Brideservice, Residence, and Authority among the Goba (N. Shona) of the Zambezi Valley

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Abstract
Introduction: The Shona-speaking complex of tribes covers most of present day Southern Rhodesia, stretching to the Zambian border along the Zambezi River and into Mozambique in the north and to the Indian Ocean in the east. The Korekore group is the major northern division of the Shona-speaking peoples. The original Korekore appear to have been a band of Karanga invaders from the south who entered the middle Zambezi Valley in the fifteenth century and established the Mwene Mutapa confederacy. Today the Korekore group occupies an area extending south from the Zambezi between longitude 28° and longitude 33° east, including the low-lying valley floor and the middle and high veldt or plains to the south where most of the population is concentrated (Garbett, 1966). The valley floor in this region has been considered a poor habitat by African and White settlers alike. The climate is generally poor, there are few cattle because of the tsetse fly, the area is economically undeveloped, and the population is sparse and scattered. Because of their poorer habitat the valley dwelling Korekore have come to be distinguished from their more fortunate highland neighbours to the south and are disparagingly known as Goba or poor lowlanders. In times past they have also been known as Banyai or vassals to the stronger Shona chiefs on the more populous cattle-rich highlands, and also as Chikunda or followers of the Portuguese and half-caste traders operating along the Zambezi in the nineteenth and earlier centuries. This historical background of changing political relations symbolized by changing ethnic identities will be described elsewhere (Lancaster, n.d.).