The broad lands between the Lurio and the Ligonha rivers and the coast from the Kerimba islands past Mozambique Island to Angoche.
Bantu farmers, forebears of the Makua (Emakhuwa), with matrilineal clans; on the coast, fishing villages. The Swahili towns of this coast (Mozambique Island, Angoche, the Kerimba settlements, Sancul) are attested only from the fifteenth century; scattered coastal sites with imported wares of the late first millennium show earlier contact, but no town is known for 1200.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not known: no leader is named for this date
- Title
- Heads of lineages, villages and clans
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
How things stand that morning
Independent farming and fishing peoples. No Kilwa presence is attested here in 1200.
Assemblies
Village and lineage elders settle disputes and allocate land; there is no chief over the whole people that the evidence can show for 1200.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- Through 1200No dated event is known.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Language history; sparse coastal archaeology (Sinclair, Duarte) not checked in detail; the written record begins in the fifteenth century.
On the map: Drawn from modern language areas, physical geography and a few dated sites; the 1200 extent is a rough guess.
Sources and studies
- Ehret, An African Classical Age (1998) and Nurse and Spear, The Swahili (1985), on the language history of the East African interior and coast (cited from memory of the literature)
- UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. 4, and Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 3, chapters on East Africa and the interior (cited from memory of the literature)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.