The Nena people are an African tribe first encountered in the last quarter of the 19th century in the north-east Livingstone Mountains in what is now

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

by two different European travellers. The Scottish

explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

Joseph Thomson Joseph or Joe Thomson is the name of: *J. J. Thomson (1856–1940), physicist * Joseph Thomson (cricketer) (1877-1953), Australian cricketer *Joseph Thomson (explorer) Joseph Thomson (14 February 1858 – 2 August 1895) was a British geologist ...

stumbled across them in 1879 during his journey from the East African coast to

Lake Nyasa Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the fifth largest fre ...

(now also known as

Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the fifth largest fr ...

) (Thomson 1881). Eighteen years later, in 1897, they were encountered a second time by the

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Alphonse Adams Alphonse may refer to: * Alphonse (given name) * Alphonse (surname) * Alphonse Atoll, one of two atolls in the Seychelles' Alphonse Group See also *Alphons *Alfonso (disambiguation) Alfonso (and variants Alphonso, Afonso, Alphons, and Alphonse) is ...

(Adams 1899). Thomson and Adams' accounts had a number of similarities, which makes it probable that they met the same group of people. However, the next European visitor could find no trace of the Nena (Fülleborn 1906): they went missing from the

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

record and did not feature in subsequent

and

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reports. In the 1970s, however, people called Nena were reported to be living much further south in the Livingstone Mountains, and they were presumed to be related to the group described by Thomson and Adams (Stirnimann 1976). It remains to be established whether this is the case.

References

* Adams, A. (1899). ''Im Dienste des Kreuzes, Errinerungen aus meinen Missionsleben in Deutsch-Ostafrika''. Augsburg: St. Ottilien. * Fülleborn, F. (1906). ''Das Deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-Gebeit, Land und Leute nebst Bemerkungen über du Schire-Länder''. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. * Stirnimann, H. (1976). ''Existenzgrundlagen und Traditionelles Handwerk der Pangwa von SW.-Tansania''. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz. * Thomson, J. (1881). ''To the Central African Lakes and Back: The Narrative of the Royal Geographical Society’s East Central African Expedition 1878-80'' (Vol. I). London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. Ethnic groups in Tanzania Indigenous peoples of East Africa {{Tanzania-ethno-group-stub