NOTES ON THE EAST COAST BANTU OF ETGIITV YEARS AGO. 83 



"■ Moamba " reminds us of the great Abamibo tribe of Natal 

 (Embo) of which it was probably a section. It was a chief 

 Manibe who had communication with the Dutch when they en- 

 tered Delagoa Bay in 1726, and a "king" Wamba who in' 1798 

 robbed Mafumo of the greater part of his territory. 



It is probably, also, something more than a coincidence that 

 Mamba was the dynastic title of the Kalanga chief, a great po- 

 tentate who kept tame lions and elephants, and who w^as des- 

 troyed (flayed alive, the story goes) some three hundred vears 

 ago at his great place, Thabas Mamba (Mamba's Mount), near 

 Gwelo, by the Barotse invaders. A section of Makaranga, 

 according to native tradition, moved south to " Embo," some 

 three or four hundred years ago, driven down by the Ba-\^enda ; 

 and with them, if not of them, the two chief clans of the 

 Abambo, the Ama-Zizi and Ama-Hlubi. It may be remembered 

 that Father Fernandes, writing in 1560 to the Father Provincial 

 in India from Otongwe, distinguishes between the circumcised 

 Botonga and the uncircumcised Mocaranga, both living in what 

 was lately known as j^azaland or Gungunhama's country (Sabi 

 River basin). 



We just now referred to Mafumo's territory. 



" On the north of English River is the country of Mafoomo. The Mafoomo, 

 or Ofoomo, as Diogo do Couto has it, is situated between the mouths of King 

 George and Enghsh Rivers, and it is a very small state."* 



In 1589 the Mpfumo or Mafumo tribe which also speaks a 

 Ronga dialect, was known to the Portuguese as the most power- 

 ful between the Limpopo and Umbelosi. Their chief Mpfumo 

 probably owed his title to the name Terra dos Fumos, or Smoke- 

 land, given to the territory because of the quantity of smoke 

 the Portuguese saw on the land at night. So says Do Couto; 

 but one would have thought smoke more easily seen by day ! 

 This tribe was also known as the " Makommates," and either 

 gave their name to or received it from the Komati River. 



This tribe is supposed to have come from the south-west 

 or through Swaziland, but with this exception all the tribes above 

 mentioned, exclusive of Moamba, who were not Tonga (vis., 

 the Baloyi, the Tembe, Ma-Puta (Ma-Nisa), etc.), were, ac- 

 cording to M. Junod, of northern origin, and allied to the Ba- 

 Nyai or Ma-Kalanga. They speak closely related dialects of 

 Si-Nwalungo, and are quite distinct from the shore-tribes in the 

 vicinity of Inhambane, the Tchopi and the Tsonga. 



The other tribes included in the Tekeza, Tonga or Nyambane 

 language group which have settled in Portuguese South-east 

 Africa need only be briefly referred to, as they are not men- 

 tioned in the " Narrative." Such are the Hlabi and Bila of the 

 great plain of the Lower Limpopo, who speak the Bila dialect; 

 such, also, a tribe from the south-west, and now located between 

 the Komati and Olifant Rivers, known as the Khosa,f which 



* " Narrative" and Owen's Report. 



t Needless to say, these Khosa have no connection with the Xosa Kaffirs, 

 spelt Khosas and Koussas by the earlier writers. 



