Ronga (people)
The Ronga are an ethnic group of the central-southeastern Bantu , who predominantly live in the south of the Maputo province in Mozambique and to a small extent in the adjacent Tongaland in KwaZulu-Natal ( South Africa ). The language of the Ronga is Xironga , which is sometimes considered a dialect of the Xitsonga .
Way of life
Many Ronga have migrated to the cities today. The minority still lives in scattered hamlets, which consist of huts arranged around a cattle kraal. The Ronga traditionally feed on the cultivation of sorghum and corn and keep goats, chickens and cows. Patrilinearity does not preclude the maternal family from having a strong position. The children are subject to the influence of the maternal uncle. The traditional religion of the Ronga is based on fire symbolism and ancestral cult; Christians are in the minority.
Oral culture includes many tales of tricksters , in which the rabbit or turtle cleverly overcome the brutal violence of large animals such as elephants, lions and hippos. Even in stories about people, the poor, despised, disinherited, the youngest or the smallest often prevail over the older, larger and more powerful. The Swiss ethnologist , linguist and missionary of the Mission Romande Henri-Alexandre Junod judged that the stories of the Ronga did not touch the social status quo, but the “wisdom of the little ones” in the confrontation with autocrats and those of higher hierarchy with malicious ones by means of symbolic forms of protest Passed on joy (“ malicious pleasure ”).
history
The Ronga have lived in their current settlement areas since at least AD 400. They belong to the same ethnic group as the Tswa and Tsonga . They may have intermingled with the Nguni pastoral peoples . In the past, they recognized the chief of the Tsonga , with whom they are only loosely connected. According to their own tradition, Shona and Sotho also immigrated to their area later .
The Ronga had been in contact with Europeans since the 16th century and traded with the Portuguese, the English and later also with the Dutch. Trade strengthened the Ronga kingdoms. One of the largest in the 16th century was that of chief Inhaca (Nhaca), which was south of Maputo Bay . The island of Inhaca was named after him.
Dutch slave and ivory traders established a colony in the region, which they had to leave in 1726. In the late 18th century, chief Maputo's empire began to rise. His successor was his grandson Makassane. Under this, the Ronga tribes became tributaries to the Nguni. In the further course of the 19th century there were clashes between the English and the Portuguese over the kingdom of Maputo. Since around 1850, many Ronga worked as migrant workers on the sugar cane plantations in Natal , since 1870 also in the diamond mines of Kimberley and since 1886 in the gold mines of the eastern Transvaal in order to escape the widespread forced labor in Mozambique, Portugal. Around 1910, 100,000 Ronga - mostly young men - worked temporarily in South Africa, which had a significant impact on the way of life of the tribal members living in Mozambique.
Junod's valuable documentation of the culture and language of the Ronga at the turn of the 20th century, however, idealized the rural-traditional ways of life, which were already in the process of dissolving due to the system of migrant work and European influence.
In 1894, an increase in the smelter tax triggered an uprising of the Ronga under the chief Mahazul against the Portuguese. Mahazul had to flee to King Gungunhana in the last great Bantu kingdom, Gaza , which was also occupied by the Portuguese in 1895.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ HA Junod: The Life of a South African Tribe. London: Macmillan 1927, p. 223 f.
- ↑ H.-A. Junod: Les Ba-Ronga , French edition 1898
- Jump up ↑ Patrick Harries : Butterflies & Barbarians: Swiss Missionaries & Systems of Knowledge in South-East Africa. James Currey Publishers, 2007.
- ^ Rosemary Galli: Peoples' Spaces and State Spaces: Land and Governance in Mozambique. Lexington Books, 2003, p. 108 ff.
- ^ PR Warhurst: The scramble and African politics in Gazaland. In: Eric Stokes, Richard Brown (Eds.): The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central African History. Manchester University Press 1966, p. 47 ff., Here: p. 59.