and often as advisers to the ruling family. In the past they heard appeal cases in council from all over the kingdom, and their verdicts were often based on custom and historical precedence.

Another important source of tradition are clan heads. There are many clans in Ulambya, and every clan has a head who, among other things, is expected to know the traditions of the clan and to pass them on to his heir. Clansmen are often keen to know the details of how their ancestors came to settle in their present area, of the people they found there, and of the development of their clan since settling in the area. Some people are interested in their clan history in order to be able to tell their friends about their ancestry. The Lambya are historically conscious which makes the collection of oral traditions relatively easy. On the whole informants are also forthcoming and with patience it is possible to gather much oral data. Further- more the sources of tradition are varied; the historian need not become a prisoner of royal chronicle. Neither does there appear to be any effort by the royal family to control non-royal traditions nor to harmonize them with the royal chronicle. Although many traditions appear reliable, as might be expected, reliability decreases

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ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF THE LAMBYA KINGDOM 57

the further back one goes in time, particularly in the period before the mid- eighteenth century. There is also a tendency for informants to telescope events.

As in many parts of Africa, the early history of Ulambya surrounds the traditions of the rulers. According to popular history, a family led by the first mwaulambya left their homeland, Ukinga, and settled in Rungwe. After some time they left Rungwe and traveled further west to Kasasa-also known as Mwapelo-at which point they crossed the Songwe River south into the present-day Malawi. Not far from the banks of the river, on the southern slopes of the Misuku Hills, they found a settlement of the Sikwese clan. The Sikwese, who also trace their origins to Ukinga, had lived in the area for some time and claim to have ruled it. Not long after the mwaulambya arrived a quarrel broke out between him and his followers and their hosts over who should rule the less hilly lands, the area which later came to be called Ulambya. The former suggested that the dispute be resolved by a competition in fire-making by the friction method, ulupekeso. The contest was won by the mwaulambyas who thereupon assumed political authority over the area. The head of the Sikwese family and his descendants became the chief advisers to the mwaulambya and played the important role of crowning new rulers (L.H.T.: 2, 6, 4, 10).

The genealogy of the Mwaulambya family is a complex one stretching back eight to nine generations from 1895, giving a generation date of c1598-1631 for the first mwaulambya. In only two generations did brothers succeed, and one generation did not provide a ruler, the succession skipping from grandfather to grandson. The genealogical tree of the royal family (see genealogy of Lambya kings) is not a skeletal one recording only those who ruled. It gives the names of numerous brothers to various rulers and even the mothers of rulers and their brothers in some cases. Correlating this regnal list with that of the Ngonde kingdom, the dynastic generation has been calculated at 33 years. The subject of the chronology of the Ngonde kingdom has been dealt with elsewhere (Kalinga, 1975). The present discussion is mainly intended to indicate how the dates employed in this article have been determined.

The traditions of the Sikwese clan claim that they were rulers of the area immediately south of the Songwe but does not say over which clans they had jurisdiction. Their traditions give the impression that no other people (except the Chilima) lived in this area in the pre-Mwaulambya period. Although genealogies of many families do not go beyond six generations-suggesting that they migrated into the area sometime towards the end of the seventeenth or early eighteenth century-it is difficult to believe that when the Mwaulambya settled on the Misuku Hills they found only two families, the Sikwese and the Chilima. The explanation for this probably lies in the fact that both these clans were to hold important offices in the new Lambya state, and it is likely that because of this other families have not been remembered. It is also possible that the earlier people whose economic and social organizations are not remembered in traditions have been assimilated. Since we know that the Sikwese and the Chilima were agriculturists whose main crops were millet and sorghum, however, it seems reasonable to assume that other clans who lived in the area at the time did not lead a life very different from that of the Sikwese and the Chilima clans. No archaeological investigations have been carried out either in Ulambya or in the neighboring Unyiha to enable the historian to speculate beyond what traditions recount on matters such as the system of production and commerce.

There is, however, another possible explanation as to why the Mwaulambya found only the Sikwese and the Chilima clans in residence. It has been shown in

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East Africa that some early political entities were built upon kinship fiction in which numerous groups of disparate and unrelated origins moved into an area and abandoned their original clan identity and took on the identity of the major and dominant clan of the area (Itandala, 1978). "Sikwese" might easily refer to a grouping of clans which especially after generations of incorporation under the Mwaulambya came to look upon themselves as being of the Sikwese clan. The Sikwese and their western neighbors, the Chilima, may, therefore, allude to political units of the pre-1600 period which by 1900 considered themselves clans under the rule of the Mwaulambya. In a similar manner once the Europeans created the colony of Nyasaland, clan identities declined in importance and identities of the pre-colonial polities assumed greater importance. Even today a man will not within the larger context refer to himself as Sikwese or Chilima, but as Lambya. Given the distance in time it would be difficult to extract the elements which went into the kinship mixtures which came to be known as Sikwese or Chilima.

The tradition of the contest of fire-making between the Sikwese and the Mwaulambya would appear to refer to the symbolic transfer of power from the former to the latter. The Mwaulambya are seen as the "inventors" of fire and the strong men who defeated the original owners of the land. The Mwaulambya, how- ever, could not have established themselves in the new area without the support of the autochthons who were also the main link with the spirits of the earth. So, though the Mwaulambya achieved two important things, "the creation of fire" and the assumption of political authority, the recognition of the original owners of the land was vital if they were to be effective and acceptable rulers. The tradition also serves a function in present Lambya social and political life. It explains and justifies the respective roles of the Sikwese and Mwaulambyas.5

The story of the "creation of fire" is significant in another sense. Fire ceremonies featured prominently in certain rituals of the Lambya royal family. Whenever a mwaulambya died, all fires in the land were quenched and new ones were lit only after another person had ascended the throne. The new fires were lit from the central fireplace at the court of the mwaulambya. The tradition that mentions the invention of fire and the fire-making competition probably refers to the intro- duction of this new royal ceremony into Ulambya. Furthermore, what emerges in contrast to the founding of the Ngonde kingdom around the same time is that the Mwaulambya assumed power through compromise with, and accommodation of the owners of the soil and previous rulers. On the other hand, the Kyungu of Ungonde seized power violently. The consequences of how each assumed power are reflected in the greater political role which the autochthons played in Ulambya as compared with Ungonde. In the latter state the kyungu forcibly took over power from the former rulers, the Simbowe, and all major offices in the new king- dom were given to the clan heads who had accompanied the first kyungu and his family on their journey to the northern shores of Lake Malawi. The indigenous people continued to be respected and were consulted on some matters, but real power lay with the makambala, the six court officials whose forebears had accom- panied the first kyungu and whose offices became hereditary (Kalinga, 1974). Contrary to this monopoly of power in Ungonde, the mwaulambya who appears to have achieved authority through diplomatic manipulation, depended on the indigenous people for advice. Thus the heads of the Sikwese and Chilima clans became influential title holders in the Lambya state.

After the Mwaulambyas had lived at Ibona for some time, according to tradition, there arrived two men-the kyungu, his brother Kameme (Mwenembako) and a woman, their sister Ngabo-who spent some time with the Mwaulambyas before

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ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF THE LAMBYA KINGDOM 61

proceeding eastwards to look for land. They finally settled in what was later to be known as Karonga District. Kameme returned to Ulambya, asked for a place to settle, and was directed westwards to a cave, impako, in the present-day Kameme area. Ngabo was pregnant and too tired to continue the journey. She was left with the Mwaulambya with specific instructions that should the baby be a boy it should be given the name Nyondo, should it be a girl it should be given the name Chiluba. Ngabo gave birth to a son, Nyondo, whom Ngonde traditions claim to have been the founder of Ulambya (N.H.T.: 28, 29, 24, 12; L.H.T.: 11, 1). The Lambya tradition argues that the son of Ngabo was given the name Mwamswelo and that some land within Ulambya was set aside for him. The tradition also points out that, although respected, Mwamswelo never became chief.

This claim in Ngonde traditions may be the reason why in some publications (Tew, 1950: 71-71; Wilson, 1939: 40-41) reference is made to the kyungu of the Ngonde kingdom as having had supremacy over the chiefs of the upland terri- tories in pre-colonial times. The ruling clan of Ungonde regard the royal family of Ulambya as stemming from them. These Ngonde traditions are not accepted by the Lambya who stress that at no point before the coming of the Europeans was a Lambya chief subordinate to the kyungu. This contradiction in traditions raises two problems: the exact relationship between the kyungus and the mwaulambyas in the early period, and the origin of the Mwaulambyas. Let us begin with the latter. Besides the mwaulambyas and the kyungus, the rulers of the Bena, Sukwe, Kuulwe, Safwa, and some sections of the Nyiha (Culwick, 1935: 100; M.H.T.: 1, 5; Willis, 1966: 61-71), trace their origins to Ukinga. All of them also venerate Ngulube as the supreme being, and he is cited in their prayers. Ngulube was des- cribed by one of Godfrey Wilson's informants as of "pale" complexion, and probably of Arab origin. This tradition, which Godfrey Wilson admitted was not supported by other informants (Wilson, 1939: 10) has led some scholars to suggest that the ancestors of the Ngonde and Nyakyusa rulers came from northeastern Africa (Wilson, 1959: 12; Wilson, 1958: 8). Although as argued elsewhere (Kalinga, 1974: 83), Ngulube's Arab connections should not be taken seriously, it is possible tentatively to identify him and, therefore, to postulate a hypothesis about his place in the history of the peoples of the Songwe area. There is a tradition common to most peoples of this region which seems to have a connection with Ngulube. Oral traditions of the Mwaulambya, for example, refer to a "dark house" (inyumba inditu) near Njombe in Lower Ubena as the original home of their ancestors. From there they migrated to Ukinga where they lived for some time before crossing the Kibila River at the "strange stone" (ibwe ingubiti) and finally moving on to Undali and Ulambya. The Ngana house of the Ngonde rulers similarly has a tradition which mentions ibwe ingubiti on the upper Kibila where there is also a pond which has many small glittering fish (iswi syabunyega). Monica Wilson collected Nyakyusa traditions which allude to a "dark house" not far from Njombe from which all the people of the region emerged "and then came to Ilongo (Kwilongo) in the forest in what is now Bena country." In addition to this, she came across a tradition which mentions a few men who came from a rocky shore on the northwest and journeyed down to the eastern shore of Lake Malawi where they increased in numbers, and thereafter spread northwards through Ukinga (L.H.T.: 6, 11; N.H.T.: 3; Wilson, 1959: 12).

Detailed research has not been carried out into the histories of the rest of the Ngulube peoples north of the Songwe, but it is clear from the traditions just mentioned that Ubena and Ukinga were important in the early history of the Malawi-Tanganyika corridor. It would seem that there was a migration of people

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

from the Lower Ubena region southwards into Ukinga which has come to be associated with the eponymous ancestor Ngulube who, as pointed out earlier, is reported to have originally come from the area northeast of Ukinga. Some time later another dispersal of clans appears to have taken place in a westerly direction into Unyakyusa, Undali, Misuku, Ulambya, Ungonde, and the neighboring areas, and in a southeasterly direction into Ukisi. Those who went westwards probably crossed the Kibila at a point where two large stones meet and form a natural bridge which is described as dangerous and which is still used today. This would account for the reference to "the strange stone" (ibwe ingubiti) in the traditions of the Lambya, Ndali, and the Ngana branch of the Ngonde ruling family.

Many of the clans associated with the "Ngulube migration" moved into the area already inhabited by some of the most ancient clans in the northern extremity of Malawi. In Ulambya, the Mwaulambya found the Sikwese; in the Misuku Hills the Msukwa found the Silumbu and the Simwayi who had earlier migrated from the northwest, probably from northern Unyiha; the Nyakyusa found in their new homes the Abilema who are believed by Monica Wilson to have been the earliest Bantu- speaking inhabitants of the area. The whole movement of the Ngulube clans seems to have taken place gradually with the Mwaulambya, the Msukwa, and perhaps the Safwa rulers being among the first to leave the Ukinga area, followed later by Kyabala and Lwembe, the respective founders of the Ngonde and the Nyakyusa ruling families.6 Ngonde and Nyakyusa traditions agree that Kyabala and his family arrived in Unyakyusa earlier than the Lwembe lineage. This movement of peoples from Ukinga into modem northern Malawi probably began about 15 generations ago (c.1500) and ended about 9 generations ago (c. 1670) (Kalinga, 1975: 31). These conclusions tally with Monica Wilson's (1958: 13) findings for another Ngulube group, the Lwembe lineage of Unyakyusa which, according to her, reached the Rungwe Valley in the period between 1550 and 1650. This seems to suggest that the earlier migration of the Ngulube clans from Ubena southwards to Ukinga took place sometime before 1500.

Webster (1976: 1978) has argued that for a leader to become a spirit, then a deity, and still yet the supreme deity would require than he had lived prior to 1000 A.D., that he had a tragic end, and that he normally would be of alien origin to the people concerned. Elsewhere Webster has argued that the light skinned Cwezi (c.1250-1380) were probably Bantu who came to rule over the dark skinned Sudanic peoples. By 1900 the Cwezi may still have been considered spirits but were well on their way to becoming deities. There is nothing in this argument which would conflict with a similar interpretation of Ngulube, but there is insufficient evidence to argue for such a conclusion. No matter how we look upon Ngulube as symbol of Bantu paramountcy over other peoples, as a phenomenon or movement as Cohen views Kintu, or an ancient leader as Webster views Lubanga, he points to a very early association of the peoples under consideration. What is urgently required is that all traditions about Ngulube should be collected from various peoples who revere him. They should then be compared and analyzed in the way those of the Cwezi have been. Furthermore the Ngulube traditions should be correlated with the traditions of the "dark house" because more than one of the peoples in the Ngulube group have this tradition as well.

Both the the ruling house of Ulambya and Ungonde recall the traditions of Ngulube but the Lambya dispute the references in Ngonde traditions to the founding of the kingdom of Ulambya by a relative of one of the early Nyungus. Lambya traditions say that their ancestors were already established in the area when the kyungu and his party passed through on their way to the Karonga Plain

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(L.H.T.: 1,10). This is affirmed by accounts of many Lambya clans including the Sikwese and the Chilima, both of whom, it will be recalled, were found in the region by the Mwaulambya family (L.H.T.: 4, 2). According to these accounts the first son of the kyungu's sister did not become a ruler because he was not born of the royal blood, but some land within the Lambya chiefdom was set aside for him. This was further affirmed by traditions of the Mwamswelo (L.H.T.: 16) who are the descendants of the first son of the kyungu's sister and who still live in the original land alloted to them.7

There is no evidence in the traditions of either the Ngonde or the Lambya of the Kyungu's suzerainty over Ulambya. Neither is there evidence of tribute from Ulambya to the headquarters of the kyungus at Mbande. No evidence has been found from early missionary records of the Mwaulambya's political subordination to the Ngonde rulers. The records and oral traditions agree that permission to establish a mission station at Mweniwanda in Ulambya was sought from the local ruler and not from the kyungu of Ungonde, suggesting the improbability of the latter exercising political control over the Lambya and the Mwaulambya.8 The fact that the kyungu, his brother, and sister were given hospitality by the Mwaulambya and the fact that the sister was left in the care of Mwaulambya, however, provides strong circumstantial evidence that there was some kind of kin relationship between them. There is no reason why the historian cannot accept that there was an early kinship relation between the two royal houses without going further to argue from this, that one was subordinate to the other. It was the colonial issue of paramountcy and subordination which confused the facts in these traditions.

About two generations after the Lambya kingdom had been founded-that is sometime in the mid-seventeenth century-the rulers began to extend their territory beyond the Kaseye River Valley, and to consolidate their authority within the polity. The expansion of Ulambya is attributed to Cheyo (c.1631-1664), the third mwaulambya, who is said to have enlarged his domain northwards to Unyiha and the borders of Malila in modern Tanzania, and southwards to Ufungwe and Utambo not far from the upper Luangwa Valley. Cheyo is said to have fought and subdued the inhabitants of these countries, and realizing that he had acquired a country too vast to be directly ruled by one man, he sent his grandson to take charge of the southern area which was thereafter called Bwisi. When another of Cheyo's grandsons came of age, he was ordered to go to the newly acquired lands that lay beyond the Songwe (L.H.T.: 1).

Cheyo is one of the heroic figures in Lambya traditions, and, because of this, he is often associated with events in which he had no part. The impression left in tradition is that he gallantly fought his neighbors and of his own choice sent his grandsons to live in the new regions. The few sources of Nyiha, Fingwe, and Tambo history that are available do not confirm or negate the warrior exploits of Cheyo.9 On the contrary, it would appear that no such wars were waged against the people who lived in the adjoining areas, and that his grandsons, Mwenebwisi and Muyeleka, left Ulambya at different times and of their own initiative. It seems that after the death of Cheyo's son and successor, Mtalama, there was a succession dispute which resulted in the departure of some members of the ruling family. The accession to the Lambya throne of Mtalama's other son, Sampala, displeased Mwenebwisi who had expected to be enthroned and caused him to leave for the area south of Ulambya. The number of people eligible for the throne had been increasing and so too had the competition for it. Muyeleka, a nephew of Sampala and Mwenebwisi, was also displeased when he was by-passed in favor of his brother,

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Nyamba, and like Mwenebwisi some years before, he moved southwards to settle in new lands (L.H.T.: 5). Traditions of the Muyeleka house-which rules the Lambya section in modern Tanzania-are not available to the present author, but it would appear that the expansion probably was a solution to some of the tension that ac- companied the increase in the number of young princes in the nuclear Lambya state.

Nyamba who became mwaulambya instead of Muyeleka concentrated on internal matters. He divided parts of Ulambya proper into villages each headed by one of his own sons. Traditions do not indicate why Nyamba did this, but there are two possible explanations. The first possibility is that he feared additional rifts in the ruling family; to satisfy the aspirations of his sons he gave each of them a portion of land. The second possibility is that he wanted effectively to control the enlarged Ulambya which had been the creation of Cheyo. Muyeleka was settled in the north, Mwenebwisi in the south, and it would appear that Nyamba was seeking to define definite boundaries. Furthermore a number of villages ruled by people who were not members of the Mwaulambya family had by this time been established. In the northern section was Upigu ruled by the Mkisi clan which had earlier migrated from Ukisi and settled on both banks of the Songwe. They came as traders in pottery, and largely because of their skill they gained political influence. East of Upigu was Ichinga, ruled by the Lukali clan which had settled in Ulambya not long after the arrival of the Mwaulambyas. They often posed a threat to the latter by claiming the right to a larger portion of the territory than the Mwaulambya would accept. In the south were the Mweniwandas who were orignally traders in salt. They settled near the Kaseye Valley. They quickly established commercial links with the Senga, Tambo, and other peoples of the Upper Luangwa.10 Some of these clans rose to prominence in the kingdom and became almost as important as the Chilima and the Sikwese. Thus, the tradition of compromise of the early Mwaulambyas was continued by their descendants. From the beginning power had not rested with a select group of clans as was the case in Ungonde. The Mwaulambyas further consolidated their position by marrying into some of these families. Nyamba himself married into the Mweniwanda family.

In conclusion, there are a number of observations that can be made on the history of Ulambya. First, despite the fact that there are no written sources for the early history of the area, it is possible to reconstruct it back to c. 1600 by using oral traditions. Methods other than traditional accounts will have to be employed to push the story back prior to 1600. Clan traditions must be collected, not only as a check upon the royal chronicle but also as a way of understanding how the state functioned and hopefully to uncover facts about events in the period before the assumption of power by the present ruling house. The history of a clan may be reconstructed from the traditions of four or five of its segments each of which might be located in a different ethnic group. Second, to put the events in proper perspective, it is vital to construct as accurate a chronology as possible, and to understand, among other things, the succession system. Finally, the ruling family of Ulambya belongs to a wider network of peoples, the Ngulube group.The royal and clan traditions and genealogies of all these peoples must be collected before anything approaching a definitive history of this historical zone can be attempted. This article is a small contribution to that larger goal.

NOTES 1. This is a preliminary presentation of what is hoped will be a larger work on the history of

the Lambya. The research for it was carried out in 1971-72 and in 1975, and was made possible by a grant from the Malawi Government and the University of Malawi. I grate- fully acknowledge this help. This article has benefited much from the comments of the

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ESTABLISHMENT AND EXPANSION OF POLITICAL CHANGE

members of the History Staff Seminar in the University of Malawi, particularly those of Professor J. B. Webster. I am also indebted to Professor Monica Wilson lately of Cape Town University for her criticism of an earlier draft of the article.

Oral historical texts are classified according to the areas in which they were collected. Thus, those collected in Ulambya and Misuku appear as Lambya Historial Texts (L.HT.) and Misuku Historical Texts (M.H.T.), respectively; those collected in Ungonde are classified as Ngonde Historical Texts (N.H.T.).

For the purposes of this article a kingdom is defined as a polity in which there are three layers of authority: a village head, a chief, and a king, with the latter being at the apex of the political system.

2. The population figure is based on the 1966 census (Malawi Department of Census and Statistics, 1962: 2). The figure represents the people who live in modern Traditional Authority Mwaulambya (Nyondo), but it does not include the Lambya in the adjacent areas. There are groups of Lambya in the Isoka and Mbozi Districts of Zambia and Tanzania, respectively.

3. North Nyasa District included modern Karonga and Chitipa and Rumphi. All District Note Books are deposited in the National Archives of Malawi, Zomba. For the Lambya, Fungwe, and Tambo of Isoka District, I have made use of the notes made available to me by Dr. Harry Langworthy of Cleveland State University. I am grateful to him for this help.

4. Scholars are greatly indebted to Professor Monica Wilson and the late Godfrey Wilson for their pioneering research into the ethnography and history of the peoples of the northern section of the Lake Malawi area.

5. Such symbolic stories of the transfer of power are common in Africa. Ngonde traditions, for example, tell us that the Simbowe lost his power at Mbande when the Kyungus "created" animals and birds which then drew Simbowe's attention away from home, thereby giving the Kyungus the chance to take over political control of the region surrounding Mbande Hill. For details see Kalinga (1974).

6. This seems a reasonable working hypothesis, and in arriving at it, I bore in mind Vansina's (1974) recent warning on the difficulties of analyzing traditions of genesis.

7. Kameme later established his own polity in the area immediately northwest of Ulambya. 8. The evidence from the Sikwese and Chilima traditions alone is not adequate because of

their obvious connections with the Lambya royal family. Similarly, evidence from mission records is not wholly satisfactory because what they present may be a reflection of the existing power at the time they arrived in the area. But what the two sources say combined with the testimony of the descendants of the Mwamswelo cannot be taken lightly.

9. For the Nyiha of Malawi I have relied on my own field notes, but for those in Tanzania I have depended on Beverly Brook (1963, 1966, 1968).

10. The subject of trade in this region in pre-colonial times will be discussed in detail in a forthcoming paper.

REFERENCES

Brelsford, William V. (1956) The Tribes of Northern Rhodesia. Lusaka: Government Printer. Brock, Beverly. (1963) "A Preliminary Description of the Nyiha People of South-western

Tanganyika," unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Leeds. . (1966) "The Nyiha of Mbozi." Tanzania Notes and Records 65: 1-30.

(1968) "The Nyiha," pp. 58-81 in Andrew D. Roberts (ed.) Tanzania Before 1900. Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House.

Chiwambo, Yesaya M. (1949) My Ngoni of Nyasaland. London: United Society for Christian Literature.

Cohen, David W. (1968) "The Cwezi Cult." Journal of African History 9, 4: 651-57. ---. (1972) The Historical Tradition of Busoga: Mukama and Kintu. London: Clarendon Press.

Culwick, Arthur T. and G. M. Culwick. (1935) Ubena of the Rivers. Allen and Unwin. Itandala, Buluda. (1978) "Ilembo, Nkanda and the Girls: Establishment of a Chronology of

the Babinza," in James B. Webster (ed.) Chronology in the Interlacustrine History. London: Longman.

Kagwa, Apollo. (1971) The Kings of Buganda. (ed. by M.S.M. Kiwanuka.) Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House.

Kalinga, Owen J. M. (1974) "The Ngonde Kingdom of Northern Malawi, c.1600-1895," un- published Ph.D. Thesis, University of London.

. (1975) "The Problem of Chronology in the Study of Ngonde History." Malawi ournal of Social Science 4:26-34.

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Kerr Cross, David. (1890) "Geographical Notes on the Country between Lake Nyasa, Rukwa, and Tanganyika." The Scottish Geographical Magazine 6: 281-93.

Malawi Government Department of Census and Statistics. (1966) Malawi Population Census 1966: Final Report. Zomba: Government Printer.

Ntara, Samuel J. (1965) Mbiri ya Achewa. Limbe: Malawi Publications and Literature Bureau. Oral Traditions: Collected during the period 1971-72 and 1975. Stobbs, A. R. and A. Young. (1972) "Natural Regions," pp. 40-42 in Swanzie Agnew and

Michael Stubbs (eds.) Malawi in Maps. London: University of London Press. Tew, Mary. (1950) Peoples of the Lake Nyasa Region. London: Oxford University Press. Webster, James B. (1976) "Dating Totems and Ancestor Spirits: Methods and Sources in Oral

History." Special Staff Seminar, Chancellor College, University of Malawi. (ed.). (1978) The History of Uganda: Migration and Settlement c.900-1900. Volume

One. Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House. Willis, Roy G. (1966) The Fipa and Related Peoples of South-West Tanzania and North-East

Zambia. London: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Godfrey. (1939) The Constitution of Ngonde. Rhodes-Livingstone Institute. Wilson, Monica. (1958) The Peoples of the Nyasa-Tanganyika Corridor. Cape Town: School

of African Studies. . (1959) Communal Rituals of the Nyakyusa. London: Oxford University Press.

Vansina, Jan. (1965) Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

(1974) "Comment: Traditions of Genesis." Journal of African History Volume 15, 2: 317-22.

Young, Anthony and Peter Brown. (1962) The Physical Environment of Northern Nyasaland with Special Reference to Soils and Agriculture. Zomba: Government Printer.

Young, Thomas C. (1932) Notes on the History of the Tumbuka-Kamanga Peoples in the Northern Province of Nyasaland. London: Religious Tract Society.

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