Chikulamayembe Dynasty

The Chikulamayembe are a dynasty of chiefs established among the Tumbuka people in the Nkhamanga-Henga area of Northern Malawi. The Chikulamayembe originally ruled from around 1805, becoming weaker from the 1830s and losing power by the 1870s and their dynasty was re-established in 1907.

The Tumbuka people probably entered the area between the Luangwa valley and northern Lake Malawi in the 15th century. At the start of the 18th century, they formed a number of groups, most of which lived in homesteads growing Finger millet and herding goats and sheep. These were thinly scattered over the plateau between the Luangwa valley and Lake Malawi, in small, independent communities with limited central organisation. One group, the Henga, occupied the Henga Valley north of Rumphi; another, the Phoka lived south of the Nyika Plateau. In the 18th century, the Luangwa valley, the plains south of the Nyika Plateau and the Henga valley had significant elephant populations and the Henga, and Phoka people of these areas had local chiefs with status but limited authority.

In the 18th century, increasing demand for ivory in Europe led to the expansion of the ivory trade in East and Central Africa, financed by merchants based in Kilwa Kisiwani and Zanzibar. By the mid-18th century, traders dressed as Arabs although coming from the Unyamwezi region of what is now Tanzania were involved in trading for ivory as far inland as the Luangwa valley. One such group, consisting of traders and possibly elephant hunters under a leader named Mlowoka, meaning "he who has crossed (the lake)" arrived looking for ivory among people for whom ivory had little value. Mlowoka was traditionally supposed to have landed at Chilumba on the lakeshore and moved inland to an area west of the Nyika Plateau. It is not certain whether these traders intended to settle, but their control of the trade goods exchanged for ivory gave them economic power. They formed marriage alliances with local Henga chiefs and, in order to secure a monopoly over local ivory trading, Mlowoka established his leading followers at strategic points on the routes from the elephant-rich areas among the Henga and Phoka to the shore of Lake Malawi.

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