Makonde, Tanzania
 

The Creation Myth

"The first Makonde settled along the Ruvuma River.  He was not yet fully a human being.  He was unkempt, starving and desperate.  One night he felt sad and dispirited.  For entertainment her carved an image of himself out of a piece of wood.  When he woke in the morning, the sculpture he carved was alive.  It had become a woman in the flesh.  He found great pleasure in her company to the extent that he bathed himself clean and took good care of his appearance as a man.  But as long as they live along the Ruvuma River, their children caught ill and died.  When they move to the semi-arid plateau they were able to have a long and happy life together".  -  collected by Pater Adams 1902

The Makonde belonging to the Bantu group of people, originally living in Mozambique, but have migrated into Tanzania too. The Makonde identified withthe developed sculpture traditions originating from Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique.  On the high Palteau of Cabo Delgado, more like a fortress than congenial home, the Makonde were both isolated and insulated.  The plateau had a thick thorny bush called Konde, hence 'people of konde' or Makonde. Here, they escaped the slave trade and ethnic skirmishes.This province is regarded as the original home of the Makonde. The greater part of the Makonde migration took place between the sencond and thirdquarters of the ninteenth century and occupied the Newala plateau where the majority of the Tanzanian Makonde live today.

The migration has resulted in blurring of their ethnic identities and sharing of certain ideas.  They prefer to limit their interaction with others, rather identifying with their own cultural traditions.

They are a faming group of people, practicing slash and burn farming.  Their crops include maize, sorghum, and cassava.  This is supplemented by hunting.

They undertook carving for the tourist trade from an economic standpoint in the early 1900’s with the colonization of East Africa and are known as master carvers in East Africa; their carvings can be seen sold in museums and tourists market alike.

More on Makonde Sculpture.

They are prolific producers of masks, statues and decorative items.  Two masks that the Makonde are famous for are the lipico mask and the matambu mask or body mask, both used in boys’ initiation ceremonies, masking their transition into manhood.  The Lipico mask resembles a woman’s face with lip plug while the Matambu represents the body of a pregnant woman. 

The boy would go to ritual camps where they would go through their rites of passage, these ritual camps could run for a number of weeks, sometimes stretching into months.  Once completed, they would return to the village, where a ceremony would be performed, and masqueraders would dance a body mask and lipico masks as a sign of recognizing their adulthood.  As men they could now take on wives and father children, due to this the tone of the festival was around fertility and family.

Makonde are known for body scarification, originally done to prevent being taken as slaves, this scarification comes though in their carving as many are adorned with scarification markings.

Makonde religion is based on ancestor worship, and according to Makonde legend, after creation, the first man while wondering in the bush, picked up a piece of wood and carved a statue of a woman.  The statue came to life and this woman bore him many children thus starting the Makonde people.  After her death, she became venerated as the ancestral goddess of the Makonde people. Many of the Makonde statue carving relate to this ancestral goddess who is though to be a bringer of good fortune as well as protection from danger.

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