According to their oral history, they traced their roots to an Ancient Nubian Queen called Nyanseba, She was abducted by a warrior and a herdsmen, it is said the herdsmen turned the rulership of Empresses to Emperors, but the power and influence of women among the Nyakyusa can be seen through in their traditions the Boys take their mother’s clan name while the girls take their father’s clan name.
Finally the area was incorporated as 'British Central Africa', with Karonga itself fortified with palisades on the lake and defended on the other three sides with trenches, which could be swept from brick bastions.
Gates protected the trenches of the fort with two cannons, one Norden field machine-gun, and 300 to 400 armed inhabitants, who were ready even during peacetime.
It is said that slave raids were conducted almost within sight of Karonga, leaving the Nyakyusa and others uncertain as to whether or not to support Mlozi or a European power.
The British established a council of chiefs in 1933 and referred to it as the tribal system after their attempt to impose supremacy over this largely stateless people failed.
The newly created Nyakyusa tribe quickly rose to prominence as a powerful political force, supported by a distinctive culture, a single language, and utter isolation.
Joseph Thomson, in To the Central African Lakes and Back (1881), comes close to describing the Nyakyusa, "It seemed a perfect Arcadia....
(These have always been considered normal and typical, but due to the German 'hut tax' the rectangular huts began to dominate) The grass thatching is also very neat.
Merensky, in Deutsch Arbeit am Nyaßa, quotes a missionary: "We wandered through magnificent banana groves and elegant, cleanly built huts of our Nyakyusa.
Quoting Major von Wissmann, "They are as happy as Africans can be...modest, hospitable, and have until now been able to keep dangerous enemies off of their necks and keep their independence."
The film Mother Night is set among the Hehe and Nyakyusa people of Africa, and claims to be based on the funereal rituals of these tribes.
August 8, 1894 Zugführer Bauer writes that Häuptling Makiemba said, "If one wanted somethingh from him than the Germans should come to him for he was afraid of Nyassa (Lake?).
'Nobles', ruling the land, were credited with divine powers, lived in strict religious seclusion, their chiefs (Princes), being strangled by their councillors in old age or illness in order to maintain rain, fertility, and the health of the village.
They practiced intensive crop rotation with corn, beans, squash, sorghum, millet, yams, etc., with banana plantations stretching for miles.
The headman or prince had no power to enforce decisions and while there was no attempt to quiet a quarrel it is considered most proper to arrive at a settlement through some group opinion of equals, established before adolescence, resting on friendship, assistance, and cooperation.
They lived at their husband's residence, married ten years earlier than the men, lacked solidarity, developed little leadership, and had no kinsmen to protect their interests.
Women spent thirty hours a week fetching wood, and only when co-wives were sisters, or an aunt or niece, were they expected to work together regularly.
Intense competition for the position of favorite among a man's various wives was thought by the missionaries to be at least partly responsible for the low status of women, which was still considered higher than other tribes.
Boys guarded the fields and cattle and lived in separate camps starting at about ten years of age and lasting a lifetime.
Since the women married much earlier than the men, incest was of great concern to the Nyakyusa and was resolved by putting fathers in one village and sons in another.
When the oldest sons of a chief reached thirty-three to thirty-five years of age the father handed over the country's government to them in the 'coming out', a ceremony of great pomp.
Since a bachelor was thought to be a fiercer warrior than a married man, marriages were often delayed, for while urbanity and good temper were praised, readiness to fight was a valuable quality useful in war.
'[citation needed] Swagger display was felt to be appropriate, particularly in bachelors, but married men also fought with skill, and none developed a military kingdom.
They were expect to show obedience, respect, and use 'yes, my lord' when addressed, and were reported to be totally dominated by the men, but were still thought, by the missionaries, to have a position higher and better than that of other tribes.
Cattle for bridewealth, however, were considered vital and gave men even more control, even though the missionaries assumed the position of women was not bad.
The only trade was with the Kinga when the Nyakyusa exchanged their surplus food for weapons and agricultural implements of considerable artistic merit.
From the missionaries' point of view, they found 'fireside company' very important and stressed the obligation of eating and drinking together with urban manners and friendliness.
They found merry conversation to be a discussion between equals, finding it to be an outstanding example of the sustainable comfort obtainable in African life within a simple Iron Age culture.
Medicines were important in winning success, cultivation, herding, hunting, love, war, treatment of the sick, protection and retaliation, or even directly harming an enemy and defending against witches.
Bad behavior towards parents or in-laws, swearing at or hitting a husband, having children after a daughter-in law has reached puberty, and indications of pride, could all bring on lingering illness.