Malawi
Capital: Lilongwe · Southern Africa
The lake country of the Maravi Empire, where the Chewa's Gule Wamkulu masked society dances between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Ethnic communities
- ChewaMaravi heirs; Nyau secret society and Gule Wamkulu (UNESCO)
- YaoLake-shore traders with Swahili links
- TumbukaNorthern highlands; vimbuza healing dance (UNESCO)
- NgoniZulu-descended 19th-century arrivals
More communities of Malawi
- Lomwe — Southeastern tea-country farmers
- Ngoni (Maseko & M'mbelwa) — Zulu-descended kingdoms of the highlands
- Sena — Lower Shire valley farmers
- Tonga (Lakeshore) — Fishing communities of malipenga dance
- Ngonde (Nyakyusa) — Karonga's banana-grove chiefdoms
- Lambya & Sukwa — Northern border farming peoples
- Mang'anja — Shire valley's Maravi first-line
- Nyanja lakeshore folk — The lake's canoe-and-net villages
- Chikunda — Zambezi hunter-trader descendants
- Asian-Malawian families — Trading community of the towns
- Mission-town heritage — Livingstonia and Blantyre's educated lineages
Languages
Major languages: Chichewa, Chitumbuka, Chiyao, English
Language families: Niger-Congo (Bantu)
Historical kingdoms & states
- • Maravi Empire
- • Ngoni kingdoms (M'mbelwa, Maseko)
Heritage sites
- • Chongoni Rock Art Area
- • Lake Malawi National Park
Cultural highlights
Deep-dive community profiles
Chewa
The Maravi heirs who gave Malawi its name — a matrilineal farming civilization whose Nyau secret society dances the Gule Wamkulu, 'the Great Dance', where masked spirits of the dead, beasts and moral caricatures instruct the living.
Open deep profile →Nyakyusa (Ngonde)
The banana-and-cattle people of the fertile northern Lake Malawi rift — famed for their unique age-villages where age-mates built and lived together, their sacred chiefs and 'breath of men' philosophy, and the volcanic gardens of the Rungwe highlands.
Open deep profile →Tumbuka
The people of the northern Malawi highlands — heirs of the old Chikulamayembe trading state, whose vimbuza healing-dance (a UNESCO heritage) exorcises illness through drum-driven trance, and whose language became a lingua franca of the north.
Open deep profile →Yao (Wayao)
The long-distance traders of the Lake Malawi–Ruvuma country — matrilineal caravan-merchants who linked the interior to the Swahili coast, embraced Islam early, and carry the masked Midimu and initiation traditions across three nations.
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