14^ NATIVES OF AFRICA IN THE i6tH CENTURY 



Manyisa " form one of the most numerous clans of the Ba- 

 Ronga.* 



If ^ve consider the map of the country as it is to-day. we see 

 that two or three names are wanting in these three descriptions : 

 Maputju (Maputo), :\Iatialo (lAIatolla), and Mazwava 

 (iMagaia) ; but we can very well account for this want; in fact, 

 these three clans are of modern orig-in. The Maputju and Mat- 

 jolo are younger branches of the Tembe and Mpfumo royal 

 families, which severed themselves from the main branch and 

 made themselves independent in relatively modern times. 

 ]\Iaputju was the younger brother of ■Nluhari, the fourth Chief 

 in the Tembe genealogy, and he managed to found his own king- 

 dom,, probably in the course of the eighteenth century, conquer- 

 ing Xyaka, Bu}'ingane, and many others, probably destroying the 

 Makomata mentioned by Diogo de Couto, with their Chief Vir-.i- 

 gune ( ?. . a nam.c which does not sound much like Bantu). The 

 Magaia, or more correctly pronounced Ma.:K'aya, emigrated from 

 the Lebombo hiUs after I\lena I.ebombo overcame this latter 

 Chief, as well as the primitive inhabitants (the IMahlangana, 

 Honwana and Nkumba), and extended over both banks of the 

 Lower Xkomati, probably encroaching on the territory of Man- 

 hica. One of the first chiefs quoted in the Mazwaya genealogy 

 is Ngomana. This name is also encountered in the description 

 of Diego de Couto under the form Angomanes, and is applied to 

 a chief living in a locality whose descrij^tion well answers to th.c 

 old abode of the Mazwaya clan in the Lebombo hills. 



]Vly conclusion is that in the middle of the sixteenth century 

 the Native population round Delagoa Bay was composed almost 



•*■ As regards the names given by the Portuguese chroniclers to rivers, 

 there are many diificulties in these reports. When coming from the South, 

 the first river met is that now called the Maputo, and the second is the 

 Tembe. Strange to say, the two chroniclers of the XVIth century wh'> 

 mention the river Tembe, Perestrello and Lavanha. apply that name to the 

 first river. " that which separates the country of Tnhaca from that of 

 Zembe.'" The first river is also called by Lavanha Mclengana. There is. 

 not far from the mouth of the Maputo River, a hill still called Nkelengen. 

 and tliis is probably the origin of Mclengana. Diogo de Couto calls the 

 Maputi:) River Belingane, saying that this is also the name of a kingdom. 

 No doubt this is Buyingane, name of a chief who was located near the 

 moutli of the river and who was conquered by the Maputju, but whose 

 clan still exists in the same conditions as that of Nyaka. The country is still 

 called Ka Buyingane. 



To the second river, the Mitembe, Diogo de Couto and Lavanha apply 

 the name of Anzete, or Ansate. This seems to me to be a corruption 

 of the word LTsutu or Lisutu (Umzuti on the Portuguese map of 1873I 

 which is the old name of one of the branches of the Maputo River, the 

 other being the Lipongolo. I believe there has been a confusion made 

 by the chroniclers between these two rivers. As regards the Manyisa 

 River, there is no doubt about its identification. It is the Nkomati of 

 to-day ; but Natives do not call it by that name in this part of its course : 

 they call it Morako (hence the name Morakwen, Marracuene). They may 

 have termed it " nambu zm ka Manyisa/' viz.. the river flowing in the 

 Manyisa country, and the chroniclers have mistaken this expression for 

 the name of the river itself. 



