ABSTRACT
Not all of the Africans tried to found states. The hunters and gatherers did not do so, for their communities were too small and too thinly spread to require it. Africans excelled at the theatre of royalty - special regalia, special greetings, special premises, special food, special fire, special artefacts of all sorts, all with special names. But if the courts of African kings were awesome places, they also had charismatic and unifying functions. Of the Mwenemutapa's kingdom there remained by the eighteenth century only a remnant, entirely confined to the lower Zambezi valley. The rest of South Africa, growing populations had usually been able to be accommodated by deforestation and the opening up of new land for agriculture and pastoralism. Not surprisingly, in view of the earlier history of the region, the more stable of the larger states still existing on the eve of the modern period were to be found in Africa north of the equator.
