| Lake
Malawi has
always attracted more than its share of
reminiscent travellers. From the time of
the Victorian missionaries and traders,
whose little steamers ploughed its waters
in the cause of christianity and hard
cash, the accounts of visitors to the Lake
are distinguished by an attempt to pin
down an essential mysteriousness, part of
its unchanging quality which has always
managed to elude final definition. |
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Nature
has endowed Lake Malawi with the richest
variety of tropical fish of any freshwater
lake in the world. Up to 500 species
of cichlids are unique to these waters.
Fresh lake Chambo is a famous and
delicious Malawi dish. In 1980 an area of
the southern part of this huge inland sea
which is Africa's third largest lake, was
proclaimed the world's first Marine World
Heritage Site in a Rift Lake.
| The
cries of fish eagles, fishermen in
dugouts silhouetted against the
evening skies, and the warm, sleepy
atmosphere, make it impossible not
to relax. The Lakeshore is an
excellent place for doing nothing
but absorbing Malawi’s warmth and
beauty. |
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Where
is Lake Malawi?
Click
map to find out |
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The
People Of The Lake
 The
lakeshore craftsmen are very inventive. Stands of
hats, row after row of them in a vast variety of
shapes and styles, compete with rows of toys also
made from basket work but with ingenious detail -
car bonnets that open, helicopters with rotors
that turn and Land Rovers with spare wheels.
Baskets of great variety provide an overwhelming
choice while skilled wood carvers produce prized
artifacts which will always conjure up happy
memories of time spent at the Lake.
Watching the graceful dip and swoop of a passing
dugout canoe, or perhaps walking along a beach to
find thousands of fish drying on wooden trestles,
it is tempting to make lie romantic assumption
that here is a way of life as timeless as the
beauty of the Lake. In fact, the dugout canoes
have seen a transformation in the fishing industry
which has made them part of an active contemporary
economy. The arrival of the bicycle started the
fish on their way to the markets of Blantyre and
Zomba. |
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Traditional
Fishing Village on the shores of the Lake
Click
image to enlarge |
| Today
tons of dried utaka and matemba provide
a staple diet for villages far into the interior.
Traditional village fishing techniques include
seine-netting, ring netting, gill netting and
traps. Many canoes are still used but plank boats
are favoured when affordable, because they can
carry bigger loads. Some of the huge harvest is
preserved by sun drying but mostly it is smoked in
the lakeside villages. |
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Traditional
Dugout Fishing
Click
image to enlarge |
| Much
employment is generated, not only for
those who fish, but also for those who
build and repair boats, make nets and
travel long distances to sell the
shining harvest of the Lake... |
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Click
image to enlarge it
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Top
of page
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The
History Of The Lake
For
centuries European explorers had speculated about
the existence of a great lake in Central Africa.
Returning travellers in the 17th and 18th
centuries offered descriptions of the lake they
had heard about with some even claiming to have
seen it. Cartographers such as de L'lsle and
d'Anville began to produce maps with the shape and
position fairly accurately portrayed.
 On
a visit to Mozambique in 1856 David
Livingstone visited Tete where he met
Candido Cardosa. Cardosa claimed to have visited
the lake ten years earlier and promptly drew a
sketch map of it which Livingstone annotated.
After
his original plan to explore a way up the Zambezi
River was thwarted by the Kebrabasa Rapids,
Livingstone began a journey of exploration up the
Shire River to Lake Nyasa. Although he was
certainly not the first European to gaze upon the
Lake, it was he who exposed its presence to the
rest of the world and claimed the honour of its
'discovery'. He described it as 'a lake of stars'
in reference to its glittering surface. In true
Livingstone style his diaries detail his
observations of the Lake and its people. His notes
embraced the length and breadth of the Lake
the coastline, boats and fishing, trade, slavery
and climate.
He
saw the evidence that thousands of slaves were
being transported over the Lake each year to be
sold in the slave markets of East Africa. He
reasoned that a gunboat on Lake Nyasa and an
alternative trade to that in human beings,
together with Christianity, would put an end to
the slave trade. His plea for missionaries to
bring Christianity to Central Africa was answered
and the history of Malawi took a change in
direction.
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