How Nyasaland became Malawi
How Nyasaland became Malawi
The country now known as Malawi was once called Nyasaland. But even before then, it was the location of a big kingdom known as Maravi, which means ‘reflected light’ – perhaps a reference to sunlight gleaming on Lake Malawi which was Lake Nyasa at the time.
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Informative
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Can i get a passport?
This video omits much detail to do with the origin of the name Malawi. The name is said to have been derived from the Chewa word malawí, which means flames. There is some belief that the words malawi and maravi have similar origin as their meanings are also similar.
Hundreds of years ago in the land that is now known as Malawi, the flames that were seen at night by neighboring tribes were of a tribe or tribes (Maravi) who had unlocked the secret of smelting iron. Their kilns were lit for an iron-smelting process that lasted many hours, often into the night. The radiant heat from these kilns may well have also provided warmth for nearby dwellings, for the temperature on the plateau could be bitterly cold at night and the flames from the kilns were seen from afar.
The practice of smelting iron by the ancient (Maravi) tribes is of interest, for these people could obviously find iron ore locally in sufficient quantity for their needs, which was to furnish small amounts of soft iron to make tool tips. Even today, the land near Blantyre is covered with small heavy rocks that are made of iron oxide, a form of magnetite. Yet for nearly all of the 20th Century, Malawi, formerly Nyasaland was thought to be devoid of useful iron ore. Only at the beginning of the 21st Century was it discovered that economically significant deposits of iron-rich ore and the ores of other useful rare earth metals were found in the vicinity of Blantyre.
Not Niyasaland, it's nya nya nyasaland…👊
Malawi will never change its people will be migrants forever .
Very interesting.
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