Historical Dictionary of Malawi Part 16

NYASULU, PADDY. One of the founders of the African National Church, Nyasulu, a Henga, worked as a teacher and storekeeper for the Livingstonia Mission before becoming a government clerk. A church elder, Nyasulu was excommunicated because of polygamy and, with Simon Mkandawire and Robert Sambo Mhango and others, started the African National Church in 1927. The new church's main departure from the Church of Scotland was that it permitted alcohol use and polygamy. Most of its adherents were drawn from the latter church and from people who had been unable to join mainstream churches because of the prohibition of alcohol and polygamy.

NYAU. Much a.s.sociated with Chewa and Mang'anja societies, many people view nyau simply as a fierce looking cult of men who wear masks of animals to keep their ident.i.ties hidden during dance performances known as gule wamkulu (the great dance). In actuality, nyau is a serious aspect of Chewa/Mang'anja culture and history and is full of religious ideas relating to the genesis of the world and humankind and to the evolution of indigenous social and political inst.i.tutions. Chewa/Mang'anja myths of origins state that before the invention of fire, a harmonious relationship existed between human beings, animals, and spirits. In this context, the nyau, as other religious practices, attempts to reestablish that close linkage. The animal masks and the spirits that they represent have to been seen in this setting. The nyau dance is performed as part of the rites of pa.s.sage relating to birth, female and male initiation, and death.

As secret societies nyau have, over the centuries, resisted any intrusion by alien inst.i.tutions, in particular by the Christian missionaries who found the male behavior both noisy and obscene. To its followers, the nyau cult has religious and social significance and it reflects and supports traditional society. Unlike the territorial cult, M'bona, the nyau cult interests have been at the village level and have not played any nationalist role, except in parts of the central region, where it was used to intimidate people into maintaining their loyalty to the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Throughout Dr. Hastings Banda's presidency, censored versions of nyau dancers were featured at Independence Day celebrations on 6 July and at MCP public rallies whenever he visited central Malawi.

NYERERE, JULIUS KAMBARAGE (19221999). One of the most respected statesmen in Africa, Julius Nyerere was president of Tanganyika from 1963 to 1964 and of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985, when he retired. Committed to the eradication of settler colonialism in Southern Africa, Nyerere a.s.sisted African liberation movements in establishing majority governments in that region. This was contrary to President Hastings Banda's foreign policy, which stood for dialogue with white-ruled southern Africa. This factor, in addition to the fact that Tanzania hosted many Malawian political exiles, led to tension between it and Malawi in the period 196485. Nyerere died in a London hospital on 14 October 1999.

NYIHA. This is the name of the people and language of the inhabitants of Kameme in the northwestern section of Chitipa district, in the Chisenga-Ibuluma area of the district, in Mbozi district of Tanzania, and in parts of northeastern Zambia. The language is very closely related to that of the Lambya. Historians are of the opinion that the latter people are an offshoot of the Nyiha.

NYIKA PLATEAU. Located in northern Malawi and shared by three districts, Chitipa, Karonga, and Rumphi, and with Zambia for part of its western border, Nyika plateau is considered one of the most scenic areas of southern Africa. With a temperature rarely above 70F, it is also the most expansive and highest plateau range in Malawi, covering an area of about 900 square miles and with an elevation ranging between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, at Nganda, the summit. The forests on its slopes have increasingly given way to brachystegia woodland, and the main plateau is mostly montage gra.s.sland inters.p.a.ced by patches of forests and pine plantations. Other flora include many species of orchids, some specific to the area, and a variety of wild flowers. Nyika is also home to numerous species of animals: bushbuck, reedbuck, warthog, duiker, eland, blue monkey, and on the slopes, elephant and buffalo; lions and cheetah are occasionally seen in the area. The plateau is particularly known for its large population of zebra and for having the largest concentration of leopards in Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Nyika is also home to diverse species of birds and has become a favorite area for bird watchers. The dams and numerous perennial streams are populated with trout, making the plateau particularly attractive to anglers.

The indigenous inhabitants of the plateau are the Phoka, and in the past they were famous ironsmiths. Archaeological work carried out in the area, especially at Fingira and Chowo, show human settlement and activity dating to between 175 BCE and 120 BCE. In 1965, Nyika became a national park, and many of its human inhabitants were relocated elsewhere. Thirteen years later, the park was expanded, making it the largest such facility in Malawi. The park's main camp is at Chelinda, from which visitors can walk or drive to many corners of the plateau. The Zambian part of the plateau also has a camp, located near the Chowo forest.

Nyika has always fascinated Europeans since it was first visited by Richard Crawshay of the British colonial administration, but it was the writer Laurens van der Post who popularized it in his Adventure into the Interior (1951).

NYIRENDA, BAZAAR. Longtime Malawi Congress Party (MCP) treasurer for the north, member of Parliament for Mzimba East, Bazaar Nyirenda was one of the diehard supporters of Dr. Hastings Banda. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, this prominent Mzuzu-based businessman held important positions within the ruling party and was known as a fearless, and at times, ruthless organizer. Since 1994, he has been retired from politics, concentrating on his business interests.

NYIRENDA, ROBERT DONALD GWEBE (19282008). First secretary manager of the Kilupula Rice Growers Co-operative Union (KRGCU), Nyirenda, son of Robert Gwebe Nyirenda, was educated at Livingstonia and in Tabora Secondary School, Tanganyika, where he was a schoolmate and friend of William M. Kanyama Chiume. For a brief period, he studied at Makerere University College, Uganda, and in 1953 became the founding secretary manager of the KRGCU, leaving the position three years later and devoting most of his time to politics. An ambitious, widely read, and articulate person, he became a member of the Northern Provincial Council and an active supporter of the Nyasaland African Congress. In 1959, he was detained briefly, and he spent a significant part of the 1960s working in Tanganyika before returning to Malawi where he gained employment with British American Tobacco in Blantyre. From 1974 to 1977, he was in prison for unspecified political reasons. He lived in Blantyre for some years before retiring to Karonga.

NYIRENDA, ROBERT GWEBE. Born in Karonga, Gwebe Nyirenda, maternal uncle of Kenneth Kaunda, was educated locally before going to the Overtoun Inst.i.tute, Khondowe, where he completed a teachers course. He worked as a teacher and then served the Nyasaland and Tanganyika governments as an interpreter and clerk. In 1912, Nyirenda was one of the founders of the North Nyasa Native a.s.sociation, the first political and welfare organization to be formed in Nyasaland (see AFRICAN WELFARE a.s.sOCIATIONS). Within Karonga district, he was regarded as an influential person, a close friend, and an advisor of Kyungu Peter Mwakasungula. Gwebe Nyirenda died at Kasoba, Karonga, in the 1960s.

NYIRENDA, SAULOS (c. 18701925). Author and historian of the Tumbuka-speaking peoples, Nyirenda was born in Mhuju in modern Rumphi district, and was nine years old when the Henga-Kamanga rebelled from the Ngoni and sought refuge in the Karonga lakesh.o.r.e (see GONDWE, KANYOLI). He was educated at Karonga and the Overtoun Inst.i.tution and was a teacher in Karonga until 1904, when he became a telegraphist for the Africa Trans-Continental Telegraph Company. Nyirenda witnessed the Arab-Swahili War of 188795 (see MLOZI BIN KAZBADEMA), which he described in his History of the Tumbuka-Henga People translated from ciTumbuka to English by Dr. Meredith Sanderson and published posthumously in Bantu Studies in 1931.

NYIRENDA, TOMO (1890s1926). Probably born in the last decade of the 19th century in northern Malawi, Nyirenda was a Henga, one of the numerous Tumbuka-speaking groups in the area. After attending school at Khondowe, he went to Northern Rhodesia to seek employment. His first position was in Broken Hill where he worked as a cook. He then moved to the Jessie Mines in Mkushi where, in February 1925, he met Gabriel Phiri, another Nyasaland labor migrant, who converted him to the Watch Tower Society. Nyirenda turned to preaching the message of the society, and this led to his arrest and imprisonment. Released on a technicality, he resumed preaching in April that year but, this time, he not only spread the message, baptized, and appealed to sorcerers, he widened his mission to detect them. As he became more famous, he was invited by Chief Shaiwila of the Lala to baptize him, his family, and his subjects and to identify and kill all the witches in his area. Impressed by his success, Shaiwila and his people began to regard Tomo Nyirenda as a prophet and savior, and they conferred upon him the designation Mwana Lesa, that is Son of G.o.d.

His preaching began to a.s.sume a political tone in the sense that he also prophesied the coming of the Americans who would liberate the Africans from the Europeans, whose property would then be shared by his followers. His message also included the ending of taxation. In June 1925, he went to Ndola where he killed six sorcerers before crossing the border into Katanga, Belgian Congo. There he continued with his "witch" finding, killing about 170 suspected sorcerers, an act that led Belgian officials to seek his arrest. Nyirenda fled back to Northern Rhodesia and, in September, was arrested by the police in Petauke district. In 1926, he and Chief Shaiwila were tried for two days and condemned to death.

NYONDO, JAMES MBOWE (1968 ). James Nyondo stood as an independent candidate in the 2009 Malawi presidential elections. Although Chitipa is his home district, Nyondo was born in 1968 in Zambia where his father, Barnet, worked at the time. In 1988, he entered the bachelor of arts degree program at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, and a year later was admitted to the college's law school but, with a few other students, was expelled for political activism during the waning years of Dr. Hastings Banda's government. He lived in exile in Swaziland and worked in South Africa for some time, where he completed his legal studies at the University of South Africa. Later he studied for a business degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The basis of his support in his quest for the presidency in 20089 was a quasi-religious organization, the Servants of the Nation (SON). In the presidential elections, Nyondo secured 27,328 votes, representing 0.61 percent of the total votes cast.

NYONDO, SAMSON MBOBE. The Mwaulambya (king of the Lambya) from 1940 to 1975, was a primary schoolteacher before his installation to the Lambya throne in 1940. Known as a progressive ruler and in the 1940s recognized by the colonial administrators as an independent-minded and bright ruler, Samson Nyondo encouraged the expansion of Western education in his area, a.s.sisting Eneah Mulaga and Aram Mwenisongole in establishing the first full primary school in Chitipa district. In 1959, the colonial government deposed the Mwaulambya because he sided with the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) but he was re-installed in 1961. In 1975, the Hastings Banda government removed him from office. A few years later, the Lambya king makers installed Redson Nyondo as the new Mwaulambya. Samson Nyondo died in the early 1980s.

NZAMA. Located in the area of Njobvuyalema, one of the subordinates of the Gomanis, this is the site of the first mission station in the Lake Malawi area of the Montfort order of the Catholic Church. Under the leadership of Father Pierre Bourget, the Montforts arrived at Nzama on 25 July 1901, and, as their first accommodation, they used a small farm house previously owned by a French planter. They began to learn ciMang'anja (Chewa), the local language, translated the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Sign of the Cross into the language, and in February 1902 started a school. In December 1904, five nuns belonging to the Congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom arrived at Nzama to help expand the work of the priests. The relations between Njobvuyalema and the Catholic missionaries were generally cordial, except in 1903 when they accused him and his subordinate at Nzama of administering mwabvi (poison ordeal). The priests reported the matter to the colonial government, which p.r.o.nounced the defendants guilty and imprisoned them at Liwonde for nine months. On his return from prison in March 1904, Njobvuyalema and the missionaries repaired their relations and proceeded to cooperate.

NZIMA, MUNENE. Munene was one of the wives of Zw.a.n.gendaba, and mother of Mhlahlo Jere, the first M'mbelwa. Zw.a.n.gendaba's promotion of Munene as the inkosikazi (great wife) was controversial because the position had long been jointly held by Lompetu and her sister, Soseya, both daughters of Zwide. At some stage, Lompetu's house was suspected of trying to poison Zw.a.n.gendaba, leading to the demotion of the sisters and the promotion of Munene; Soseya bore a child, Ntuto, also known as Mpezeni. The joint inkozikaziship had become necessary because Lompetu was unable to have children and therefore could not produce an heir to Zw.a.n.gendaba.

NZUNDA, MATEMBO (1955?2000). Former member of Parliament for Chitipa North and cabinet minister from 1994 to 1999, Nzunda was born in Ulambya, Chitipa district. He was educated at Chaminade Secondary School before proceeding to Chancellor College, graduating with a law degree. After studying for a master's degree in law at the University of London, he returned to teach at Chancellor College, University of Malawi. In the late 1980s, he completed studies at Cambridge University for which he was awarded a PhD in commercial law. Nzunda was one of the first activists to advocate for political change in Malawi and, as a result, he was subjected to numerous police investigations including a brief detention. In 1992, he was part of the legal team defending Chakufwa Chihana and when the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD) Party came into being, Nzunda became an advisor to its leadership. In 1994, he took leave of absence from his university job and successfully contested for the Chitipa North const.i.tuency. Later that year, he was one of the AFORD members appointed to the United Democratic Front (UDF)led government, and, when that arrangement ended two years later, Nzunda refused to leave the government. For this, he was expelled from AFORD, and in 1999, unsuccessfully stood as a UDF partybacked independent candidate; that same year he was appointed as clerk of the Lilongwe city a.s.sembly. He died on 10 January 2000.

O.

OBLATES OF THE HOLY FAMILY. This Catholic order of brothers was the first religious community to be established for men in Malawi. Founded in 1928 and based at Nankhunda Seminary, the congregation had an unstable beginning because most of the brothers had left the order for different occupations. As time progressed, the Oblates became the foundation of an African clergy in the Catholic Church, especially in southern Malawi.

OPERATION BWEZANI. Operation Bwezani or "Operation Return Back" refers to the Malawi army's attack on all the major Malawi Young Pioneer (MYP) installations in Malawi on 4 December 1993, in an attempt to disarm and weaken this wing of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). The matter of the stockpile of armory under the Young Pioneers had been a great concern to the army, and in the period leading to the referendum in May 1993 and to the elections in the following year, opposition groups, through the National Consultative Council, had demanded that the powers of the Young Pioneers be greatly diminished.

On 1 December 1993, two soldiers stationed at the Moyale barracks in Mzuzu were shot by the Young Pioneers after a heated argument at a tavern. Junior officers and the men at all three army barracks wanted to get revenge for the deaths of the soldiers and were even more incensed by an apparent lack of support from the higher command, which wanted the matter to be settled quietly. On 1 December, the middle ranks, junior officers, and men mounted an attack on all princ.i.p.al MYP bases, the heaviest a.s.saults being on the Kamuzu Inst.i.tute of Youth and Youth House, the national headquarters of the organization. Aiming to completely incapacitate the MYP, the soldiers used helicopter gunships and automatic weapons to demolish these buildings. The national headquarters of the MCP in Lilongwe was also bombed and razed to the ground, ostensibly because it was suspected of storing some Young Pioneers' arms. Senior MYP officers were arrested but some escaped to the bush; their houses were attacked, and their property was taken. The government saved the situation by receiving a delegation of soldiers and conceding to their demands, including the immediate retirement of the three most senior officers: General Yohane, commander of the army; General Manyozo, the deputy commanding officer; and General Liabunya, chief of military intelligence. The latter was particularly a.s.sociated with the MCP, making him a target of many junior officers.

On 7 December, President Hastings Banda, after recently having brain surgery, broadcast a conciliatory message requesting the nation to have faith in the government and thanking the soldiers for their willingness to return to their bases. He also announced the appointment of a retired general, Winnifred Mponela, as minister of defense, a position only Banda himself had held since independence. The situation calmed and the process of disarming the MYP continued in a more orderly manner. In the meantime, an estimated 2,000 Young Pioneers who had fled to Mozambique became a concern of the Malawi opposition parties, which feared they could be used to destabilize the country in the period leading to the first general elections in the country. The Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) government also worried that this group of Young Pioneers might link with the Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (RENAMO) and cause even bigger problems for the former Portuguese colony. Many of the "rebels" slipped back into Malawi and returned to their homes where they lived quietly.

OPERATION SUNRISE. In the early morning hours of 3 March 1959, Nyasaland's governor, Sir Robert Armitage, decreed that a State of Emergency existed in Malawi, allegedly because the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) had entered upon a course of violence and had plotted the murder of all white residents of the colony. Troops were ordered to round up hundreds of active and senior members of Congress, including Dr. Hastings Banda, Henry Chipembere, and Dunduzu and Yatuta Chisiza. The government sent Banda and his three lieutenants to Gwelo (Gweru) prison in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Other senior Congress leaders were sent to Khami prison, Southern Rhodesia, and 1,500 more members were placed in detention, mostly at Kanjedza in Limbe. During the emergency, nearly 50 Africans were killed, 21 at Nkhata Bay alone; the NAC was banned and property destroyed; no Europeans died. The official inquiry into this event (see DEVLIN COMMISSION) showed that both the police and the King's African Rifles (KAR) had exceeded their authority and had deliberately attacked and mistreated many Congress members.

ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY (OAU). Formed in 1963 as an a.s.sociation of independent African states, the OAU was the culmination of the Pan-Africanist movement, which had among its long-term aims the establishment of a united African government structure. First on its immediate agenda was to hasten the process of decolonization by giving practical a.s.sistance to the nationalist movements, especially those in the white settler states: Mozambique, Angola, Southern Rhodesia, South Africa, and Guinea Bissau. OAU strategies included ostracizing these states, but President Hastings Banda argued that Malawi could not go along with this approach because economic necessity dictated that it maintain close cooperation with white-ruled southern Africa. In 1966, the OAU resolved to break diplomatic relations with Great Britain over the Unilateral Declaration of Independence of Southern Rhodesia. Malawi abstained in the OAU vote on this matter and did the same when the United Nations (UN) pa.s.sed resolutions requesting Britain to use force against the rogue regime. Banda viewed OAU boycotts of, and political pressure on, white-ruled states as a waste of time, arguing that such tactics were ineffective and only served to thwart Malawi's development. Although he maintained the Malawi mission at the OAU, he stopped attending OAU heads of state summits, leaving his cabinet ministers to represent him. On the contrary, the United Democratic Front (UDF) government played an active role in OAU affairs, and President Bakili Muluzi personally led Malawi delegations to all important conferences that required his presence. In 2002, the OAU became the African Union (AU). See also FOREIGN POLICY.

ORMSBY-GORE COMMISSION. Chaired by William Ormsby-Gore, later Lord Harlech, the commission was established in 1924 to advise on the advantages of a closer a.s.sociation between the British colonies in East Africa and those in Central Africa. An undersecretary for the colonies at the time, Ormsby-Gore visited all the colonies concerned, and his commission recommended that the infrastructure in the region be improved first before looking into the matter of the union of the colonies. With regard to Nyasaland, the commission took particular interest in the land question, especially the position of Africans on European estates, including those in North Nyasa district where the British South Africa Company (BSAC) held large tracts of land. The Ormsby-Gore Commission expressed concern that such land problems had not been resolved, pointing out, among other things, the importance of promoting African agricultural development, which he viewed as a solution to the matter of labor migration from Nyasaland, itself a consequence of poor economic opportunities in the colony. Convinced that agricultural production would flourish if both Africans and Europeans could be a.s.sured of better export facilities, the commission recommended that a rail line be built from northern Lake Nyasa to connect with the Central Railway of Tanganyika, whose princ.i.p.al port was at Dar-es-Salaam. Ormsby-Gore went on to become secretary for the colonies (193638) and British high commissioner in South Africa (194144).

OSMAN, ALAUDIN. Press officer for President Bakili Muluzi since 1994, Alaudin Osman was educated at Chichiri secondary school, Limbe, and worked as an information a.s.sistant in Blantyre before joining the Times of Malawi in the mid-1960s. In the early 1970s, he was appointed editor of the newspaper, becoming the first Malawian to occupy this position. A short while later, he went to Botswana where he worked for a privately owned newspaper. In the early 1990s, he returned to Malawi, and in 1992, he founded the Malawi Financial Post, the first alternative paper to the Malawi Daily Times and the Malawi News, both of which were linked to the government and the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). The Financial Post played a leading role as an advocate for political reform in Malawi. Active in the campaign for multiparty democracy in the early 1990s, Osman allied himself with the United Democratic Party (UDF), and when Bakili Muluzi became president in 1994, he appointed Osman as his chief press officer, a position he held until the early 2000s when he went into private business as a managing director of his Blantyre-based Capital Radio FM.

OURY, LIBERT. Belgian-born investor, owner of Portuguese East Africabased business concerns, including the Mozambique Company and the Beira Works Ltd., Oury was instrumental in the construction of the Trans-Zambezia Railway from Beira to which the Shire Highlands Railway, completed in 1913, would be linked. Using his London contacts such as Sir Alfred Sharpe, Oury persuaded the British government to back his railway project, debentures of which would be guaranteed by the Nyasaland government. Economically very weak, the colonial administration in Nyasaland would spend much of its meager revenue servicing a venture that had been forced upon it by the imperial authorities.

OVERTOUN INSt.i.tUTION. Located at Khondowe, established in November 1894, and named after Lord Overtoun (John Campbell White), one of the Scottish businessmen who supported the Livingstonia Mission financially, the inst.i.tution grew to be the leading educational and vocational training center in South Central Africa. It produced teachers, clergymen, bookkeepers, masons, joiners, medical a.s.sistants, and many other skilled personnel, all of whom would occupy key positions in many parts of the wider southern African region. Dr. Robert Laws headed the inst.i.tution from its foundation to 1927, when he retired to Scotland.

P.

PACHAI, BRIDGLAL. Founding head of the Department of History at the University of Malawi, Pachai was born in 1929 in Ladysmith, South Africa, where he trained as a teacher and studied by correspondence for his BA, MA, and PhD, becoming the first person of Indian origin to be awarded a doctorate degree in history by a South African university. He taught at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and in 1965 was appointed as senior lecturer and head of the Department of History at the University of Malawi, becoming a full professor three years later. In 1971 and 1972, Pachai broadcast a series of talks covering a wide range of topics on the history of Malawi, and in this way, he helped to popularize the study of history in the country, particularly since chiChewa translations were also broadcast on Radio Malawi. The talks were published as Malawi History of the Nation (1973). Pachai published many books on Malawian and South African history, including The Early History of Malawi (ed., 1972), Land and Politics in Malawi (1975), and The South African Indian Question (1971).

In 1975, Pachai left Malawi for Canada where he held appointments at Dalhousie University and St. Mary's University, both in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1978, he went to the University of Sokoto (now renamed Usman dan Fodio University) where he became dean of the faculty of arts. In the mid-1980s, he returned to Canada where he became the director of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, Westphal, Halifax County, until 1989 when he was appointed as the director of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission. Bridglal Pachai is a recipient of Canada's highest medal, the Order of Canada, awarded for his work in human rights in Canada.

PAOLUCCI, AUGUSTO. With Ippolito Lamagna, Augusto Paolucci was the first Italian to establish business in the Lake Malawi region. Arriving in the Shire Highlands in the 1890s, Paolucci and Lamagna, like many Europeans entering the area at the time, became traders and effectively land speculators, buying hundreds of acres of land. Ultimately, Paolucci owned a store in Blantyre in which he sold a variety of items, including cigars, kitchenware, and alcoholic beverages, such as wine, brandy, and whiskey. He even tried to import camels to help solve the perennial transport problem in the colony. As more Indian traders established their own retail shops, Paolucci was edged out, and by 1904 he left the colony.

PASELI BROTHERS BAND. Formed by two brothers, Bari and Smart, whose popular Banjo and acoustic guitar music featured regularly on the radio stations of the Central African Broadcasting Services and its successor, the Federal Broadcasting Corporation. Born and raised in Mlumbe's area in Zomba district in the 1940s and 1950s, the brothers worked in Southern Rhodesia and, at that stage, their music reflected the life of Malawian migrant laborers. Typical of such songs are "Ndifera moyenda" (I have died in my travels/migrations) and "Kwathu nkutali" (Our home is far). Easily their most popular composition is "Napolo," which laments the wrath of the cyclone, Napolo, the most catastrophic in Zomba and in particular their home area of Mlumbe. The music of the Paseli Brothers remains popular today, and it has influenced a generation of Malawian banjo and guitar players. Once back in Nyasaland, Bari Paseli worked for the United Transport Company as a bus driver until the 1970s when he died.

PASHANE, MAXWELL KATAYENI (19421995). Minister of education (198687) and administrative secretary of the Malawi Congress Party (198791), Maxwell Pashane was born in Mchinji district and educated at Zomba Catholic Secondary School and at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, where he graduated in 1969 with a BA in geography. He taught at Bwaila Secondary School in Lilongwe and later became headmaster of the inst.i.tution. He was promoted to the inspectorate division at the Ministry of Education headquarters, rising to the position of chief inspector of schools. In 1986, Pashane was nominated as a member of Parliament for Mchinji and was appointed minister of education. Within 18 months, he was transferred to the headship of the ruling party's secretariat, an office that carried the cabinet ministerial designation of minister without portfolio. In the early 1990s, he left active politics on health grounds and died shortly thereafter.

Pa.s.sFIELD, BARON (18591947). Formerly known as Sidney James Webb, this social activist and historian was in the Labour government's cabinet as minister for the colonies from 1929 to 1931, and for a brief period (192930) also held the portfolio for Dominions. In the former capacity, Lord Pa.s.sfield issued his famous "Memorandum on Native Policy in East Africa," reaffirming the principle of trusteeship and paramountcy of African interests in that region, as declared by the Duke of Devonshire in 1923. The Pa.s.sfield Memorandum, published in June 1930, extended the doctrine to Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, a development that upset the European settlers in the two countries and in Southern Rhodesia because their long-term ambition was to establish a closer union of the three British possessions. The Pa.s.sfield Memorandum also stated that equal opportunity should be granted to everyone in the acquisition of Crown lands in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, and in connection with this, Pa.s.sfield advised that reasonable credit and lease terms be made more readily available to Africans. Lord Pa.s.sfield also directed that development must occupy a central position in the policies of the two colonial governments, and for Nyasaland, he argued that the future of the country lay in the contributions of the larger and longer established European agricultural firms and the African cultivator rather than the recently arrived small European settler farmer whom he regarded as being too dependent on government a.s.sistance.

PATEL, ROLF. In the early 1990s, this Limbe- and Thyolo-based businessman was a leading advocate in the political reform movement, becoming a founding member of the United Democratic Front (UDF). In 1994, he was elected to the Parliament and was appointed to the cabinet but, within two years, he disagreed with the party leadership and founded his own political organization, the People's Democratic Party. Some months before the general elections of 1999, Patel returned to the UDF, and not long afterward, he retired from active politics.

PEARCE, FRANCIS BARROW (18661926). A captain in the Central African Rifles, renamed King's African Rifles (KAR), Pearce was appointed a.s.sistant deputy commissioner and vice consul in 1900 and in 1903 and 1911 served as acting governor of Nyasaland. As an officer in the KAR, Pearce took part in campaigns against African communities resisting British rule. In 1902, he commanded a contingent to Chintheche district where the Tonga, supported by the Scottish missionaries at Bandawe, refused to pay the recently inst.i.tuted hut tax of six shillings. Promoted to the rank of major, Pearce was acting governor in 1903 when he tried to solve the problem of land that Africans were facing because of the proliferation of European estates. With little support from his superiors, his attempts failed. When Sir Alfred Sharpe was on leave in 1907, Pearce once more was acting governor; in 1913, he served in a similar capacity, and, as in 1903, he attempted to tackle the land issue, this time unsuccessfully initiating legislation aimed at preventing Africans on private estates from being turned into serfs. Pearce would hold senior government positions elsewhere in Africa, including Zanzibar (191322).

PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY. See PATEL, ROLF.

PEOPLE'S PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT. See BANDA, ALEKE KADONOMPHANI; MGWIRIZANO.

PETERKINS, E. C. A prominent Lilongwe-based European businessman and politician, Peterkins was United Federal Party (UFP) and later Nyasaland Const.i.tutional Party member of Parliament until 1961. Peterkins had many business interests, including, in the 1940s and 1950s, a directorship of the Nyasaland Times and a shop in Lilongwe.

PHAIYA, THADEUS THOMAS. Born at Kapeni village in Mulanje district in 1946, he attended Mulanje Primary School and Blantyre Secondary School before going to the Polytechnic in Blantyre, where he obtained a diploma in business studies. Prior to being nominated to Parliament in 1973, he worked for the Reserve Bank and for the Malawi Development Corporation (MDC). Subsequently, he served in the Ministries of Trade, Industry, and Tourism; Health; and Local Government. Phaiya was briefly southern regional secretary of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). He left active politics in the late 1970s.

PHALOMBE. This is the name of the district north of Mulanje and southeast of Zomba. Inhabited mostly by Lomwe and Yao peoples, the district was, until the late 1990s, part of Mulanje district. Located in the fertile and wet plains, it is one of the most densely populated areas of Malawi.

PHELPS STOKES COMMISSION. In 1919, the Phelps Stokes Fund, an American charitable foundation, appointed a commission to investigate and report on the state of education in Africa. Led by Thomas Jesse Jones, a noted specialist on black American education at Hampton Inst.i.tute, Virginia, the commission included American and British missionaries and Dr. James Kwegyir Aggrey, a leading educationist from the Gold Coast. Although it spent most of its time in South and West Africa, the commission also surveyed the situation in Nyasaland. The commission recommended the broadening of African education beyond the evangelistic approach, which had been so dominant in the continent. Accepting the fact that Christian missions would continue to play a major role in education, the commission recommended that training in agriculture should occupy a prominent place on school syllabi. It also strongly urged colonial governments to involve themselves in educational matters, especially in coordinating policy and in providing the much needed financial a.s.sistance.

In 1924, another Phelps Stokes Commission visited Nyasaland, among other countries in east, central, and southern Africa. It was partly in response to this commission's proposals and those of the Advisory Committee on African Education in Tropical Africa that the Nyasaland government established the Department of Education in 1926. In pursuit of some of the recommendations of the Phelps Stokes Commission, the Jeanes Fund of the United States funded educational centers where community work was emphasized, and among such inst.i.tutions was the Jeanes Training Centre at Domasi in Zomba district.

PHILLIPS, HENRY ELLIS ISIDORE (19142004). The last financial secretary of the colonial government of Nyasaland and first minister of finance in the African-dominated government that followed the general elections of 1961, Henry Phillips was born in England and educated at University College, London. He served in World War II, becoming a prisoner in j.a.panese camps. In 1946, he joined the Colonial Administrative Service and was posted to Nyasaland, where he became first the a.s.sistant district commissioner and then district commissioner of Karonga district. Two years later, Phillips was transferred to the secretariat in Zomba, and from 1953 to 1957, he was seconded to the Treasury of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in Salisbury (Harare). On his return to Nyasaland, he became financial secretary, holding the position until 1961 when he was appointed minister of finance. Phillips was knighted in 1964, the year he also retired to England. He became managing director of the Development Corporation of the Standard Bank, a position that ensured his continued link with Malawi. Later (198388) he became a member of the board of the National Bank in Malawi, which gave him the opportunity to be a regular visitor to Malawi, where he had remained in close contact with President Hastings Banda.

PHIRI, DESMOND DUDWA (1930 ). Educationist, writer, historian, and businessman and public intellectual, Phiri was born in Mzimba district and educated at Loudon and Livingstonia Mission schools and at Blantyre Secondary School. He completed his education by correspondence, earning a BA and a postgraduate qualification in economic and social administration from the University of London. He worked in East Africa before joining the administrative division of the Malawi government, was briefly a diplomat, and, upon his retirement, established the Aggrey Memorial Correspondence School. Phiri is the author of numerous books in his "Malawians to Remember" series, including Inkosi Gomani II (1973), James Frederick Sangala (1974), Charles Chidongo Chinula (1975), and John Chilembwe (1975, revised in 1999). He has also written From Nguni to Ngoni: A History of the Ngoni Exodus from Zululand to Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia (1982), History of Malawi from the Earliest Times to the Year 1915 (2004), and Let Us Fight for Africa: A Play Based on the John Chilembwe Rising of 1915 (2008).

PHIRI, HANOCK MSOKERA (1884?). Religious leader, teacher, uncle, and close friend of former President Hastings Banda, Hanock Phiri was born near Kasungu around 1884 and educated at the Overtoun Inst.i.tution where Dr. Robert Laws baptized him into Christianity. Phiri taught at Livingstonia Mission schools in Kasungu, including Chilanga where Hastings Banda was one of his pupils. He was in his mid-20s when he became Banda's teacher. Early in 1924, he left for Southern Rhodesia, working in Hartley, where he was joined by Banda about two years later. Early in 1917, the two embarked on a journey that would take them to Natal, where they briefly worked at a coal mine near Dundee before proceeding to Johannesburg. Phiri and Banda worked at the Wit.w.a.tersrand Deep Mine on the periphery of Boksburg. Sometime in 1918, Phiri left for Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia, to teach at the Paris Evangelical Mission school there. In 1922, Banda requested his uncle to return to South Africa to work toward a leadership position in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church that Banda had joined earlier. In late 1923, Phiri was ordained as minister of the AME church, and in 1924 both attended the AME conference. By the end of that year, Phiri returned to Nyasaland to head mission operations of the church near Kasungu. Soon Phiri had established a network of schools subsidized partly by South African church funds.

PHOKA. This is the name of the indigenous inhabitants of the Nyika plateau and the surrounding areas, including the highland region north of the Henga Valley up to, and encompa.s.sing, Khondowe. In precolonial times, they were widely famous as iron smiths, their hoes being popular well beyond modern Malawi.

PHOYA, HENRY DUNCAN (1966 ). Lawyer and one of Malawi's prominent politicians to emerge in the early 2000s, Duncan Phoya, grandson of J. D. Phoya, a prominent political activist in the 1950s and 1960s and a former mayor of Blantyre, was educated at Chancellor College, University of Malawi, where he graduated with a bachelor of law degree in 1992. He joined the government legal service, but within a few months left to work for the renowned Blantyre-based firm Wilson and Morgan. Five years later, he established his own law firm. One of the United Democratic Front's legal advisors, he became a member of its executive committee in 2002 and, in that same year, Bakili Muluzi appointed him as minister of justice. In 2003, he became minister of privatization and, in the general elections of 2004, he won the Blantyre Rural East const.i.tuency and was reappointed as minister of justice and const.i.tutional affairs.

Phoya joined Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika's new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2005. In 2006, he was transferred to the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Surveys but, in 2007, he returned to the Ministry of Justice and Const.i.tutional Affairs. Although he retained his seat in May 2009, President Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika did not appoint him to the cabinet. However, as a member of the National a.s.sembly and as the director of legal affairs in the DPP, he continued to be prominent in Malawi politics.

PHWEZI EDUCATION FOUNDATION. Based at Phwezi in Rumphi district, this inst.i.tution was established in the early 1980s when Denis Nkwazi and Morton Chipimpha Mughogho, among others, sought the means of building an independent school to enable primary school children not selected to the mainstream secondary school system to continue with their educations. With German financial support, they started an education foundation with which to fulfill this objective. The foundation bought the buildings at the main camp of the firm, which had just constructed the Chiweta Road that links Mzuzu and the Karonga and northern Rumphi lakesh.o.r.es. Located on the northern banks of the South Rukuru River in the southern section of the Henga Valley, the camp, consisting of modern accommodations and offices, was turned into the Phwezi Secondary School, one section for girls and the other for boys, each with a headmaster. Mughogho became the head of the foundation as well as the overall princ.i.p.al of the school. Later, the foundation added a technical college to the school.

Many board members of the Phwezi Foundation and those on its faculty were former civil servants, politicians, and teachers who at one point had fallen out of favor with the government and the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and, in some cases, had served periods in detention without trial. In 1991 and 1992, Phwezi became one of the centers of the underground movement to inst.i.tute political reform, and most people a.s.sociated with the foundation became active in the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD). Mughogho became the national chairman and Nkwazi the national treasurer.

PINTO, MAJOR SERPA. In 1889, this Portuguese army officer and traveler led an expedition into the Shire Valley, ostensibly to undertake a scientific inquiry of the Lake Malawi region. Portuguese designs over the region were common knowledge in European diplomatic circles: for some time, they had attempted to involve themselves in inter-African affairs, especially those of the Kololo, some of whom were not on particularly good terms with the British, especially those in the African Lakes Company. The Portuguese had also already tried to establish working relations with the Yao in the Upper Shire. For the British, the Serpa Pinto expedition, which in reality was military in nature, was evidence of the Portuguese determination to proclaim jurisdiction over the Shire Highlands and the Shire Valley. The British in the area and most of the Kololo chiefs reconciled their differences and opposed the Portuguese plans. Partly influenced by strong Scottish opinion, the British government under Lord Salisbury reacted to the expedition by declaring British Protectorate status over the southern Lake Malawi area.

PLAINFIELD INDUSTRIAL MISSION. This was the original name of the Malamulo Mission in Thyolo when it was first established by Joseph Booth after his return from the United States in July 1899. During his stay in the United States that year, Booth had become a member of the Plainfield Seventh-Day Baptist Church in New Jersey, and when the National Baptist Convention appointed him as head of a mission it wanted to start in the Lake Malawi region, Booth named it after his U.S. congregation. In 1901, Booth seriously considered selling Plainfield to African Americans for purposes of turning it into a settlement for people of African origin who wanted to return home to Africa. However, in 1902, the mission settlement was sold to the Seventh-Day Adventists who renamed it Malamulo, turning it into the main center of the Lake Malawi region.

POLICE. From the 1890s to the end of the World War I, there was no real police force in Nyasaland. District collectors, as the district administrators were called then, used uniformed and armed messengers to enforce law; these messengers were not trained, were undisciplined, and tended to demand favors such as food, chickens, and even women. A response to this situation was a 1909 ordinance that stipulated harsh punishment for unruly policemen. In 1899, the first actual policemen, two in number, were employed by the town of Blantyre, and their main duty was to patrol markets and to oversee laborers working on roads. Serious proposals for a properly structured police force were made in the prewar period, a step reinforced by the Chilembwe uprising of 1915. However, it was only in 192021 that elements of a police department began to appear.

In 1920, Major Francis Stephens was appointed chief commissioner of police, and he set about establishing a territory-wide force and, in October of the following year, the Nyasaland Police Ordinance was signed by the governor, Sir George Smith, marking the official birth of the Nyasaland Police Department. With headquarters in Zomba, the department initially comprised a chief commissioner and his support staff and four stations in Zomba, Blantyre, Mulanje, and Fort Johnston. For transport, this force of less than 100 relied on a fleet of four bicycles. Among their duties were recovery of World War I rifles, registration of bicycles, vehicles, and firearms, and supervision in prisons and criminal investigations. In districts where the department was not present, the earlier system of law enforcement continued. A specific criminal investigation department was added in 1922 and, in the 1930s, the force became responsible for immigration duties. Also in the 1930s, more outstations were established, and the ranks of a.s.sistant inspector and subinspector were created, the former rank being occupied by Indians, the latter by Africans. By the end of the 1930s, stations were set up as far north as Karonga but, except for Lilongwe, district commissioners acted as officers in charge of the stations in their districts.

At the beginning of World War II, the security branch, the Political Intelligence Bureau, was added to the force, and in the late 1940s radio communications became part of the department's apparatus. Although during the war, there was a special prison police, the general police and the King's African Rifles (KAR) had to be called in to the central prison in Zomba to quell a riot of prisoners in 1949. By 1952, the force had stations and posts in most parts of the central and northern provinces, and its total complement was at 705.

The events of the 1950s had a major impact on the reorganization of the police. In 1953, riots concerning land and tax and also a.s.sociated with the imposition of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland took place in Thyolo, Mulanje, Ntcheu, Zomba, and Port Herald. More policemen were recruited, and more permanent housing was built for them on most stations. Equally significant was the creation of the antiriot police, consisting mainly of ex-soldiers and older policemen. In the following year, it came to be called the Police Mobile Force (PMF), which had 250 men, divided into platoons of 36; each platoon was headed by a European officer who had served in the British police or had recently worked in Malaya during the state of emergency in that colony. Some of the European officers were recruited from the British South Africa Police in Southern Rhodesia, where racial att.i.tudes toward black peoples were particularly bad, and this tended to influence the officers' dealings with the men under their charge and with the African population in Nyasaland. The PMF was very much involved in dealing with riots during the 1959 State of Emergency, which led to the Devlin Commission, and they were noted as particularly harsh in their approach to rioters. Also, in the initial stages of the State of Emergency, the governor, Sir Robert Armitage, requested and received the a.s.sistance of contingents of police from Tanganyika and the two Rhodesias.

Following the State of Emergency in 1959, the police force expanded further. A two boat marine division was established on Lake Malawi, and a small air wing was also created. More people were recruited into the general police and the PMF, so that by 1960 the total complement was 225 officers and 2,604 men. That year the Police Training College moved from Zomba to the premises of the Artisan Training School in Kanjedza, Limbe. In addition, the Political Intelligence Bureau changed its name to the Special Branch, and as African political activity increased, this division increased its personnel and its surveillance duties. Until the early 1960s, the highest rank an African could expect to occupy was a.s.sistant and subinspector. The only exception was Mateyu Numero, who in 1958 became a.s.sistant superintendent when he took over the headship of the Police Band from an Indian officer; Numero had just completed a course at the British Army's Royal Military School of Music. In 1959, Thomas Gombera achieved the distinction of being the first Malawian in the operations division to attain the rank of inspector of the police force. From the early 1970s, a three months' in-service course for noncommissioned officers was inst.i.tuted at the police school to enable Africanization to take place. Among such officers were Mac Kamwana, who in 1971 became the first Malawian head of the police force.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the police continued to Africanize, expand, and modernize. All wings of the force were headed by Malawians, the communication systems were updated, the headquarters was moved to the new capital city, Lilongwe, and a new division was created. Called the eastern division, it covered Zomba, Machinga, and Mangochi districts. In 197576, hundreds of Malawians suffered indiscriminate and arbitrary political detentions to the extent that even the new prisons at Mikuyu and Mpyupyu were filled. It was discovered that a.s.sistant Commissioner Martin Focus Gwede, then head of the police intelligence wing, the Special Branch, had misused his authority, partly to a.s.sist the political ambitions of his friend Albert Muwalo-Nqumayo, at the time minister of state in the office of the president, a position that included security responsibilities. In 1983, the police were also implicated in the Mwanza accident, in which three cabinet ministers and a member of Parliament were killed.

Kamwana, whose post had been redesignated inspector general, retired in 1986 and was succeeded by his deputy L. Ngwata, who served for only eight months before being replaced by Elliot Mbedza, previously head of the PMF division. A year later, he retired and was replaced by Milward Namasani, whose main experience was in the Criminal Investigation Division (CID). In 1990, Macwilliams Lunguzi, head of the Special Branch, became the new inspector general, a position he held until 1994 when the United Democratic Front (UDF) government recalled former a.s.sistant Commissioner Chikhosa from retirement to lead the Malawi police. Chikhosa served for over two years and was replaced by Kennedy Chirambo, who in January 2000 retired on health grounds and was succeeded by a new inspector general. Since then there have been five inspectors generals: Joseph Iron (20015), Joseph Thyolani (2005), Mary Nagwale (20056), Oliver k.u.mbambe (20059), Peter Mukhito (2009 ), formerly commander of the presidential guard.

During the tension leading to political reforms, the police had to deal with many delicate situations, including an incident in May 1992 when they fired at strikers (see BANDA, HASTINGS KAMUZU). Otherwise, both under the Bakili Muluzi and the Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika's governments, the Malawi police has continued with the British tradition of walking the beat unarmed, the baton stick being their main weapon. However, with the rise in violent robberies, occasioned by poverty, disparities in wealth, and a wide circulation of firearms, including the AK47, it has become the practice to arm some of them, especially at night. Also, in the 2000s, the PMF are sent to deal with violent robbers.

POLITICAL DISSIDENTS. During the leadership of Dr. Hastings Banda, the term political dissident referred generally to people who had fallen out of favor with the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and its government, especially after the Cabinet Crisis of 1964. Many such people were forced into exile, mainly to Zambia and Tanzania; those who were studying abroad during the crisis and openly supported, or were perceived to agree with, the rebelling ministers in Congress also came to be regarded as dissidents. Within Malawi there would occur waves of imprisonments without trials for people reported to be in touch or in sympathy with exiles abroad. Government intelligence services infiltrated dissident organizations in exile and are credited with the murder of people, including Attati Mpakati and Mkwapatila Mhango.

POLITICAL PARTIES. In the period leading to the first general elections in 1961, there were many parties in Malawi (then Nyasaland): the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), representing the majority of Africans, stood for majority rule; the United Federal Party (UFP) fought for the status quo, including the continuation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; after the dissolution of the Federation, the UFP in Nyasaland changed to the Nyasaland Const.i.tutional Party; the Congress Liberation Party was led by Thamar D. T. Banda, former president general of the National African Congress (NAC). Other parties were the Christian Social Democratic Party of Chester Katsonga and the National Liberation Democratic Party led by Clement k.u.mbikano, who had briefly been president of the Nyasaland branch of the Central African Party that Garfield Todd established after he split from the UFP and which had its main base in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Sometime after Raban Pemba Ndovi was expelled from his position in the MCP, he formed the Convention of African National Union, but with little support, the party was short-lived.

Following the Cabinet Crisis of 1964, the MCP national convention adopted the one-party status for the Republic of Malawi, which meant that from 1965 onward, no other political organization would be allowed in the country. In the meantime, the politicians forced into exile formed their own parties. Henry Chipembere's party was called the Pan-African Democratic Party of Malawi, and Kanyama Chiume formed the Congress for the Second Republic. Orton Chirwa established the Malawi Freedom Movement (MAFREMO); Attati Mpakati led the Socialist League of Malawi (LESOMA), and after his a.s.sa.s.sination, Grey Kamuyambeni became the leader. Other parties in exile were Harry Bwanausi's United Democratic Movement (UMD) and Akogo Kanyaya's Malawi Democratic Union (UDM).

With the exception of the Pan-African Democratic Party, which virtually ended with the death of its founder in 1975, all the parties previously based outside Malawi took part in the general elections of 1994. They did not do well compared with the United Democratic Front (UDF), the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD), the Malawi Democratic Party (DP), and the Malawi Congress Party, the first three having been established in 1992. Since then, other political parties have been formed: the United Party (UP), which Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika led briefly in the 1990s, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) of Eston Kakhome, and Rev. Daniel K. Mnkhumbwe's Congress for National Unity (CONU).

In the period leading to the 2004 general and presidential elections, two new political parties joined the contest for district and national offices, and they were Brown Mpinganjira's National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the Mgwirizano coalition. In 2005, Bingu wa m.u.t.h.arika formed the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which in 2009 won the presidential elections as well as the majority seats in the National a.s.sembly. Other political parties active in 2011 were the DPP, UDF, MCP, AFORD, MDP, Republican Party (RP), People's Transformation Party (PETRA), Maravi People's Party, Malawi for Unity and Development, and the People's Development Movement (PDM). A common aspect of all the political parties is a lack of major ideological differences. Another similarity is that the major parties tend to have strong regional or ethnic bases: the MCP has most of its membership in the central region, UDF and the DPP in the south, the PDM and AFORD in the north. The smaller political parties have scattered and difficult to identify memberships.

In 2011, two new political parties were formed. The first one was the People's Development Movement (PDM), headed by Harry Mkandawire, a former senior official of the DPP, which seemed to have a mainly northern base. On the other hand, although Joyce Banda's People's Party aimed at a national membership, it appeared to be, initially at least, a largely southern-based organization.

POPULATION. The population of Malawi has been increasing since 1960 when it was 3.5 million and, by the late 1970s, it had grown to 5.5 million. In 1990, it was over 8 million with 5.3 million under the age of 16. In 1998, it had risen to about 9.9 million, and the breakdown was: 014 years: 46 percent (male 2,210,871; female 2,190,564); 1564 years: 51 percent (male 2,430,178; female 2,250,608); 65 years and over: 3 percent (male 109,010; female 147,850). According to the census of 2008, the population increased to 13,066,320.

With the rate of population outstripping real economic growth, the standard of living became more depressed, resources more strained, and the shortage of land more apparent. The presence of a million Mozambican refugees in Malawi between the mid-1980s and 1994 exacerbated an economy already in crisis. The population density doubled between 1966 and 1987 from 43 persons per square kilometer in 1966 to 59 persons per square kilometer in 1977, and to 85 persons per square kilometer in 1987. In 1998, it was 105 persons per square kilometer, rising to 139 in 2008. Regionally, it was 185 for the south, 154 for the center, and 62 for the north. Less than 50 percent of the total land is arable and usable by the 86 percent rural population.

According to the 2008 Population and Housing Census, Malawi's population rose by 32 percent from about 9.9 million 10 years earlier to 13,066,320, an increase of 2.8 percent per annum, which is higher than the 2.0 percent in the 198798 decade. The 2008 census indicates that the regional distribution of the population was as follows: the south, 45 percent, and 42 and 13 for the center and the north, respectively. At 95 males per 100 females, the gender ratio has not changed much from 1966 when it was 90 per 100. In 1977, it was 93 per 100 and in 1987 and 1998 it was 94 per 100 and 96 per 100, respectively. The 2008 census survey also shows that although the majority of Malawians still live in rural areas, the urban population had gone from approximately 850,000 in 1987 to 1.4 million and 2.0 million in 1998 and 2008, respectively.

The birth rate has been decreasing since 2003 when it was 44.7 per 1,000. In 2008, it was 41.5, and it was estimated it would be at 41.3 in 2010. The death rate has also decreased during this period. In 2003, it was 22.64 per 1,000, and in 2008 it dropped to 17.89 and was expected to fall further to 13.69 per 1000 in 2010. Despite the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, life expectancy has also improved from 37.9 years in 2003 to 50.9 in 2009. See also WOMEN.

POTTERY. See NKOPE BAY; NKUDZI BAY; PREHISTORY.

PREHISTORY. This is the period of Malawi history when neither oral traditions nor written sources exist. The only dependable evidence is archaeological in nature, and according to this source, the early Stone Age peoples inhabiting Malawi were hunter-gatherers who lived along the lakesh.o.r.e and in the river valleys. More environmentally adaptable, the later Stone Age humans moved throughout the country, evidently preferring the uplands. Artifacts, such as sc.r.a.pers, lunates, trapeziums, and back blades, of these humans are found in nearly all of Malawi. In addition to these microliths, some bored stones and polished axes have also been recovered. The men and women of this age who occupied rock shelters and caves were also artists who left geometric and schematic style rock paintings.

Based on the latest archaeological research, carried out most seriously and systematically since the 1960s, the Iron Age began in Malawi about 200 A.D. Migrants, perhaps Bantu-speaking, who had knowledge of iron-working, pottery, and agriculture probably entered the country from an area to the west and settled rapidly by the lakesh.o.r.e. Although the intruders were culturally superior to the later Stone Age residents, the two apparently coexisted in the region.

In southern Malawi the pottery style uncovered has been named Nkope ware. The presumably quiet life near Nkope Bay allowed these people time to produce large numbers of decoratively rimmed bowls. A related pottery style, called Mwabulambo, after a site in Karonga district, is commonly uncovered in northern Malawi. Mwabulambo pots were wide rimmed and undecorated. Sometime during the 10th to 14th centuries, another type of pottery appeared. Called Kapeni ware, it is thinner than Nkope and contains grooves and incisions unlike the earlier pottery.

The migration of the Maravi peoples in the 15th to 16th centuries can be substantiated by oral tradition as well as by the recovery of Mawudzu pots made by the Maravi. The pottery is noticeably thinner and more decorative with chevrons, crosshatching, or herringbones. This ware was produced throughout the period of the Maravi empire into the late 18th century when new settlers effected additional cultural change. Succeeding in this southern lake region were the Bisa known for their Nkudzi pottery. They interacted with the Nyanja inhabitants, but their cultural influence was followed by that of the Ngoni and Yao immigrants. Thereafter pottery may be termed modern and no longer Iron Age. See also NKUDZI BAY.

PRENTICE, GEORGE. When Dr. Robert Laws went to Khondowe to establish the new headquarters of the Livingstonia Mission in 1892, George Prentice, also a Scotsman, arrived at Bandawe to take over the headship of the mission station. A keen doctor, Prentice built the first obstetrics and gynecological ward in the country, and upon his transfer to Kasungu where he established the Chilanga Mission in 1900, he became very active in medical work, establishing numerous rural health centers in the district. He is also noted as having been in the forefront in the fight against sleeping sickness, which broke out in the LuangwaKasungu, Nkhotakota, and south Mzimba region after 1910, and continued to be a problem in the 1920s. Prentice baptized Hastings Banda at Chilanga, where the latter was a student between 1908 and 1914. In 1917, Prentice volunteered for the war, returning to Kasungu two years later. In 1924, he returned to Scotland.

PRESIDENT. The president of Malawi is the head of state, head of government, and commander in chief of the armed forces. Although Hastings Banda was declared life president in 1971, resulting in no presidential elections until 1994, the Const.i.tution of 1994 stipulates that a president must serve for a five-year term and not for more than two terms. Therefore, presidential elections have taken place