NATIONS OF THE MOZAMBIQUE AND ZANZIBAR COAST

NATIONS OF THE MOZAMBIQUE AND ZANZIBAR COAST.

Of the Make or Makuana--the Suhaili, and other native Races of the Coasts of Mozambique and Zanzibar.

From the mouth of the river Zambesi northwards, as far as Cape Delgado, the border of the Indian Ocean is termed the coast of Mosambique, and from Cape Delgado to the river Juba, it is the coast of Zanzibar. The native inhabitants of the coast of Mosambique are the black races termed Makúa or Makuana: those of the coast of Zanzibar are the Suhaili or Sowauli. 

The slaves who are seen in the Portuguese settlements, passing under the designation of Mosambique Negroes, are principally of the race of Makúa. They are not distinguished by ordinary observers from the Negroes brought from other parts of Africa. A young native of Mosambique whom I saw some time since in London, was a tall well-made black man, with woolly hair and Negro features. He appeared to be a lively and intelligent person, and gave to Dr. Natterer, a German physician, who brought him from the Brazils, a short vocabulary of his native speech. He said that Makúani is the name of the Mosambique nation, and that the neighbouring tribes who speak different languages, are termed Mtschauva, Mnijempan'i, Mlomoi and Maravi.

The Makuana nation occupy the country behind the seacoast to some distance in the interior. They are frequently mentioned by the Portuguese writers, to whom they were well known. According to Mr. Salt they consist of many powerful tribes, extending in the inland country from Mosambique northward as far as Melinda, and southward to the mouth of the river Zambesi, hordes of the same race being Digitized by Google spread further towards the south-west. « The Makúanas are a strong athletic race, very formidable, and constantly making aggressions on the Portuguese settlements on the coast: they fight with spears, darts and poisoned arrows."* They were a fierce and warlike people at the time when Eastern Africa was visited by Friar João Dos Sanctos, who has described them. The Macúas," says that writer, " were subject to King Gallo, a poor prince, whose brother becoming a Moore, or Moham- medan, was therefore odious to the Kafirs, which think basely of the Moores, and more easily turn Christians, holding of them more honourable conceit. They are blacke and curled, and worship not idols." According to Dos Sanctos they occasionally eat human flesh. " The deformity of their countenances augments," as Mr. Salt says, " the ferocity of their aspect. They tattow their skins, and sometimes raise the marks an eighth of an inch above the surface. They file their teeth to a point, and give to the whole set the appearance of a coarse saw. They dress their hair fantastically: some shave one side of the head, others both sides, leaving a hairy crest from the forehead to the nape of the neck, while others wear only a knot on the top of their foreheads: they suspend ornaments of copper or bone from the cartilages of their noses. The protrusion of their upper lip is more conspicuous than in any other race of men whom I have seen, and the women purposely elongate it as a mark of beauty. The form of the females approximates to that of the Hottentot women, the spine being curved, and the hinder parts protruding. It is impossible to conceive a more disagreeable object than a middle-aged woman belonging to a tribe of the Makooa."

Dos Santos gives a similar account of the physical characters of the Macula: They have no powerful chief from Cuama to Mozambique on the coast; but within-land are great kings of curled Cafres, most of them Macuas by nation." Their speech is rough and high, as if they fought : they file their teeth as sharp as needles: they cut and raised their flesh: they are strong and endure labour." 

The people who inhabit the northern banks of the Zambesi are Makúa, as we learn from the statement of Dos Sanctos as well as from late writers. The borderers of this river were described by the officers who accompanied Captain Owen, who says, the further our travellers advanced from the coast, the more they observed the natives to improve in their appearance. Of those of Marooro, many were firmly knit, stout and elegantly proportioned: some were perfect models of the human form. They go naked, with the exception of a piece of cloth, barely sufficient for decency of appearance. Some have their beard shaved, others only in part, but many not at all. In this latter case the hair, for it is worthy of remark that they have not wool, grows long, is neatly plaited, and hanging in slender tails, communicates to the countenance a wild and savage aspect, in this resembling the people of Madagascar, whose hair is neither wool nor hair, and is dressed in general in a similar manner."* The variation here noted from woolly to merely frizzled hair, or the difference of description, is often discoverable in the accounts of cognate races, or of the same tribe seen by different travellers. The mode of dressing the hair practised by these people is similar to that used by the Kosahs, as well as by the nations of the mountainous regions, particularly the Mocaronga, who will be mentioned in the next section.

Wild as the Makooa are in a savage state," says Mr. Salt, 6 it is astonishing to observe how docile and serviceable they become as slaves, and when enrolled as soldiers, how quickly their improvement advances." 

Mr. Salt has also described another tribe, termed Monjou, inhabiting the country further in the interior, and, as he supposed, situated in a north-westerly direction from Mozambique. Persons of this tribe told him that they were acquainted with traders of other nations, named Evesi and Maravi, who had travelled far enough inland to see large waters, white people, and horses. He says the Monjou are Negroes of the ugliest description, having high cheek-bones, thick lips, small knots of woolly hair, like peppercorns, on their heads, and skins of a deep, shining black. Mr. Salt has given vocabularies of the languages of the Makooa and the Monjou, in which there appears to be sufficient resemblance to prove that they are only different dialects of one original speech.

The Suhaili, or the Sowauli, as they are turned by Mr. Salt, live on the coast of Zanzibar, northward of the Makooa,from Magadoxo, or Mug-dasho, to the neighbourhood of Mombasa. In person they resemble the Makooa, being, as Mr. Salt says, of the true Negro race, black, stout, and ill-favoured. Their language is spoken at the seaports of Magadoxo, Juba, Lama, and Patta. It is stated by Mr. Bird, in a memoir published in the Geographical Journal, that the Suhaili are seen northward as far as the coast of Ajan ; that they have jet-black complexions and woolly hair, without the thick lips or protruding mouth of the Negro. Captain Owen calls them So why else: he says that they are Mohammedans, and differ in person and character both from the Arabs and native Africans.

Notwithstanding the wide differences in physical character between these nations of the intertropical coast of Africa andthe Amakosah and other southern Kafirs, it seems probable that they are branches of one race. The number of common or resembling words in the vocabularies of their respective languages which have been as yet collected, are sufficient to prove some connexion or affinity between them, and to render it highly probable that a closer resemblance will be found on further inquiry.

Some other races are mentioned by Dos Santos in the inland country behind the Makooa, and between them and the high mountainous region. Among these are the Mongas, who may perhaps be the people termed by Mr. Salt, Monjous. The Mumbos are a numerous and very savage people, who live to the east and north-east of Tete, and at Chicoronga. They are cannibals, according to Dos Santos, and have in their town a slaughter-house, where they butcher men every day.

The Zimbas, or Mazimba, are another man-eating tribe, near Senna. Whilst I was at Senna," says Dos Santos, the Mazimba warred on some of the Portugals friends, and did eate many of them." These are tall, bigger, and strong, and have for armes small hatchets, arrows, azagaies, and great bucklers of wood, lined with wild-beasts' skins, with which they cover their whole bodies."

BOOK NAME: RESEARCHES IN TO THE PHYSICAL HISTORY MANKIND.

PUBLISHED: 1851

BY JAMES COWLES PRICHARD, M.D. F.R.S. M.R.I.A.