Tumbuka

Tumbuka communities occupied the highlands and valleys west of Lake Malawi, where farmers and hunters lived under a number of local leaders. In the Nkhamanga country, the Luhanga, Bota and Kumwenda clans figured prominently in oral traditions of the time before the arrival of traders from across the lake.

Around the late eighteenth century, a group remembered as the Balowoka came seeking ivory. Their leader Mulowoka formed ties with local families and became a chief; his descendants were associated with the title Chikulamayembe. Other members of the trading group established chiefly positions in neighbouring districts. They exchanged cloth, beads and other goods for ivory, and their influence connected a loose network of chiefdoms along the routes towards the Luangwa valley.

The later city of Mzuzu lies here.