article
Notes on the history of the Lakeside Tonga of Nyasaland
African studies • 18 (3) • Published In 1959 • Pages: 105-117
By: Van Velsen, J..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Van Velsen writes about Lakeside Tonga history and the difficulty in interpreting oral history, because he argues it is always highly selective in order to support current social structure and power relations. He constructs five periods: I) the ‘dim past,’ ii) the penetration of slave and ivory trading groups, iii) the Ngoni invasion, iv) the waning of Ngoni power and waxing of British power, v) period of British administration. He only discusses periods two through four in this paper. According to van Velsen the Tonga are a heterogeneous group of four separate tribes that coalesced under conditions of trade and war.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Traditional history
- Historical reconstruction
- History
- External trade
- Ingroup antagonisms
- Community heads
- External relations
- Warfare
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Lakeshore Tonga
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2001
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southern Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnographer
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ;1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1951-1956
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1780-1881
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Nkhata Bay district, Northern Province, Malawi
- NotesAdditional notes
- by J. van Velsen
- Includes bibliographical references
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 45015602
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Ethnology--Malawi