Makololo

Makololo, a renowned people of Basuto origin, who, after their expulsion from Kuruman by the Griquas (1824), were led by their chief Sebituane across Bechuanaland northwards to the middle Zambesi, incorporating in the military caste all the young bloods of the nations conquered by them on their long wanderings of 800 or 900 miles from the south. On the Zambesi Sebituane overthrew the dominant Barotse people, and founded the so-called Makololo Empire, which after his death in 1851 passed to his young and feeble son Sekelutu. During his reign of thirteen years (1851-64) the Makololos were greatly reduced by incessant wars, so that on his demise the Barotse rose against their conquerors, exterminating them almost to a man, and restoring the Barotse state, which has recently accepted the British protectorate (1892); but a handful of Makololos had previously descended the Zambesi to the Shire outlet of Lake Nyassa, where the terror of their name enabled them to set up a few petty states in the midst of the Manganja populations. These also, after for many years tyrannising over the natives, have been reduced to order, and are at present loyal subjects of the British authorities in Nyassaland. Of Sebituane's vast empire nothing survives except the Se-Kololo language, a corrupt form of Se-Suto, still current amongst the Zambesi tribes subject to his rule. (Livingstone, Travels; Holub, Sieben Jalire in Siid-Afrilca, 1881; Serpa Pinto, How I Crossed Africa, 1881.)