Mfalikuivahaas

Mfalikuivahaas ("one who is courageous and can address the public") are of chieftain bloodlines, 'Mfalmes', 'Chiefs', from Southern Africa at a time when Sub-Saharan African civilizations were rich in luxury products including incense, gold, ivory, and ebony. The name Mfalikuivahaa was better known when many areas in Africa were ruled through forms of governance that place power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class of elders, leaders, and Shamans. Such a tribal assembly played an important role in the lives of many Africans contrasting as a form of governance to direct democracy today.

In the late 1700s, early 1800s the area that became Tanganyika, and then Tanzania, a part of the Great Lakes region, consisted of many small kingdoms/ . A legitimate function of Chiefs was to aggrandize their dynasties and increase the territory and power of family members. Families of Chiefs sent their children (with the assistance of lower-rank rulers, as well as a large number and levels of advisers who for the most part also occupy their positions by virtue of their family or clan origins and status) to rule or act as security within neighbouring lands of friendly chieftains. This ensured trust in high ranking circles, non-contestation of seats enthroned to siblings in addition to other reciprocal obligations fulfilled by the families carrying out rituals on behalf of the communities. Such mechanisms ascertained that the chief does not rule arbitrarily. In the late 1800s there was a dispersal of the children/grandchildren of Mfalikuivahaa to the outposts where each was said to have made his or her mark in the subsequent urbanization and consolidation of the alliance of chieftains with each child or grandchild fashioning his or her state after their origins.

Salubwiti and Kamonga Mfalikuivahaa journeyed through Malawi and moved to the Ruvuma Region where Salubwiti Mfalikuivahaa remained to rule in the Namtumbo area while Kamonga Mfalikuivahaa travelled north-seeking land to locate his chieftain. Germans occupied the area around the Great Lakes region since 1897 completely altering many aspects of everyday life. They were actively supported by the missionaries who attempted to change all indigenous beliefs, notably by razing the 'mahoka' huts where the local population worshiped their ancestors' spirits and by scorning their rites, dances and other ceremonies.Songea, (Ruvuma) was the centre of African resistance during the Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa temporarily uniting a number of southern tribes.

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