Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ixi. (iQi/), No. 6. 9 



Rhodesia, dwelt people of the Bantu race which has spread 

 over such an immense area, owing to its military prowess. The 

 land between the Zambesi and the southern coast was once 

 peopled by Bushmen and Hottentots, but they were driven 

 away or reduced to slavery by the Bantu peoples. The Mash- 

 onas and Makalaka were the first to achieve suj^remacy ni 

 South-cast Rhodesia, but ever since the history of this part of 

 Africa has been one of conquest. The military tribes of the 

 southern Bantu had a social organisation, consisting of a chief, 

 who was regarded only by such warrior people as sacred ; a 

 warrior nobility, commoners, and slaves. '^■'- Such people as the 

 Bushmen and the Hottentots had no hereditary chiefs. 



The numerous stone forts in the Rhodesian hills were built 

 by people, probably from Arabia, who were working the gold 

 mines at a very remote period. ^^'^ Prof. Keane tells us that 

 " the Makalakas, with the kindred Banyai, Basenga, and 

 others, may well have been at work in the mines oi this auri- 

 ferous region, in the service of the builders of the Zimbabwe 

 ruins " (p. 102), and this is probably true, for the Mashonas 

 and Makalakas are skilled in metal working and mining. The 

 stone forts of the gold-mine region show that the country was 

 held under military tenure, and it is not risking much to claim 

 that the builders of the forts would have pressed the neigh- 

 bouring peoples into their service as warriors. The miners 

 were sun-w'orshippers, and they have left their traces on the 

 peoples of Rhodesia in that the chiefly houses sometimes claim 

 descent from the sun. The presence of sun-worshipping, war- 

 waging people at Zimbabwe and elsewhere is quite sufficient 

 to account for the warlike tendencies of the military Bantu 

 tribes, and the localisation of these tribes is such as to make 

 it j^robablc that they acquired their knowledge of warfare in 

 this way. 



It may be claimed that the Bantu peoples spread from 

 North-east Africa. The Bantu are negro in type, but in the 

 north the military tribes are ruled by an alien aristocracy of 

 Galla stock, the Gallas being Hamites.'^'^ The warrior states 

 are ruled by sacred chiefs; then comes a warrior aristocracy, 

 commoners and slaves. Only the warrior states have sacred 

 chiefs, and in British East Africa are numerous tribes without 

 this form of social organisation, these tribes in some cases 

 being serfs.^'^ The peoples with Hamitic aristocracies, or 

 mixed Hamitic and Bantu peoples, also differ from other 

 Bantu peoples in another remarkable way. Mr. A. C. 

 Hollis says, " As a general rule it may, I think, be said, that 

 prayer and sacrifice to the sun or deities in the sky arc un- 



31. Joyce, p. 214. 



32. Sir H. Johnston, ••The Opening up of Africa," p. 86, e.s.; 

 Schoff, ■■ The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea," London, iqi-, p. 07) ^-S- 



33. Keane, p. Q3. 



34. Keane, p. 94. 



