Longwe
Map with all coordinates: Longwe is an archaeological site in the south of the African Republic of Malawi . Longwe is near the sacred pond of Ndione , the mythical site of the murder of the rain deity Mbona .
Research history
During the first exploration of the region around 1915 by the team of the American Matthew Schoffeleers from the University of Wisconsin , the legends and myths of the Malawi region , which had only been handed down orally, were collected and the first archaeological investigations were carried out.
The regionally widespread Longwe pottery of the late Iron Age was named after the location of Longwe . The Longwe pottery was previously only found in a relatively limited area, mostly north and east of the Mulanje plateau and in the lower valley of the Shire near Nsanje , where, according to legend, the head of Mbona is buried. The production of this ceramic begins in the 10th century AD. The ceramics and the associated culture have so far been little researched, but there are holy shrines (Mbona shrines) where gods are still worshiped today, which go back to this time. The influx of believers also includes areas in what is now Mozambique.
Longwe pottery is associated with the Kingdom of Maravi , which would begin its emergence 500 years earlier than previously assumed.
Cult places
The cult site Mwalaumodzi was explored by Rangeley . It is a conspicuous granite rock in the river bed of the Thangadzi River. Legend has it that the imprints of Mbona's buttocks, where he allegedly rested on his way south, are found on it. Until the beginning of the 20th century there was a sanctuary with a shrine in the immediate vicinity. The smoothed depressions discovered on the rock surface are said to have been created by ritual grinding of axes or stone tools. An abundance of microliths was found on the opposite north bank. The place has an almost complete range of local pottery finds , it goes back to the 14th century, there is no Nkhudzi pottery . Two test digs were made.
In the lower valley of the Shire River there is a second place associated with the Mbona cult . Mbona grains of rice were scattered here, these sprouted and thus laid the basis for the diet of today's population. The found pottery could be found almost exclusively on the north bank of the river, one concludes from this, this area marked a border to the south neighboring kingdom, which extended out of the Zambezi Valley . Archaeological research on the Mozambican side of the border has so far been prohibited by the authorities there, with reference to the consequences of the civil war (landmines?).
According to myth, the rocky landscape on the Malawi Berg Lage is a third place of cult. Here, too, there are said to have been shrines that were erected for worshipers. The tradition has been confirmed by the population that a Mbona shrine still existed in the middle of the nineteenth century in the summit region of the mountain. But there is no memory of the exact location. The mountain was examined in vain for petroglyphs by Ben Smith .
Legend has it that Mbona's life ended at the foot of the holy Malawi mountain . According to myth, the blood flowing out of the dead body forms the source river Ndione . In the 1950s, believers went to a shrine here, which is said to have been in a sacred grove. According to tradition, human sacrifices once took place here. The archaeological investigation of the cult site was able to locate the presumed location of this sacred grove on an old dike using aerial photographs. The place was on the edge of the flood-prone zone.
Pottery was recovered from the sacred pond of Ndione Lage . It had been sacrificed by the believers and was scattered over an open square. A search cut was made in the vicinity of the former sacrificial site; it produced a deposit almost 2 m thick with characteristic fragments. The lowest tier was dated to the second half of the 12th to 13th centuries. The top layer was deposited in the 17th or 18th century.
Another excavation pit was created at the Khulubvi Hain Lage . Here Longwe pottery was deposited in the lower layers and Nkhudzi pottery from the 18th to 19th centuries in the layers above .
The Mazoe Valley, the heartland of the Munhumutapa Empire, is barely 100 km to the southeast and is easily accessible via the navigable rivers Shire, Zambezi and Mazoe. The Arab trading centers Tete and Sena , which were taken over by the Portuguese in the early 16th century , were according to their records on the territory of Munhumutapa, which makes the assignment of the Longwe pottery appear relatively clear.
The village of Longwe (11 ° 10 'S, 33 ° 42 ′ E) - about 25 km south of Rumphi , in the forests of the Viphya Mountains , should not be confused with the site.
See also
literature
- J. Matthew Schoffeleer: River of Blood: The Genesis of a Martyr Cult in Southern Malawi, CAD 1600 . (Reprint). University of Wisconsin Press, 1915, ISBN 0-299-13324-9 , pp. 325 .
- Yusuf M. Juwayeyi: Iron age settlement and substence patterns in southern Malawi. In: Thurstan Shaw, Paul Sinclair, Bassey W. Andah, Alex Okpoko (Eds.): The Archeology of Africa. Food, metals and towns (= One World Archeology. Vol. 20). Routledge, London et al. 1993, ISBN 0-415-11585-X , pp. 391-398, here p. 396.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Menno Welling: Mbona shrines and the origin of the Maravi states . In: Pan-African Conference manuscripts . Gaborone, 2005. ( Full text ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. As a digital copy in the doc- Format)
