When the European fort and trading station at Sofala was formed in 1505 the predominant people in the country between the rivers Sabi and Zambesi were the Mokaranga as termed by the Portuguese, or Makalanga as pronounced by themselves, a word which means the people of the sun. This tribe occupied territory extending from the shore of the Indian ocean to the interior of the continent far to the west, but just how far it is impossible to say. Along the southern bank of the Zambesi and scattered here and there on the sea coast were clans who were not Makalanga by blood, and who were independent of each other. South of the Sabi river lived a tribe named the Batonga, whose outposts extended beyond Cape Correntes.

There are people of this name in various parts of South Africa still, but it does not follow that they are descended from the Batonga of the sixteenth century. The country has often been swept by war since that time, and of the ancient communities many have been absolutely destroyed, while others have been dispersed and reorganised quite differently. There is not a single tribe in South Africa to-day that bears the same title, has the same relative power, and occupies the same ground, as its ancestors four hundred years ago. The people we call Mashona are indeed descended from the Makalanga of early Portuguese days, and they preserve their old name and part of their old country, but the contrast between their condition and that of the tribe in the period of its greatness is striking.