TOPIC : DEVELOPMENT OF PRE-COLONIAL SOCIETIES

SUBTOPIC : BANTU MIGRATIONS

OBJECTIVES

By the end of the subtopic, learners should be able to:

 Trace origins of the Bantu.

 Explain the theories of the Bantu migrations.
 Analyse the causes of the Bantu migrations.
 Evaluate the impacts of the Bantu migrations on the pre-colonial societies in Southern
Africa.

Background

Routes of the Bantu migrators

 The Bantu migration was one of the major events in African History. Bantu is a common term that
refers to a number of African languages especially from Central, Eastern and Southern Africa and
these Bantu societies also share similar cultures and customs.
 There are many versions explaining the migration of the Bantu speaking people, the first version
asserts that the Bantu came from West Africa around Cameroon and the Bauchi plateau of Nigeria
 while the second version states that the Bantu came from the Katanga region in south eastern
Congo.
 The Bantu migrations took phases and moreover there was part of the Iron Age people from the
Middle East. They settled along the banks of the River Nile and they later moved to North Africa and
they occupied some areas in the Sahara grasslands. They continued with their movement and
settled in Nigeria and Cameroon highlands.
 The Bantu migrators managed to spread their culture, language and their metal working skills in
Southern Africa.
 The evidence of Bantu migrations relies on linguistic and archaeology and these sources give an
accurate background on the origins of the Bantu speaking people in Africa.
 The linguistic scholars traced the African family tree with its branches tied to the movement of
people from a single homeland that is the family language of the Bantu people covers the Niger-
Congo language group.
 In their, migrations these people were given the name ‘Bantu’ due to the similarities in their
languages, for example, the prefix ‘ba-‘ and the suffix’-ntu’.
 Different scholars argue that that the Bantu migrations originated from Central Africa, theories such
as the Migration and Diffusion theory have been propounded for the spreading of iron across Africa
 The migration of Bantu had significant effects on the African environment by facilitating the
transmission of iron technologies and agricultural techniques and also their migration led to a
massive diffusion of Bantu languages throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
 The origins of the Bantu were first raised by Joseph Greenberg and were based on linguistic and he
was able to associate 500 different distinct languages of the Bantu. His findings showed regional and
geographical variations including the crops and animals that did not exist in Africa.
 Greenberg’s discovered the original language of these people called the Proto-Bantu from which
other languages were derived from and he concluded that the Bantu had their origins along Nigeria
and Cameroon.
 However Greenberg’s theory was challenged by Guthrie Malcom as he pointed out that the Bantu
language originated and Southern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The origins of the
Bantu are being disputed but the reasons for the migration explains well the push and pull factors
that influenced the Bantu migration.

The migration theory

 The migration theory is the belief that the Bantu speaking people moved 2000 years ago from
Cameroon and Eastern Nigeria. It is also believed that the Ethiopians, Kenyans, and the Tanzanians
had a long history of agriculture and pottery making, they migrated to Rwanda, DRC and Burundi
areas around 200 and 300 AD.
 This theory argues that the use of iron implements was spread by two groups that is the first group
came from east Africa and the second group came from the Congo Basin. Scholars argue that the
Early Iron Age was brought directly to South Zambezi from the North and they suggest that a wave
of migration from the Congo Basin arrived first in Zambia and in Ziwa it reached a later stage. The
Ziwa culture was introduced in the Nyanga area around 300-400 AD with a lot of evidence such as
agriculture thus in the Zimbabwean plateau the culture of the Iron Age people is evidenced by the
Gokomere –Ziwa cultures.
 These immigrants acquired different skills in iron making, cattle rearing and sorghum growing and
they began to spread in Southern Africa around 400 AD absorbing the local people turning the
whole area into a Bantu speaking nation.
 The Khoisan in Zimbabwe were replaced by the main Bantu migrant group known as the Gokomere,
Chinhoyi and Ziwa cultures and these people were named after the type of the pottery they
produced.
 The existence of the Bantu people brought a full package of economic and cultural activities which
replaced the Khoisan way of life, for example, the new package consisted of crop cultivation,
pastoralism, pottery making and iron smelting.
 Pan Africanists writers rejected this explanation with the view that it was developed by the colonial
racist writers who believed that Africans had no history and could not develop without the
interference from abroad.
 There is no evidence from anthropology that the first farmers in Southern Africa were a different
race from the hunter-gatherers.
 The Bantu migration has been criticized for portraying the indigenous people as primitive and
passive thus they failed to recognize their potential to achieve cultural change through interacting
with other neighbouring groups.
 It is argued that the migration theory is the explanation for a wide range of Bantu migration.

The Diffusion theory

 According to Garlake there was no clear break in the pottery style in the Early Iron Age and the Later
Iron Age. The difference in pottery style is insignificant.
 The pottery makers of the Early Iron Age lived in a matrimonial society and the later Iron Age
became patrilineal as the women took over the task of pottery making from men.
 These changes are natural as people progress from one state to another and they naturally spread
through the movement of a small specialised group.
 The diffusion theory argue that the first farmers were different from the race that was engaged in
hunting and gathering. This theory states that the Bantu languages spread from West Africa and its
spread is not associated with the movement of the people but the cultural change was a result of
the interaction and mutual borrowing from societies rather than migration.
 Therefore the spread of iron production and agriculture was due to the effectiveness of iron tools
which made work easier thus many societies were attracted by the new technology leading to its
wide spread. Moreover farming societies did not eventually replace the hunter-gatherers societies
but the two groups co-existed up until the iron communities started to dominate and replaced the
Khoisan communities.
 The trace on the origins of the later Iron Age period is not clear and it is debatable thus the two
theories compliments each other so as to come up with a logical conclusion on the origins.

Causes of Bantu migration

 People migrating

 The causes of Bantu migration are attributed on three major theories that are Murdock’s
theory, Wrigley’s theory, and Posnasky’s theory.

1. Murdock’s theory

o According to this theory, the Bantu migration from West Africa involves the
agricultural communities.
o It attributes that the migration increased due to the introduction of crops from
Malaysia such as Banana, yam and taro and such crops resulted in the population
growth hence the need to move.

2. Wrigley’s theory

o This theory is of the view that the Bantu migration expanded due to the
introduction of iron, this theory rejects Murdock’s theory and puts forward that the
primary factor was the knowledge of ironworking, not Malaysian crops.
o Iron technology meant that they could clear large forest areas or defeat weak
groups as they went. The iron encouraged the agricultural production providing
more tools and these tools allowed the Bantu people to dominate the people in the
areas they settled.

3. Posnasky’s theory

o This theory argues that both the introduction of iron and Malaysian crops were
responsible for the migration of the Bantu speaking people.

 However there are other causes that induced the migration of the Bantu speaking people such
as search for grazing lands and completion for natural resources, the nature of migration was
carried in form of invasions but the movement was not a massive exodus from one area
to another but gradual taking the Eastern and Southern from the Katanga.
  It is also believed young men were sent to study the area carefully before any decisions were
taken to migrate to another and decisions that decisions were made by heads of the family and
the clan leaders on measures to be taken when moving to that area.
 There are many causes that account for migration of the Bantu people from their seat of origin
such as;

Pressure of Hamitic tribes

 This was one of the major cause which induced the Bantu tribes to move away from their
birthplace. The Hamitic groups had become powerful and numerous as they extended
towards the eastern terminal of the Negro-belt, where it assumes its most attenuated form,
they constantly came into violent contact with the Bantu tribes.
 These Hamitic tribes were effectually powerful to be resisted, as they raided, robbed and
massacred the Bantu people and this produced a wide spread of state distress and suffering
among such Bantu tribes as were within reach of raiders’ spears.
 Other Bantu tribes were destroyed while some tribes saw only hope in escaping from their
surrounding and seeking new homes in other countries thus mostly migrators used the
southward way as it was the only way open.
 These constant attacks, especially from the Arabs who were extremely hostile, led to the
movement of people to better areas.

Internecine wars

 Polygamy destroyed sympathy and the bond of unity between relations. The tribes that were
constantly at feud, enslaving one another, engaged in mutual destruction and attacked by
enemies from other races, were of one kindred, one blood.
 Rebellions, quarrels, jealousy, the desire for booty and mutual recriminations about witchcraft
created an unfailing hatred which was breaking out into open war and causing daily ruin.
 These internal conflicts from the Bantu led to a misunderstanding between different clans
which fought for the ownership of grazing and agricultural land.
 Under these conditions brothers forgot the ties of brotherhood and the inhabitants lived in a
pool of blood thus people were forced to move to other places for protection and peace.

East African slave trade

 Slave trade

 The slave trade, the traffic in human lives was another cause for the Bantu migrations
southward.
 Generally slave trade was the transportation, procuring and selling of human beings, in East
Africa slaves were one of the many commodities exported from Africa and other European
countries.
 The acts of east African slavery were characterised with savage of cruelty, inhuman treatment
and the abuse of African rights.
 Slavery existed in the early years with the activities of Arabs who took advantage of the civil
wars in African states, they firstly gained over the chiefs and secured from them terms of
barter trade for they traded with other items besides the slaves.
 During the civil wars the Arabs threw themselves on the side which they guessed to be
victorious, in turn for assistance they demanded war prisoners taken from during hostilities
and mostly these were the Bantu speaking people.

Introduction of iron

 The Bantu people used their iron tools to subdue other people and clear new lands for
agricultural settlements and this was a community whose economy was based on shifting
cultivation thus they were forced to expand to new agricultural lands as the soil of their old
area became leached of nutrients.
 With better iron tools which they used to clear and cultivate land, food production became
good, people were better fed and the population rapidly increased forcing groups of people to
migrate to other areas.
 The population pressure which developed between people and their livestock also led to soil
erosion, scarcity of grazing and farming land thus people were forced to migrate to other
places in search of grazing land.

Need for grazing lands

  Pastoralism was important among the Bantu tribes, traditions portray that young herdsmen
drove animals such as cattle into lands beyond their community’s normal pattern of
transhumance thus effecting short distance migration.
 With their pastoralist characters, the Bantu migrated to other parts of Africa in search of
better pastures for their livestock and moreover there was competition for crop cultivation
and grazing lands.
 The Bantu people also encountered natural calamities such as famine, droughts, and diseases
which forcefully forced them to move from calamity-stricken areas to seek refuge in new lands
such as southern Africa and moreover natural disasters as earthquakes and over flooding of
the River Nile induced the people to move to other places.
 The tsetse fly might have killed their cattle and the acidic soils could not allow them to grow
crops since the Bantu were already in the farming industry thus their home environment failed
to sustain them.
 The spirit of adventure and curiosity made the Bantu want to discover what laid beyond their
original homeland.

Effects of Bantu migration

 Prior to the coming of the movement of the Bantu speaking people from the north, southern
Africa was inhabited by the San and the Khoikhoi people who were mainly hunter-gathers. The
Bantu arrived in southern Africa long before the coming of the early European settlers.
 The Bantu migrators brought a combination of skills that provided Southern African people the
ability to prosper and grow as a community.
 The effects of the Bantu migration changed the Khoisan society in a political, economic and
social way even though it is believed that these migrators only advanced the way of life of
these people.

Economic impacts

 The Bantu introduced iron-working and the use of iron tools in the interior of Africa. As a
result of the new iron technology, knowledge and shift from stone tools to iron-smelting and
iron tools, there was an increase in food production as sharper, reliable tools were made
which encouraged people to clear large tracts of land and settlement without difficulties. This
resulted into many Bushmen abandoning their traditional way of life and turning into food-
producing, and this could have resulted from a gradual process of acculturation benefiting
both the local people and the immigrants.
 Iron also facilitated the hunting elephants, kudu, and buffalos, the big game augmented meat
supplies and hides while elephant’s tusks stimulated the growth of trade through ivory.
 Iron tools

 The Bantu also introduced a variety of crops such as yams and bananas and new farming
methods such as shifting cultivation leading to a change from a hunting and gathering society
to an agri-based society which was more sedentary. The improvement in crops cultivation and
the introduction of cereal crops such as millet and sorghum improved the diet of the San and
the Khoikhoi who survived on the knowledge of their environment. Shifting cultivation meant
that people were guaranteed of more food security making agriculture a primary source for
the survival of the people.
 Domestication of animals such as goats, cattle, sheep and dogs was also another change which
was brought by the Bantu migrators and these cattle played a significant role in the lives of the
Southern African Bantu inhabitants. Apart from providing skins and being used as insurance
against drought, they also became important in paying bride wealth. Cattle during this period
were a symbol of wealth for an individual as compared to the Khoikhoi society were cattle
were owned by a group.
 The changes in technology and agriculture instigated by the Bantu increased the vitality of
Southern Africa and this played a key role in networking a prosperous trade. The Southern
African societies (Great Zimbabwe, Mutapa, Torwa and Rozvi states) practiced both internal
and external trade, externally they traded with the Swahili, Arabs and Portuguese traders at
the coast. Mostly they traded gold and ivory in exchange for clothes, beads among others.
 The vast use of iron led to the development and growth mining of gold and other minerals
which in turn stimulated the smelting and manufacturing of industries. The discovery of many
pre-colonial gold mines is evidence of the huge amount of gold extracted from the region for
trade leading to an increase in wealth.
 Craft work was also improved besides making mats, nets, bags and fishing hooks the Stone Age
people were able to make pottery. A variety of pots were made and they made pots with
different unique decorations and features and mainly were made to store milk, grain, water
and sometimes they were used as trading commodities. The common types of pots included
the Gokomere, Zhizho, Ziwa, Bambata and Chinhoyi.

Political effects

 New forms of government developed as the Bantu introduced a centralized system of

administration, during the reign of the San the patriarchs, were responsible for the decision
 making in the society while in the Bantu system of organisation the King acted as the overall
ruler, with chiefs and lesser authorities under him. People began to compete for the control
land, for example, there were frequent attacks by the Bantu against the people East Africa for
land.
 The technological innovations of iron which was introduced by the Bantu did not only promote
agriculture alone, the knowledge of iron also led to the creation of spears, arrows, and bows
for defence and protection.
 The migrations of the Bantu led to the creation of powerful Bantu speaking states in
comparison to local chiefdoms. This was due to a denser population, division of labour among
women and men and increased military power. One of the earliest Bantu kingdoms was the
Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe state.
 The creation of the states also gave a rise to unwelcomed problems of urbanisation such as
diseases and exhaustion of minerals and soils, for example, the decline of the Great Zimbabwe
was mainly caused by the exhaustion of the soils leading to the migration of people to other
areas.
 The larger settlements also meant that there was need make rules and regulations to control
the available resources for the benefit of the whole population.

Social impacts

 In the social sector, there was a creation of a class system among the societies due to uneven
distribution of wealth obtained through trade and agriculture. In the Great Zimbabwe state
class divisions were demonstrated through housing and diet, for example, the elite class lived
in stone structures and less fashioned lived in unfavourable conditions.
 Division of labour was a Khoisan package which the Bantu advanced and it was based on
gender. Women became more domesticated as they were consigned to home duties that
include raising children, cooking and gathering wild fruits while men engaged in mining and
the rearing of cattle as well as trading internally and externally.
 Division of labour exploited women making them inferior while men became important and
superior in the society.
 There was also cultural diffusion as the Bantu migration led to a wide spread of the use of
Bantu languages and these languages represented different ethnic groups.
 The change from Khoisan languages to Bantu languages was a slow process.

IsiNdebele, ChiShona Zimbabwe

Swahili Tanzania , DRC, Kenya

Tswana Botswana

isiXhosa, isiSwati South Africa

Ovambo, Herero Namibia

Examples of Bantu languages

 The Bantu opened new land to settlement by families and clans, allowing for the construction
of permanent villages. The Khoisan abandoned their old practices of living in caves shelters
thus they began to live together in villages and the settlement became more permanent.
 The Great Zimbabwe monument and the Khami ruins are examples of permanent settlements
that were built by the Bantu speaking people.

Permanent settlement

 The settlement of the Bantu also led to the spread of religion which was a unifying factor in
the African societies for example in the Rozvi state the worship of Mwari unified the Shona
people and moreover the divine rights of the kings helped to keep rebellions in check.
 The Khoisan honoured practices such as toteism, life after death and the existence of a
supreme God. Through these cultural interactions, they created new unique cultures and
traditions which became a unifying factor for the whole African continent.
 As the Bantu intermarried with non-Bantu peoples, cultural absorption led to the loss of
cultures with whom the Bantu came in contact One of the Bantu cultures was its strong social
system, based on extended family, clan loyalties and dependences and these
generally centred on the rule of the chief.
 Agriculture introduced was labour intensive and demanded more people to carry out the
requisite task thus stimulating the rise of polygamy to increase the population so as to meet
the required activities in the fields.