[Civsoc-mw] Fwd: Ma lawi the name

[cuthbertkachale]

Netters, Talkers,  Civsocers and educators,  

The following is a slightly edited version of my yesterday's posting on Malawi Past-Testimonies. I was responding to the question on the origins of the name of our country,  Malawi.  I was asked that question by Ba Robert Mkwezalamba,  a veteran Malawi Trade Unionist. 


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-------- Original message --------
From: Paliani <palianic2011 at gmail.com> 
Date: 25/05/2017  14:07  (GMT+02:00) 
To: Cuthbert Kachale <cuthbertkachale at gmail.com> 
Subject: Ma lawi the name 
 
Ba Mkwezalamba,  first let me welcome Ba Chodzi. We need more and more human rights activists and more and more trade unionists like you, Ba Mkwezalamba and Ba Paliani himself.

Why do I say so,  in this country human rights and workers' rights have been trampled upon for far too long. Even education, which is a human right,  has been  denied to the vast majority of those who deserve it.

Let me attempt to answer your question concerning the origins of our country's name, Mslawi,  off  the cuff and hope I will be ably supported or otherwise by goldfields of our past on this forum.

Well, there are many versions to the name Malawi's origin. To begin with Maravi or Malawi means flames of fire. Our national football team is not called "Flames" for nothing. Why fames of fire? There a  number of schools of thought on this. One of these is that when  locals looked at the lake at dawn they say a mirage of the sun and that translated to a ball of fire or flames of fire. The other says that there was a lot of  iron smelting and flames of fire were visible nearly everywhere, especially at night, while people were making hoes,  spears, axes,  arrows and many other implements and ornaments. There were flames of fire everywhere.  The origins of the Maravi Kingdom has variously been described. One school of thought says it was founded in the 16th century by a Sotho called Chief Mogale,  whose descendants became Mwales, because locals could not pronounce Mogale properly,  as in the former President of Botswana,  Festus Mogae. According to that school of thought,  King Mogale became the first king of the Maravi Kingdom. Another school of thought says that the fist King of the Maravi Kingdom was a Chewa of the Chewa tribe among the groups of Banthu tribesmen including the Tongas and Tumbukas who migrated from the Congo Basin. The Maravi Kingdom stretched from the Zambezi River and part of what is the Eastern Province of Zambia all the way to the Indian Ocean.

But what was what is now call Malawi as a geographical zone originally known as. According to the maps of the 18th century,  our territory was part of what was called MUENEMUJI, variously spelt,  meaning mwene muzi, or mwini mudzi. So instead of being Malawians, we could as well have been Muenemujians.

Just before independence,  there was a name search for our new country,  which some of us had high hopes and unfathomable imaginations about. We certainly didn't want the name Nyasaland which had metamorphosised from Planters Protectorate,  Nyasaland and Districts, British Central Africa and finally Nyasaland Protectorate on 6 July 1907.

So what was the name of our new nation to be. There was a tussle between Dr Banda who opted for the 'Malawi' name and some cabinet ministers led by Dunduzu Chisiza who opted for MUENEMUJI for Muenemujians.

Dr Banda had consultations with Professor George Shapperson, a world famous guru in history,  who realising that Dr Banda was a proud Chewa (though his father was Tumbuka) and himself proud of the version that the first Maravi King was Chewa,  advised Dr Banda to adopt the Malawi name which had some pomp behind it. So Malawi became the name of our country. Unfortunately our first president wanted to resuscitate the Maravi Kingdom and went to all sorts of lengths to achieve that. The rest is history. Dr Banda became irridentist, meaning he believed that Malawi territory was not complete without the rest of the Maravi Kingdom territories. Hence active engagement in Mozambique to prevent independence in Mozambique and consequent destabilisation of Mozambique.

Mzee. 
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