Yao

The Yao are a Bantu people whose traditional homeland lies between the Rovuma and Lugenda rivers, in the Niassa highlands of northern Mozambique, with later settlements around the southern end of Lake Malawi. They speak Chiyao, a Bantu language of the Rufiji-Ruvuma group.

Farmers and fishermen, they turned to long-distance trade as Arab and Swahili merchants developed the southeastern coast, carrying ivory, grain and slaves to the coast in exchange for cloth, beads and firearms. Their caravans and chiefly seats made them a power in the hinterland of Kilwa and Mikindani, and around the 1830s groups began moving east of Lake Malawi. Through coastal contacts Islam gradually reached them, mingling with older local beliefs.