century, the total chikunda population in Zambezia was estimated at 50000. In a survey of 1766, the two largest prazos were said to have around 700 and 500 chikunda. In early times, the chikunda were usually armed with bows and spears but, by the mid-18th century, some were armed with muskets. The chikunda usually lived in small fortified villages, often near the margins of the larger prazos. Each chikunda village was headed by the owner's deputy called a capitão, or headman. These villages generally produced food to support the chikunda and also made a contribution in cash or goods to their master. If the prazo owner was strong, the chikunda acted as a defence and police force, keeping order and collecting tribute, but under a weak owner or in times of famine, they could become little more than bandits, preying on local communities and disregarding their nominal patron. Individuals were incorporated into the ranks of the chikunda through a ritual under which they swore lifelong loyalty to the prazeiro. However prosperous or anarchic they might become, the chikunda could only rarely become completely free of their patron, who guaranteed their status as warriors and their security. Some chikunda did manage to break away from their masters, leave their prazo and hunt for ivory in the Shire valley, where they competed with Yao traders in the mid-18th century Decline of the prazos The great Mozambique drought of 1794 to 1802 and subsequent droughts and smallpox epidemics lasting into the 1830s destroyed the agricultural economy of the Zambezia prazos, as the cultivators could not feed themselves, let alone produce surpluses to maintain the chikunda and prazeiros. Many chikunda deserted their prazos and some formed armed bands seeking any means to survive, so worsening the situation created by drought. Other former chikunda returned, or attempted to return, to their homelands and resume their old lives, or merged into the local peoples as peasants. A few used their military skills to become elephant hunters and, in the time of Ndebele incursions, they used their guns against the invaders. Some bands of chikunda became elephant hunters, and travelled as far north as the area around Nkhotakota and the Luangwa valley in search of new herds to exploit. They married women from the local Chewa and Tumbuka peoples and their offspring soon lost their identity as chikunda. The 19th century chikunda The Afro-Goan statelets By the