Note 256 — Chapter IV

Robert Codrington tells us that these A-Ngoni (Aba-Ngoni) spring from a Zulu tribe which crossed the Zambesi about 1825, and established themselves south-east of L. Tanganyika, but later migrated to the uplands west of L. Nyasa, where they founded three petty states. Others went east of the Livingstone range, and are here still known as Magwangwara. But all became gradually assimilated to the surrounding populations. Intermarrying with the women of the country they preserve their speech, dress, and usages for the first generation in a slightly modified form, although the language of daily intercourse is that of the mothers. Then this class becomes the aristocracy of the whole nation, which henceforth comprises a great part of the aborigines ruled by a privileged caste of Zulu origin, "perpetuated almost entirely among themselves" ("Central Angoniland," Geograph. Jour. May, 1898, p. 512). See A. Werner, The Natives of British Central Africa, 1906.