Tumbuka (ethnic group)
The Tumbuka are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group in the district around Mzuzu in Malawi , in the east of Zambia and in the south of Tanzania .
The origin of the Tumbuka is believed to be in Cameroon , from where they immigrated 500 to 800 years ago. In the 17th and 18th centuries, further waves of settlements came from the north and northwest, whose people lived under the Tumbuka and adopted their language and customs. In the middle of the 19th century Nguni from Natal conquered the area, but adopted the Tumbuka (ChiTumbuka) language.
The Tumbuka in northern Malawi's Rumphi district were ruled by chiefs of the Chikulamayembe dynasty until the middle of the 19th century and, after an interruption, during the colonial period .
The Tumbuka are predominantly farmers, cultivation of maize and tobacco as well as livestock farming are common. Their number is estimated at 750,000 to one million in Malawi and 400,000 in Zambia. Johnstone / Mandryk 2001 write 940,000 and 392,000. The Tumbuka value a good education, but many graduates leave northern Malawi to work in Lilongwe or Blantyre .
Traditional musical instruments for entertainment are the mtyangala mouth arch , played only by women , the lamellophone malimba , a xylophone reinforced with calabashes and various rattles that are used in dances. A dance form is performed in the obsession cult Vimbuza and accompanied by drums called ngoma in addition to the metal rattles carried by the singers . The ugubu calabash music bow can hardly be heard.
See also
literature
- Donald Fraser: Winning a primitive people: sixteen years' work among the warlike tribe of the Ngoni and the Senga and Tumbuka peoples of Central Africa. New York 1914, pp. 112-195 Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Archive.org
- Steven Friedson: Dancing Prophets: Musical Experience in Tumbuka Healing. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, University of Chicago Press, 1996
- HL Vail: Religion, language and the tribal myth: the Tumbuka and Chewa of Malawi. In: JM Schoffeleers: Guardians of the land; essays on Central African territorial cults. 1979, pp. 209-233