The Chikunda Tradition and the rise of the Malunga totem

The Chikunda Tradition and the rise of the Malunga totem

The Marunga totem also known as Malunga mainly originates from Mozambique and was part of the Hungwe family .The separated from Hungwe because of internal disputes and had to identify themselves as Marunga.
The Chikunda (or Conquerors) were a feared warrior people recruited by the Portuguese Prazeiros (landowners) to protect their Prazos (farms) along the Zambezi valley. Later, the Chikunda rebelled and deserted their Portuguese masters taking on a life of hunting and banditry.
One such Chikunda leaders was Kanyemba aka Jose Rosario de Andrade, the son of the Tande Chief Chowufumo, Chowufumo, and a Goan mother. Reference to Tande is particularly interesting in the light of Hungwe migrations. Tande is presumed to refer to their area of origin Dande on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi valley before they settled in the Tete area of Mozambique. The Goan reference refers to the Indian origin of the mother while the Portuguese name also refers to a Portuguese descent. The Goan settled in India from the north and they were mainly of Caucasian descent (much closer to the Persians than the dark-skinned Indians) and were referred to as the Brahmins, the highest caste in Indian culture. When the Portuguese colonised Goan, they married into the Goan community and Kanyemba’s mother was therefore of mixed Portuguese-Indian descent.
Despite his reluctance to sever his ties with family members on the Euro-Indian side of the frontier, he was despised by the Goans, who referred to him as a "half caste" scoundrel.
Based on our recorded oral tradition, the three Hungwe brothers Mbeve, Vambe and Chiendamawaya left Gonaramutsinzi and travelled to Tete. Mbeve and Vambe then left Tete for Inhambane leaving Chiyendamawaya who is believed to have gone back to the Zambezi valley. The fate of Chiendamawaya or that of his descendants is rather unknown. The Chikunda dimension probably gives the closest picture of what could have happened. Chiendamawaya most likely fathered Chiwufumo and his people became known as vaTande (people from Dande) and maintained their bird totem, referred to locally as Malunga. There is obviously a possibility that Chiendawaya and his people were enslaved by the Portuguese or co-existed peacefully with the Portuguese. Chiwufumo became quite a powerful chief in the Tete area and his fame and fortune even attracted an Indian woman with whom he father Kanyemba.
Kanyemba was brought up by his paternal Tande relatives of the Malunga (Marunga) totem. Although raised as an African, he maintained links with his mother's family, several of whom became prominent merchants in the Zumbo region. They provided him with guns and ammunition which enabled him to prosper from ivory and slave trade and had created a powerful military outpost by the 1860s.

Kanyemba’s ties to the Goan community upset his Tande kin. At the time of his father's death, they demanded that he renounce his Portuguese name and return to the fold, he refused and
was passed over as a successor and cast out of Tande territory along with his followers. As typical of all Chikunda warloads, it is highly likely that Kanyemba’s followers were not necessarily of the Malunga totem though the norm among the Chikunda was to adopt either the leader’s totem and if he did not have one, that of the people they conquered.
The Chikunda were expert hunters and warriors. They are credited with invention a muzzle-loading gun known as “gogodela” and the same technology reappears in Hungwe history and now referred to as “mugigwa”.
Today, Chikunda identity has been preserved only in remote areas of the Zambezi valley where descendents of Kanyemba continue to exercise chiefly authority in the Kanyemba area.