Yao people (East Africa)

The Yao people are a Bantu ethnic group living at the southern end of Lake Malawi. The Yao are a predominantly Muslim-faith group of about two million, whose homelands encompass the countries of Malawi, Tanzania, and the north of Mozambique.

The majority of the Yao people are subsistence farmers and fishermen. Yao kingdoms came into being, as Yao chiefs took control of the Niassa province of Mozambique in the 19th century. During that time, the Yao began to move from their traditional home to today's Malawi, which resulted in the Yao populations present today. Islam reached the Yao gradually during the 19th century. Chiefs and village headmen tended to convert first. Furthermore, the Yao sultans resisted Portuguese, British, and German colonial rule, which was viewed as a major cultural, political and economic (as well as personal) threat. The British tried to stop the ivory and slave trade, attacking some of the Yao trade caravans near the coast. Mataka II Nyenje allowed William Johnson of the Anglican Universities' Mission to Central Africa to work in Muembe in 1880. When the British seized one of his slave caravans the next year, Mataka suspected Johnson of spying and expelled him.

The Yao originally lived in northern Mozambique (formerly Portuguese East Africa). The history of the Yao people, in Mozambique as a whole, shows that their ethno-geographic center was located in a small village called Chiconono, in the northwestern province of Niassa. The chances of finding a beehive were greatly increased when hunters used the traditional call. The study also mentions that the Yao consider adult and juvenile honeyguides to be separate species, and hunters report that the former but not the latter responds to the specific honey-hunting call.

The Yao moved into what is now the eastern region of Malawi around the 1830s, when they were active as farmers and traders. Culturally, the Yao are primarily Muslim. The Yao had close ties with the Swahili on the coast during the late 19th century, The Yao continued to defend their lucrative trade route from the Makanjila domains in southern Nyasa to Kilwa Kivinje over the following years, leading to the execution of one of the more prominent raiders, Hassan bin Omari (an associate of the Makanjila), in Kilwa Kivinje in 1895. On the other hand, by 1893, Harry Johnston, with his British forces, was able to declare that he had practically conquered all the Makanjila territory on the shores of Lake Nyasa. In 1890, King Machemba issued a declaration to Commander Hermann von Wissmann, stating that he was open to trade but not willing to submit to German authority.