^{page 453 note 1} According to the census returns there are about 80,000 Ngoni in Northern Rhodesia and nearly 250,000 in Nyasaland, with other groups in Tanganyika Territory and Portuguese East Africa.

^{page 454 note 1} For the purposes of this article these are the only groups which will be considered.

^{page 455 note 1} This collecting of village plans was viewed with some suspicion at first as a new way of helping the Government to catch tax defaulters. However, when I promised the Paramount Chief that no one in the locality should see the village plans, he sent out word that I was to be given all the information I needed, and no one need fear the consequences.

^{page 456 note 1} I avoid using vernacular terms in this article because usually the Ngoni, Chewa, Nsenga, and Tumbuka terms are all different. The field worker has to make a comparative linguistic table giving equivalent meanings in vernacular terms. Here I use the English word ‘clan’ to express the unilateral group according to kinship descent. ‘Tribe’ should be used in a cultural sense, of a group of people possessing a common language and common institutions. The ambiguity with which ‘tribe’ and its vernacular equivalents is used, by Europeans and Africans alike, necessitates an investigation on linguistic and historical lines. The so-called Chewa tribe, for example, rarely, if ever, use the word Chewa, but refer to themselves as Ntumba, Maravi, &c. The Ngoni, speaking of themselves in the south, refer to the Ndwandwe, Ntungwa, &c, and only use the ‘blanket term’ Zulu or Swazi when they think you are ignorant of the finer distinctions. I use the word ‘tribe’ here to express these distinctive groups, but it is impossible to avoid some ambiguity without long linguistic digressions.

^{page 457 note 1} See Bantu Studies, Sept. 1934Google Scholar, for classification of the South African languages. Also A. T. Bryant, Olden Times in Zululand and Natal, for list of Nguni clans.

^{page 458 note 1} This word ‘respect’ is constantly in use among the Ngoni. It implies both ‘honour’ and ‘fear’, and they sometimes use one word and sometimes the other. It really means, ‘to give a person his due’, that is, to behave towards him (or her) in the manner which his rank requires.

^{page 459 note 1} One striking modification was the replacing of the village as a small kinship group by villages of hundreds of huts, with an elaborate organization into hamlets.

^{page 459 note 2} Using chieftainship in the sense of the Ngoni inkosi whose office and powers were very different from those of the surrounding petty chiefs.

^{page 459 note 3} As one of these processes, the piercing of the ear-lobes became the ‘tribal mark’ of the Ngoni as various forms of tattooing were of other tribes. Ear-piercing was sometimes forced (i.e. upon captives taken in war), sometimes voluntary. To-day children of local clans are teased by children of Ngoni clans and called ‘Chewa’ if they have not had their ears pierced, and they beg their mothers to take them to the ‘doctor’ to be ‘made Ngoni’.

^{page 461 note 1} The kind of antique guns traded to the Chewa by the Portuguese and Arabs were no match, for the Ngoni skill with the long throwing-spear or the short stabbing-assegai, and the bullets were such that the stout cow-hide shields of the Ngoni could withstand them. Hence the consternation of the Ngoni when the machine-gun bullets of the British troops pierced their shields in the Ngoni ‘war’.

^{page 461 note 2} With the possible exception of Chikuramayembe, Chief of the Henga.

^{page 461 note 3} Translations of vernacular terms.

^{page 461 note 4} Or trilingual if they know English too.

^{page 461 note 5} The same as Nyanja.

^{page 462 note 1} One Ngoni Paramount has prohibited any but Ngoni dances to be danced in his country.

^{page 463 note 1} He used the verb kudauka, which implies root or origin.

^{page 464 note 1} 800-1,000 words.

^{page 464 note 2} This is their own account and is confirmed by the Rev. Charles Stuart, formerly at Ekwendeni, but not so far recorded by other Europeans.

^{page 465 note 1} In Mwambera's country.

^{page 466 note 1} I am not clear yet what was the precise sociological process by which the identity of these villages was preserved.

^{page 466 note 2} An idiomatic use which has the force of a double negative ‘No one cannot know it’.

^{page 467 note 1} B. Malinowski. Article on Culture in Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences.

^{page 467 note 2} The two Paramounts at present holding these titles are grandsons of the first holders, to whom I refer as old Mpezeni.

^{page 470 note 1} i.e. chiefs' areas.

^{page 470 note 2} The description of this Inqwala given by men and women who took part in it in their youth shows much similarity to the Inqwala of to-day among the Swazi.

^{page 471 note 1} Head-ring, the sign of a warrior ready to marry.

^{page 473 note 1} This was the old Mpezeni, son of Zwangendaba.

^{page 475 note 1} In the Report of Justice Maughan on the North Charterland Inquiry he says, ‘It was a remarkably well-managed little war and the Ngoni accepted their defeat in good spirit like other Bantu races’.

^{page 475 note 2} Over 3 miles across.

^{page 475 note 3} in 1885.

^{page 476 note 1} ‘Finding Mpezeni obdurate the British South Africa Company concluded treaties with all the surrounding indigenous chiefs whom Mpezeni had possessed. We consequently declined to acknowledge him as ruling chief.’

^{page 476 note 2} F.O. 6537.

^{page 477 note 1} See North Charterland Inquiry.

^{page 478 note 1} Under British South Africa Company till 1924.

^{page 478 note 2} See North Charterland Inquiry.

^{page 480 note 1} It is said that it is useless to bribe Ngoni chiefs and councillors.