Singing Songs and Performing Dances with Embedded Historical Meanings

ln Southern Somalia, in the immediate hinterland of the Juba River, there were several villages settled since the beginning of the nineteenth century by descendants of slaves who had escaped from slavery. These people claim their ancestors came from disparate areas in East Africa and were brought in Somalia as slaves. In the earliest document they referred to themselves as being Yao, Makua, Machinga, Massaninga, Mchenya, Makale, Mwera, Ngindo, Nyasa, Nyka, Nyamwesi, and Zigula. The Yao-speakers and their subgroups (among which the Machinga, Massaninga. Mchenya, Makale, and Mwera) came from areas broadly covering present-day northern Mozambique, southern Malawi, and southern Tanzania; Nyasa was the name of a region in present-day northern western Mozambique that borders Malawi and Zambia. ln Tanganyika, this name was often used to refer to slaves coming from the south