Swazis are Bantu-speaking people who live in the tree-studded grasslands of Swaziland (now Eswatini), the neighboring Mpumalanga province of South Africa, and Mozambique. “Swazi” refers to a nation, tribe, ethnic group, or individual, whereas “siSwati” refers to the language.
The language of the Swazi belongs to the Benue-Congo group of the Niger-Congo languages; with the Zulu and the Xhosa, the Swazi form the southern Nguni ethnolinguistic group. The Nguni’s forefathers came into touch with the Khoisan-speaking peoples, whose language uses click sounds as consonants. Several sounds and vocabulary elements from these languages have been borrowed into the Nguni languages. Swati has lost all but one of her click sound settings. Swati is the native tongue of all ethnic Swazis, and it is also spoken by many people from other ethnic groups.
The Swati people and the Kingdom of Eswatini are named after Mswati II, who ascended to the throne in 1839 following the death of his father, King Sobhuza, and tactically overcame the British occupiers.
According to sources, Eswatini was initially inhabited by the San people, and the modern Swazis came from northeast Africa to Mozambique before settling in Eswatini in the 15th century. Their royal ancestry can be traced back to a chief named Dlamini I, and this is still the royal clan name.
The Swazis are farmers and pastoralists. They mainly grow corn, beans, sorghum, peanuts, and sweet potatoes and keep livestock. The staple food is called mealie-meal, a dish made of ground corn. Mealie-meal is normally accompanied by chicken, meat, and different vegetables.
In Swazi culture, the highest traditional political, economic, and ritual powers are shared between a hereditary male ruler and his mother or a mother substitute who holds the official position of Queen Mother.
Swazi people reside in homesteads called umuti. An umuti typically consists of a man, his wife, and children. Polygamy is not unusual, and a co-wife is called inhlanti. All family members share responsibilities and eat from one kitchen. Homesteads are built using clay, thatch, logs, and rocks. Traditional homesteads do not have beds or chairs. They use grass mats instead.
In Swaziland many national officials are drawn from dominant clans, but a balance is maintained in central and local government between this aristocratic element and representatives of commoners. In South Africa a system of regional authorities is subdivided into tribal authorities, each of which has its own chief. Cutting through local and kinship bonds is a system that classifies men by age groups, reorganized every five to seven years, and that requires of them labor and other services.
