Nyakyusa

Nyakyusa

 or Ngonde

Bantu-speaking people living north of Lake Malawi in Tanzania, and in Malawi. They speak a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family. Traditionally they lived in unique age villages. All the boys of a district aged 11–13 would leave their paternal homes and establish a new hamlet, eventually marrying and bringing their wives there; their native village would die as its founders died in old age. With modern land shortages, this practice has largely stopped. The Nyakyusa, who are primarily hoe cultivators, number more than one million.