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Nguni people speak Nguni languages.
i peoples are pastoralist groups, ethnically part of the greater Bantu group occupying much of the East and Southern parts of Africa. They migrated southwards over many centuries, with large herds of Nguni cattle
Nguni cattle

The Nguni list of cattle breeds is indigenous to southern Africa. A hybrid of indigenous and Indian cattle they were introduced by the black African tribes of southern Africa from the north of the continent....
, probably entering what is now South Africa around 2000 years ago in sporadic settlement, followed by larger waves of migration around 1400 CE/AD.






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Nguni people speak Nguni languages.

History

Nguni peoples are pastoralist groups, ethnically part of the greater Bantu group occupying much of the East and Southern parts of Africa. They migrated southwards over many centuries, with large herds of Nguni cattle
Nguni cattle

The Nguni list of cattle breeds is indigenous to southern Africa. A hybrid of indigenous and Indian cattle they were introduced by the black African tribes of southern Africa from the north of the continent....
, probably entering what is now South Africa around 2000 years ago in sporadic settlement, followed by larger waves of migration around 1400 CE/AD. The following peoples are major groups among the nguni:
  1. the Ndebele
  2. the Swazi
  3. the Xhosa
  4. the Zulu
  5. the Ngoni
    Ngoni people

    The Ngoni people are an ethnic group living in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, in east-central Africa. The Ngoni trace their origins to the Zulu people of kwaZulu-Natal in South Africa....
  6. the Shangaan
    Shangaan

    The Shangaan are a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique in Maputo and in Gaza Province; there is also a large Shangaan grouping in Limpopo Province in South Africa....
  7. the Bamalete
    Bamalete

    Bamalete, or baMalete, is the traditional name of a Southern African Bantu peoples tribe of Nguni decent, that tends to prefer the modern name Balete...
Many tribes and clans were forcibly united under Shaka Zulu. Shaka Zulu's political organisation was efficient in integrating conquered tribes, partly due to the age regiments, where men from different villages bonded with each other. The nguni tribes kept similar political practises to those used by Shaka Zulu.

During the southern African migrations known as mfecane
Mfecane

Mfecane , is an African expression which means something like "the crushing" or "scattering". It describes a period of widespread chaos and disturbance in southern Africa during the period between 1815 and about 1840....
, the nguni peoples spread across a large part of southern Africa, conquering or displacing many other peoples.

Social organisation

Within the Nguni nations, the clan - based on male ancestry - formed the highest social unit
Social unit

Social unit is a term used in sociology, anthropology, ethnology, and also in ethology, zoology and biology to describe a social entity which is part of and participates in a larger Groups of people or society....
. Each clan was led by a chieftain. Influential men tried to achieve independence by creating their own clan. The power of a chieftain often depended on how well he could hold his clan together. From about 1800, the rise of the Zulu clan of the Nguni and the consequent mfecane that accompanied the expansion of the Zulus under Shaka
Shaka

Shaka was the most influential leader of the Zulu Empire.He is widely credited with uniting many of the Northern Nguni people, specifically the Mthethwa Paramountcy and the Ndwandwe into the Zulu kingdom, the beginnings of a nation that held sway over the large portion of southern Africa between the Phongolo River and Mzimkhulu River river...
, helped to drive a process of alliance between and consolidation among many of the smaller clans.

For example, the kingdom of Swaziland
Swaziland

The Kingdom of Swaziland is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south, and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique....
 was formed in the early nineteenth century by different Nguni groups allying with the Dlamini clan against the threat of external attack. Today the kingdom encompasses many different clans who speak an Nguni language called Swati
Swati language

Swati is a Bantu languages of the Nguni group spoken in Swaziland and South Africa. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 1.5 million....
 and are loyal to the king of Swaziland, who is also the head of the Dlamini clan.

"Dlamini" is a very common clan name among all documented Nguni languages (including Swati and Phuthi).

Religion


Ngunis may be Christians
Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
 (whether Catholics or Protestants
Protestantism

Protestantism is a movement within Christianity that originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the three principal traditions of Christianity, together with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy....
), or practitioners of African traditional religions
African Traditional Religion

African traditional religions, also referred to as African indigenous religions or African tribal religions, is a term referring to a variety of religions indigenous to the continent of Africa....
, or they may practise forms of Christianity modified with traditional African values (such as the Shembe Church of Nazarites
Nazareth Baptist Church

Nazareth Baptist Church is an African Initiated Church founded by Isaiah Shembe in 1910. It has approximately a million members in KwaZulu-Natal and Inanda, KwaZulu-Natal....
).