The Tonga (also called Lake Shore Tonga or Nyasa Tonga) are an ethnic group living in northern Malawi in Nkhata Bay District. Their language and Tonga people of Zambia and Zimbabwe belong to different branches of the Bantu family and are not related.
History
The Tonga people came from the Tumbuka people who broke away from the group when the Nkhamanga Kingdom declined in the early 17th century. When the Ngoni from South Africa who had fled from the Zulu warrior raided the western Nkhamanga Kingdom, the kingdom split into two with one group being currently called Tonga and the other Tumbuka. In reality, the two groups are part of one family and Glotolog categorizes Tonga language and Tumbuka language in a single language family.
The Tonga were constantly raided by the Ngoni, mostly for food, women and young men. The young were incorporated into the Ngoni fighting regiments.
Lifestyle
The Tonga are primarily a fishing people with cassava as their staple food due to settlement near the lake.
The Tonga people, like their parent group, the Tumbuka, pay lobola (bride price) in the form of money and rarely with cows with kin liable for further payments if a child or wife falls ill. Historically, males could not divorce their wives without a hearing of public repudiation, while she and her family could dismiss him without formality, unless he had a wealthy or otherwise powerful family. The kin of a woman dying away from home could also demand burial permission and heavy payment from the husband.
The Tonga in Chintheche are known by the surname Chirwa; some other names in Tonga are Kaunda, Ngema, Longwe, Ng'oma, Manda, and Mhone. The very same surnames are associated with the Tumbuka people as well.
Religion
The Tonga believed in a supreme God who remained vague and almost forgotten, for the Bantu had primarily a religion of the dead. They worshipped ancestral spirits, believed in consulting diviners, spirit-possession, and sought out those who predicted the future and were supposed to receive messages from ancestors. Spirits of the dead were recognized, honored, and propitiated. The Batonga of Lake Nyasa say certain medicines can help a person ensure his or her changing after death into any chosen animal.
Language
According to the 2018 census, there were nearly 170,000 speakers of the Malawi Tonga language which is a dialect of Tumbuka language. During colonial time, the Tonga learnt Chitumbuka in school as it was one of the official languages of Malawi.
(Note that the Tonga language in Zambia is also classified as of the Bantu language family, but belongs to a completely different type.)
The language is called chiTonga. The 'chi' means 'the language of the', like in most of the Bantu languages and dialects.
References
- Bauer, Andreus. "Raising the Flag of War".
- Davidson, Basil. "African Kingdoms".
- Tew, Mary. "People of the Lake Nyasa Region".
