“Hale!” “Halele!”
Long ago on Mwali, each lineage belonged to one of the island's two great halves: the mdjaume, whose name comes from mdji wa ume, “the city of the male side”, and the mdjawashe, from mdji wa washe, “the city of the female side”. Each half had its villages, its houses and its alliances, and everyone knew which side they belonged to.
Near Djoiezi lived a very powerful mdjawashe house, the one called Mwali-Mdjini, after the old abandoned city in the hills. Strong in its power, it began to encroach on the lands of Djando, in the south-east of the island, which belonged to the Hanyamwada group. Djando, less powerful, could not stop it alone.
So the other half of the island stepped in. Among the mdjaume were the people of Upvanga, who bear the name of their founding house. They listened to both sides and judged that Djando was in the right. They did not stop at saying so: they sent members of their own houses to settle on the border of the territory, as sentinels, so that no one would cross it again.
These guardians never left. Their descendants still live in Wanani, the main town of Djando, and in Mlabanda. And when people ask why mdjaume live there, in the middle of the other half's lands, the elders tell the story of the sentinels.
Justice does not always come from the strongest: sometimes a neighbour restores it.
What we know about it
This tradition is reported by the anthropologist Sophie Blanchy and the Mohélian sociologist Salim Djabir in an article in the journal L'Homme (2021), which draws in particular on a summary of Mohéli's traditions written by S. Djabir in 1996. It explains an exception: as a rule, the two halves of the island, mdjaume and mdjawashe, do not live in the same villages; yet in Wanani and Mlabanda, mdjaume live in mdjawashe territory.
The authors show that these descent groups, regarded as matrilineal (the madzuwe, “houses”), measure themselves against one another in ceremonial exchanges — grand marriages, festivals — which build and contest the hierarchies between lineages and villages. Read also: Mwali-Mdjini, the abandoned city and The hidden fortress of Bandamale.
Further reading
- Outside view Sophie Blanchy et Haddad Salim Djabir, Construction et contestation des hiérarchies dans les échanges cérémoniels aux Comores (île de Mohéli), 2021. L'Homme, no. 238, pp. 101–140.
- Voices of the archipelago Muzdalifa House (entretien avec le sociologue Salim Djabir), Une histoire de Mwali, 2021.