THE WORD UNYAMWEZI. 



3 



and Uniamese," relate to the same place and people, 

 comprehending a large extent of country in the interior 

 of Africa : he explains the word erroneously to mean 

 the " great Moises or Movisas." The Rev. Mr. Erhardt 

 asserts that for facility of pronunciation the coast mer- 

 chants have turned the name " Wanamesi " into " Wania- 

 mesi," which also leads his readers into error. The 

 Eev. Mr. Livingstone thus endorses the mistake of 

 Messrs. Macqueen and Erhardt : " The names Mono- 

 moizes, spelt also Monemuigis and Monomuizes, and 

 Monomotapistas, when applied to the tribes, are exactly 

 the same as if we should call the Scotch the Lord 

 Douglases . . . Monomoizes was formed from Moiza or 

 Muiza, the singular of the word Babisa or Aiza, the 

 proper name of a large tribe to the north." In these 

 sentences there is a confusion between the lands of the 

 Wanyarawezi, lying under the parallel of the Tanganyika 

 Lake, and the Wabisa (in the singular Mbisa, the 

 Wavisa of the Rev. Mr. Rebmann), a well-known com- 

 mercial tribe dwelling about the Maravi or Nyassa Lake, 

 S.W. of Kilwa, whose name in times of old was cor- 

 rupted by the Portuguese to Movizas or Movisas. 

 Finally M. Guillain, in a work already alluded to, states 

 correctly the name of the people to be Oua-nyamouezi, 

 but in designating the country " pays de Nyamouezi," 

 he shows little knowledge of the Zangian dialects. 

 M. V. A. Malte-Brun, junior (' Bulletin de Geogra- 

 phic,' Paris, 1856, Part II. p. 295) correctly w T rites 

 Wanyamwezi. 



A name so discrepantly corrupted deserves some 

 notice. Unyamwezi is translated by Dr. Krapf and 

 the Rev. Mr. Rebmann, " Possessions of the Moon." 

 The initial U, the causal and locative prefix, denotes 

 the land, nya, of, and mwezi, articulated m'ezi with 



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