Oral traditions and the current distribution of ethnic groups in central and southern Malawi make it rather obvious that the Mankhamba site was founded by people who spoke Chichewa, a Western Bantu language. Archaeology has provided a time span for the occupation of the settlement but has not given a depiction of what the settlement might have looked like. For this, one may extrapolate from modern village settings in Malawi and from observations made by Portuguese explorers and traders in southern Africa during the seventeenth century. This will help to establish an image of what the Mankhamba settlement might have looked like when Kalonga and his people occupied it. The material remains from the excavations have provided ample evidence regarding the way of life of the Chewa, which will be covered in this chapter. The discussion will concentrate on how they made a living. Long-distance trade will be discussed in detail in the following chapter.

Founding the Mankhamba settlement

Scholars who have analysed oral traditions of the Chewa believe that the pre-Maravi were the first Chewa group to arrive in Malawi and that they were followed by the Maravi. According to Schoffeleers, the pre-Maravi were in full possession of the land when the Maravi arrived. Some of them had settled at Mankhamba, where they established a raincalling shrine. However, oral traditions provided no reliable dates for the arrival of either of the two groups. In fact, for a long time, historians and other scholars have grappled with the chronology of the migration of the Chewa. Their main problem was that the only sources of information they had were documents written by the early Portuguese and the oral traditions themselves.

The earliest of the Portuguese documents were written in the sixteenth century, long after the Chewa had settled at Mankhamba. They contain records of events that took place after, and not before, the fifteenth century. Oral traditions are also problematic in their own way. Unlike archaeology, which involves analysing material remains recovered at archaeological sites and scientifically dating them, oral traditions can be unreliable when they refer to events that occurred many centuries ago because people tend to modify narratives through time. Archaeology has now stepped in to help clarify the chronology and the settling of the Chewa at Mankhamba and other sites.