BANTU PEOPLES

• If we go back as  far as oral tradition allows, that is several generations, we can discern five groups of Bantu speakers living in what is today South Africa; these groups were very unequal in size and influence: the Venda, the Sotho-Tswana, the Nguni, the Thonga and the Lemba. All these groups were iron age communities. Descendants of these groups live still nowadays in several areas of Africa.

• The group whose descendants are now  South Africa's dominat groups (Zulu and Xhosa) is the Nguni.

  • The origins of the Nguni are unclear, but by 16th century, when they were first mentioned by shipwrecked European travellers, they were already well established in the east coast.
  •  Nguni is not a self-name; it is simply use as a convenient linguistic classification. The subdivision of the Nguni into two groups (Zulu and Xhosa) had little meaning before the 18th century. Even today the Zulu and Xhosa languages remain so close that they can understand each other. Until the late 18th century the Nguni lved in small decentralised communities, but after the increasing of trades several groups began to expand in size and power.

• The Xhosa, the Thembu, the Mpondo, the Mpondomise and the Bomvana were part of the Nguni; also the very small etnic group Zulu was part of them.