 During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, an African people of Nguni descent migrated southward from Central Africa and eventually, during the mid-eighteenth century, a group of them settled in the area which is now Swaziland. These people, the Nkosi Dlamini, became known as the Swazis, and today both names live on. Nkosi means ‘king’ and Dlamini is the surname of the royal family. The country derives its actual name from a later king, Mswati I but another name, Ngwane, is an alternative word for Swaziland. |
