Yao people (East Africa)
|This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. (April 2010)|
9 to 10 year old boys of the waYao tribe participating in circumcision and initiation rites (March 2005).
|Regions with significant populations|
|Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania|
|Chiyao, Chichewa, Chitimbuka, Swahili, English, Portuguese|
The Yao people, Wayao, are a major Bantu ethnic and linguistic group based at the southern end of Lake Malawi, which played an important part in the history of Southeast Africa during the 19th century. The Yao are a predominantly Muslim people group of about 2 million spread over three countries, Malawi, northern Mozambique, and in Ruvuma Region and Mtwara Region of Tanzania. The Yao people have a strong cultural identity, which transcend the national borders.
The majority of Yao are subsistence farmers. When Arabs arrived on the southeastern coast of Africa they began trading with the Yao people, mainly Ivory, grains, and slaves in exchange for clothes and guns. Because of their involvement in this coastal trade they became one of the richest and most influential tribes in Southern Africa. Large Yao kingdoms came into being as Yao chiefs took control of the Niassa province of Mozambique in the 19th century. During that time the Yao began to move from their traditional home in today's Malawi and Tanzania, which resulted in the Yao populations they now have. The most important result of the chiefdoms was the turning of the whole nation to Islam around the turn of the 20th century and after World War I. Because of their trade with the Arabs and Swahili, the Yao chiefs (sultans) needed scribes who could read and write. The Islamic teachers who were employed and lived in the Yao villages, made a significant impact on the Yao people because they could offer them literacy, a holy book, religious clothes, and square, instead of round, houses. Furthermore, the Yao sultans strongly resisted the Portuguese, British, and German colonial rule, which was viewed as a major cultural and economic threat to them. The British tried to stop the ivory and slave trade by attacking some of the Yao trade caravans near the coast. The Yao chief Mataka rejected Christianity, as Islam offered them a social system, which would assimilate their traditional culture. Because of the political and ritual domination of the chiefs, their conversion to Islam caused their subjects to do likewise. The Folk Islam which the Yao people have embraced is syncretized with their traditional animistic belief system.
The Yao in Mozambique
The Yao have lived in northern Mozambique (formerly Portuguese East Africa). A close look at the history of the Yao people of Mozambique as a whole will show that their ethno geographic center is located in a small village called Chiconono, in the northwestern Mozambican province of Niassa. The majority of Yao were subsistence farmers, however some were also active as ivory and slave traders. They faced social and political decline with the arrival of the Portuguese in today's Niassa Province, that established the Niassa Company, and settled in the region founding cities and towns and destroying their independent farm and trade economy, and changing it to a plantation economy controlled by the Portuguese. The expanding Portuguese Empire had established trading posts, forts and ports in East Africa since the 15th century, in direct competition with the diverse influential Muslim political forces: Somali, Swahili, Ottomans, Mughals and Yemeni Sufi orders to a limited extent, and increasingly Ibadi influences from independent Southeastern Arabia. The spice route and the Christian evangelization were the main driving forces behind Portuguese expansion in the region. However, later in the 19th century, the Portuguese were also involved in a large slave trade that transported African slaves from Mozambique to Brazil. The Portuguese Empire was by then one of the greatest political and economic powers in the world. Portuguese-run agricultural plantations started to expand offering paid labour to the tribal populations workforce. The Yao increasingly became poor plantation workers under Portuguese rule. However, the Yao preserved their traditional culture and subsistency agriculture by their own. As Muslims, the Yao could not stand then domination by the Portuguese, which however, offered Christian education and taught the Portuguese language to the Muslim ethnic group with little feedback. Currently, there are a minimum estimated 450,000 Yao people living in Mozambique. They largely occupy the eastern and northern part of the Niassa province and form about 40% of the population of Lichinga, the capital of this province.
The Yao outside Mozambique
The Yao moved into what is now the eastern region of Malawi around the 1830s, when they were active as farmers, and traders. Rich in culture, tradition, and music, the Yao are primarily Muslim, and count among their famous progeny two former Presidents of the Republic of Malawi, Bakili Muluzi and Joyce Banda. The Yao had close ties with the Swahili on the coast during the late 19th century, and adopted some parts of their culture, such as architecture and Islam, but still kept their own national identity. Their close cooperation with the Arabs gave them access to firearms, which gave them an advantage in their many wars against neighbouring peoples, such as the Ngoni and the Chewa. The Yao actively resisted the German forces that were colonizing Southeast Africa (roughly today's Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi). In 1890, King Machemba issued a declaration to Commander von Wissman saying that he was open to trade but not willing to submit authority. After further engagements, the Yao ended up surrendering to German forces.
The Yao speak a Bantu language known as Chiyao (chi- being the class prefix for "language"), with an estimated 1,000,000 speakers in Malawi, 495,000 in Mozambique, and 492,000 in Tanzania. The nationality's traditional homeland is located between the Rovuma and the Lugenda Rivers in northern Mozambique. Other major languages of Malawi include Chichewa and Chitimbuka. They also speak the official language of the countries they inhabit, Swahili in Tanzania, English in Malawi and Tanzania, and Portuguese in Mozambique.
Illnesses in Yao culture are believed to originate through physical reasons, curses or by breaking cultural taboos. In such situations where illness is believed to come from the latter two sources (folk illnesses), government health centers will rarely be consulted. Some folk illnesses know to the Yao include undubidwa (an illness affecting breastfeeding children due to jealousy from a sibling), and various "ndaka" illnesses that stem from contact that is made between those who are not sexually active with those who are (cold and hot).
- Shaaban bin Robert, Tanzanian Poet
- Ian Dicks, The African Worldview: The Muslim Amacinga Yao of Southern Malawi Kachere Series, 2012
- J. Clyde Mitchell, The Yao Village: A Study in the Social Structure of a Malawian Tribe Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956, 1966, 1971