Migration Pattern
The origins of the main South African tribes are from a large-scale migration of the Forest Bantu people who lived in Central Western Africa until approximately 200 BC. They moved south because of the increasing population and resource needs10. There were two main migration patterns: The Eastern stream and the Western stream, as seen In figure 3. The Eastern stream was the largest migration which the people traveled two different ways; one migrated cast and then along the coast, and the others followed the Great Lakes of East Africa and the high plateaus of Central Africa down to the Transvaal area. The Western stream migration was a Southern migration from Cameroon area through Botswana then into the Transvaal region".
From the Eastern stream migration, the major tribe Nguni was established. It later divided into Zulu, Swazi, Ndebele, Xhosa, Mfengu and others12. From the Western stream migration, the main tribe Sotho was established and later divided into Lesotho, Venda, songa and others12. The migrations were patterned by the environmental conditions and resource availability. For example the Nguni people became very dependent on cattle for milk10, and moved to the coastal areas for more dependable resources. By 900 AD, the Nguni and Sotho people were settled in South Africa10.
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