Макуа: Этнос Мозамбика и Танзании

Bantu ethnic group of Mozambique and Tanzania

The Makua people, also known as Makhuwa or Wamakua, are a Bantu ethnic group found in northern Mozambique and the southern border provinces of Tanzania such as the Mtwara Region. They are the largest ethnic group in Mozambique, and primarily concentrated in a large region to the north of the Zambezi River. They are studied by sociologists in four geographical and linguistic sub divisions: the lower or Lolo Makua, the upper or Lomwe Makua, the Maua and the Niassa Makua or Medo. They speak variants of the Makua language, also called Emakua, and this is a Bantu group language. The total Makua population is estimated to be about 3.5 million of which over 1 million speak the lower (southern) dialect and about 2 million the upper (northern, Lomwe) version; given the large region and population, several ethnic groups that share the region with the Makua people also speak the Emakua.

A mythical legend, in the oral tradition of the Makua people, tells that their ancestor were the first man and woman born of Namuli which is their original home, while other living creatures came from nearby mountains. Scholars are uncertain whether their origins are in the mountains, or west of Lake Malawi, or northern lands such as in Tanzania or the south.

The Makua people have a documented history of metal ore processing and tools manufacturing. The colonial era Portuguese naturalist, Manuel Galvao da Silva for example, described iron mines of the Makua people. The extracted metal was then worked into axes, knives, spear, rings and other items.]] The Makua people have traditionally been dedicated to agriculture and hunting, yet medieval era documents suggest that the Makua people were also successful traders that controlled the trade routes between Lake Malawi and the Atlantic coast doing brisk business with the Swahili (East Africa) and Gujarati (India) merchants before the start of the colonial era. In the 18th century there was a dramatic increase in the ivory trade which required large scale killing of elephants.

The Portuguese who arrived in Mozambique in early 16th century describe them for their trading relationships and expertise. The colonial settlers contacted the Makua people in early 16th century. The Makua people retaliated with a war of attrition from 1749 onwards, against the Arabic Sultans of the African coast bordering the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese and the other African ethnic groups that supported colonial interests. In early 18th century, states Edward Alpers, the primary demand for slaves out of Makua people, and Mozambique in general, came not from Portugal or its Indian Ocean colonies such as Goa because labor was readily available in South Asia and Portuguese colonial empire in Asia was small. In the 19th century, the Makua chiefs joined the lucrative trading by becoming a supplier of slaves and raiding ethnic groups near them, selling the captured people to the same merchants and exporters. The exports of Makua people has led to this ethnic group's presence in many islands of the Indian Ocean such as Madagascar, the Caribbean, the United States and elsewhere. According to Palmer and Newitt, one of the strategies deployed by Africans and Arab slave raiders and traders was to dehumanize the Makua and Lomwe communities, by publicly stereotyping them as "barbarous and savage tribes", which made slave buyers between 1800 and 1880 feel justified and righteous in "exploiting, civilizing" them from their barbarous ways. In truth, state modern era scholars, the historical evidence and economic success of Makua people suggest that they were peaceful and industrious. According to legend, Muluku created the first man and the first woman from two holes in the ground, and gave them the art of using tools. The humans were disobedient, so Muluku summoned two monkeys and gave them the same tools and instruction. Seeing that the monkeys made good use of the tools, Muluku cut off their tails and fastened them to the man and the woman, telling the monkeys to be human and the humans to be monkeys. The Makua people have predominantly held on to this traditional religion (66 to 70%), which reveres ancestors and nature spirits. The exception is the coastal population, where the Makua traders (under the influence of their Swahili Arab customers) converted to the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islam. The Makua people refer to the coastal Muslim people as the Maka, which may be derived from Mecca, or from the words "salt" or "coast", both of which in the Makua language translate to Maka.

The Makua people were widely distributed around the world during the colonial era. One of the oft studied ethnography of Makua people was published in 1847 by Eugene de Froberville, after he interviewed and learnt the Makua traditions and culture from over three hundred Makua people in Mauritius plantations. Makua people once lived in the country of South Africa in an area near Durban called Bluff. However, due to the Apartheid era Group Areas Act, they were forcibly removed from Bluff and settled in Bayview, Chatsworth, Durban in 1960. Some Makua settled in Wentworth, Mariannhill, Mariannridge, Umlazi, Newlands East and West, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town and Johannesburg. The Makua language, a Bantu language, is still predominantly spoken among the people, alongside Afrikaans and Zulu (in South Africa), Portuguese in Mozambique, some Swahili by the elders of the community but still spoken by many on the Tanzania Mozambican border, and English in South Africa and Tanzania.