Makua people

A Makua mother and child in Mozambique.

The Makua are a Bantu ethnic group of Southeast Africa, Southern Africa and in Central Africa and the largest ethnic group in Mozambique, and also have a large population across the border in the Masasi District of Mtwara Region in southern Tanzania. They live in the region to the north of the Zambezi River. The Makua are also present in the Republic of the Congo precisely in the district of Makoua. The total Makua population is estimated to be about 1,160,000, with 800,000 living in Mozambique in 1997 and 360,000 in Tanzania in 1993.[1]

History

The Makua have lived in the area of Northern Mozambique at least since the fifteenth century. Between 1580 and 1590 the Makua revolted against the Portuguese.

Religion

By 1973, one observer estimated that 50% of the Makua were animists, 35% were Sunni Muslims and 10% were Roman Catholics. The first inland Makua conversions to Islam were noted in 1771.

The Makua Diaspora

Other Makua people were known to be residing in South Africa in a Durban city called Bluff. However, due to the Group Areas Act, they were forcibly removed from Bluff and settled in Bayview, Chatsworth, Durban in 1960. Although the majority of the Makua people in South Africa were settled in Bayview, some live in Wentworth, Marianhill, Marianridge, Umlazi, Newlands East and West, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The Makua people in South Africa are mostly Muslims. The Makua language, a Bantu language, is still predominantly spoken among the people, alongside Afrikaans and Zulu (in South Africa), Portuguese in Mozambique, some Swahili by the elders of the community but still spoken by many on the Tanzania-Mozambican border, and English in South Africa and Tanzania.

See also

• Makhuwa language
• Makua languages