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Maramuca: An Exercise in the Combined Use of Portuguese Records and Oral Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

At the start of the fifteenth century a.d. a group of patrilineal Bantu clans, collectively known as the Vakaranga, occupied in strength the south and south-west of what is now Southern Rhodesia. The population was mainly composed of small-scale peasant cultivators and cattle-breeders, who lived in modest, stockaded villages of thatched mud-huts and granaries, and who practised an ancestor-cult introduced by their forebears from the region of the Great Lakes—perhaps during the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

1 For background to Section I of this paper, treated from the Bantu standpoint, vide: (i) Abraham, D. P.— ‘The Monomotapa Dynasty’, NADA 1959, 59–84; (2) D.P. Abraham— ‘The Early Political History of the Kingdom of Mwanamutapa’ (to be published in the Proceedings of the 1960 Leverhulme African History Conference). A full-scale history, covering the period 1050 to 1902, is now in preparation by me.Google Scholar For relations with the Empire of Mwanamutapa from the Portuguese angle, vide: (i) Botelho, J. J. TeixeiraHistória Militar a Politica dos Portugueses em Moçambique, Lisbon, 2 vols. 1934 and 1936;Google Scholar (2) Lobato, A.A Expansāo Portuguesa em Moçambique de 1498 a 1530, Lisbon, 3 vols. 1954, 1954, 1960;Google Scholar (3) Lobato, A.A Evoluçäo Administrativa e Economica de Moçambique 1752–63, Lisbon, vol. 1, 1957;Google Scholar (4) Axelson, E.Portuguese in S.E. Africa 1600–1700, Johannesburg, 1960;Google Scholar (5) de Almeida de Eça, F. G.História das Guerras no Zambeze, Lisbon, 2 vols. 1953 and 1954.Google Scholar

2 Schebesta, P., ‘Die Zimbabwe-Kultur in Afrika’, Anthropos, 1926, 500.Google Scholar

3 Sicard, H. von, Ngoma Lungundu, Uppsala, 1952, 153–6.Google Scholar

4 Barreto M., Informaçāo do estado e conquista dos Rios de Cuama, Goa, 11. 12.1667 (Biblioth`que Nationale, ma. port. 33, fis. 41–50—reproduced in: Theal—Records of South-East Africa, III, 436ff. Father Manuel Barreto was born at Coimbra in 1626, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1638. In 5653 he was parish priest in Goa-Salsete. From 1656 to 1662 he taught theology at New St. Paul's College, Goa. Posted to the Rivers the following year he was already Superior of the Zambezi Mission in Jan. 1664. In Sept. 1664 he was Inspector of Moçambique and Superior of the Residence of Sena. He probably returned to India in the middle of 1667, and became Prefect of Studies at New St. Paul's College and chaplain to the Viceroy later that year. (I am indebted for this information to Father Georg Schurhammer of the Istituto Stórico della Compagnia di Gesù, Rome.) His ‘Informaçāo‘Supplimento’ of the same date, is an extremely acute piece of socio-political analysis of the Portuguese position at the Rivers, but he does not show quite the same insight into the realities of the political situation from the standpoint of the local Bantu. With regard to his account of Maramuca, it is to be noted that he states possession of Maramuca had been conveyed with due formality to Gonçalo Joāo (by Mwanamutapa), in the face of his previous statement that the gold-trade was in the control of the rulers of the country, or rather the amount of gold mined and traded; and in the face of his following Statement that, to gain possession of it, Gonçalo Joāo required the assistance of Mwanamutapa and his friends. The true political position appears to have been this: Maramuca actually fell under the jurisdiction of Changamire in the seventeenth century, and it was he who controlled the local chieftaincy. The ruler of Maramuca would have received effective military assistance from Changamire had invasion threatened or initially succeeded. Mwanamutapa had only titular suzerainty over the Maramuca area, as Changamire had gained de facto control of the whole area at the end of the fifteenth century. However, the Current Mwanamutapa may have humoured Gonçalo Joāo, for services rendered, by ostensibly Conveying to him rights greater than he himself actually possessed de juTe or de facto. It is most unlikely, however, that Mwanamutapa would have risked a showdown with Changamire by sending armed forces into his kingdom for the purpose of installing an alien in one of the latter's vassal districts. It is also unlikely that the Bantu of Maramuca would have agreed to mine gold and trade it to an alien who had forced his way into the country with armed assistance. What probably occurred is that Gonçalo Joāo managed to acquire the monopoly of gold-purchase in Maramuca at the expense of the two other Portuguese previously established in the area–undesirable as they were–by gaining the favour of the local chief and impressing him with his straightforward conduct, enhanced by a possibly true claim that he was a friend of the Mwanamutapa who approved of his trading activities (and who had perhaps commended him by courier to the chief of Maramuca. This would not have been an infringement of protocol vis-à-vis Changamire, nor have involved the Mwanamutapa in any particular political or economic commitment). Encozes, often spelt encosses, and meaning ‘vassal chiefs’ is a term indiscriminately applied by the old Portuguese writers to Karanga vassals, although a non-Karanga word. Chuambo is a Bantu word applied by the Portuguese of Moçambique to any fortification. It was originally the local Bantu name for Kilimani/Quilimane, was next applied by the Portuguese to their camp at Quilimane, and was finally widened in scope by them to apply to all defences–Port, or indigenous. Muçoques, a word possibly of Goanese proven. ance, is the old Portuguese colonial term for half-castes.

5 Anonymous Report on Rios de Cuama, 16.3.1683 (Ajuda 51-vii-44, fis. 474–474 v.) Budera = Budura = Dumbura, by metathetic corruption.

6 Breve informaçāo dos Rios de Cuama que dā o P.e Fr. Phelipe [sic’ de Assumpçāo por andar nas ditas terras quatorze annos e estar em todas as feiras e ter larga noticia dos uzos e costumes dellas, Tete?, undated (Ajuda 51-ix-3, fis. 36–9; this ms. contains no dated document of later than Dec. 1698). Father Assumpçao appears to have been chaplain to Mwanamutapa Nyakambiro (Nhacunumbiri of the Port. texts) before his rebellion, in concert with Changamire, late in 1693, as well as to his Portuguese-installed successor Mhande Pedro (1694–c. 1697). In 16967ndash;7 he was sent from Sena to the Court of Mhande Pedro with gifts to procure cession of the silver-mines recently located at Nyakatsi Hill a few miles east of Chicova, and returned to Sena complete with instrument of cession. However, Pedro died soon after, and the Portuguese were unable to secure its subsequent ratification. Father Assumpçāo's career, after submission of his report, is not known. The Dominican Order does not appear to have kept methodical records relating to its personnel in the field as the Jesuits did.

7 The fort of Dambarare was built on a projecting southern terrace of Dambararwa Hill close to the Muroodzi River–in the vicinity of the present Jumbo Mine, about 20.5 miles N.N.W. of Salisbury. It was constructed early in 1684 by the then Captain, Francisco de Valle, aided by the local settlers and acting on the instructions of Gen. Caetano de Mello de Castro (vide latter's letter to Viceroy of 20.6.1684—Livros das Monçoes fis. 59–60). The settlement itself, however, is first mentioned in a document of 1629, and was founded towards the end of the preceding century, as evidenced by the discovery, 3 miles to the south of Dambararwa Hill, of fragments of Wan-Li porcelain, production of which started in China c. 1573; I am indebted for the latter information to Mrs H. Goodall, Curator of Ethnology at the Salisbury Museum. My recent identification of the fort site was reported at popular level in the Sunday Mail, Salisbury, issue of 25 December 1960.

8 Quitamboroize, referred to in other documents as Quitamboruize and Quitamborvize, is Chitomborwizi, the area of Chief Chirau west of the Hunyani River and south of Sinoia town. The traditions of the people of Chirau confirm the early presence in the area of Portuguese merchants and their gold-mining activities at Zviringohwe Hill. The latter is mentioned in the corrupt form Chirungo, by Antonio Bocarro, Decade 13, cap. 75, as a place frequented by the merchants of Massapa and raided in 1597 by Kapampho, a Nsenga chief from north of the Zambezi. Massapa, or rather Masapa, sited at the head- waters of the River Mukaradzi close to Pfura Hill in the present Mount Darwin area, was an established Portuguese centre as early as 1575. Chitomborwizi was probably founded not long afterwards, and perhaps owed its inception to the Luso-Karanga treaty of commerce, mining and evangelization concluded in 1575.

9 For details of Luanze, or rather Ruhanje, located by me in April 1960, vide my paper of 1960 referred to in Note I. It lies in the north-eastern portion of the present Mtoko District.

10 ‘Mathafuna’ = ‘mu Tafuna’, i.e. ‘at Tafuna Hill’. It lies a few miles west of the present town of Sharnva, and evidences a number of early gold workings. cf. ‘Maramuca’ = ‘muRimuka’.

11 There are Bareya close to the south bank of the Zambezi in the present Wankie District of Southern Rhodesia. They claim to have migrated earlier from the country of the Reya or Leya Chief Mukuni—north of the Zambezi close to the present Livingstone. For the N.R. Leya vide: Jaspan, M. A.The Ila-Tonga Peoples, London, 1953. No historical research appears yet to have been done among the Leya of Northern Rhodesia, who are apparently the parent group to the clan of Ngezi of Rimuka.Google Scholar