Tanzanian History 101

I keep waxing on about how wonderful and magical it is here, but I suppose I haven't actually told you much about Tanzania and its history, have I?
So google it, you lazybones.


Just kidding.

Tanzania has a rich fossil record, including the Australopethicus afarensis footprints found in the 1970s that showed that human ancestors were walking upright at least 3.75 million years ago. There are also extensive prehistoric rock paintings south of us at Kondoa Irangi. But I'll spare you the ancient history.

No wait, I won't (it's important for context!). There are about 126 government-recognized distinct tribal groups living in TZ, the most of any East African country, and second-only in Africa to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for diversity. Unlike the DRC however, all of these groups and sub-groups have coexisted very peacefully for at least the last century, despite having completely different customs, traditions, and sometimes even languages. The majority of tribes in TZ can be classified as either Bantu or Nilotic.

The Bantu people are believed to originate on the West coast of Africa, in what is now Cameroon, and are now spread throughout the tropical best of sub-Saharan Africa, where they split into now-distinct tribes. Experts think that the first wave of Bantu migration reached Tanzania over two thousand years ago. They're traditionally agricultural peoples: mixed farmers who didn't graze their cattle but instead kept their one or two animals in their homes with them to protect them from raiders. The Bantu were also known for their high-quality iron-work. Steel tools excavated near Lake Victoria show that until the Europeans perfected mass-produced steel in the 19th century, Tanzanian furnaces were producing the best steel in the world.

The Nilotic people, as the name suggests, are believed to originate from around the Nile in Northeast Africa. They include some of the most iconic peoples of East Africa: the Maasai, the bushmen, and the Barubec. We can see their migration from the names given to places they passed through; Khartoum, Nairobi, and Arusha are all Maasai names, for instance. The Nilotic languages are completely unique from all other tribal groups in Africa.

The Maasai are grazers, their livings entirely dependent on the their cattle. They migrated south to find new grazing land for their cattle. They believe it's an offense to God to break the earth, and do no farming at all, nor to they eat naturally found fruit or veg (because there isn't any on the steppes). They eat dairy, blood, and meat. That's it.

The Nilotic people reached TZ after the Bantu, and their lifestyles naturally clashed, which stopped their southern migration. Some of the other Nilotic people were hunter-gatherers only, and lived peacefully with the Bantu, but not the Maasai. They believe that all cattle (of the hump-backed African variety) are a divine gift to them alone, and began raiding Bantu cattle. Experts say that this is when Bantu started keeping their animals indoors or in stalls rather than in corrals, and reduced the number of cows they owned so that it was no longer worth the Maasai's while to rustle them.

The Maasai still live a very traditional lifestyle, though it's under serious threat. Their traditional grazing lands have been converted into national parks, restricting their livelihoods and meaning that the land they can access has been overgrazed and facing serious erosion problems. Secondly, the Tanzanian government offers generous scholarships to Maasai children to go away to school—but the catch is that Tanzanian schools are notorious for denigrating traditional ways of life. Instead of teaching that traditional customs can be improved but maintained—teaching that female genital mutilation is wrong is great, but the schools also preach that only a western-style house is healthy, and requires they remove all their Maasai clothes and jewelry.

Where we are in Arusha region, the predominant tribes are the Meru and Machame, which are a Bantu people and are believed to be "recently" separated, as they share many customs and beliefs, live in similar traditional homes, and speak the same language (though with distinct accents). The Machame settled on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, while the Meru live, of course, around Mt Meru.

We often see Maasai walking through Arusha, though they mostly live on the flatter, more arid land west of here. They're immediately identifiable by their white teeth (all that milk) their stretched ears, jewelry, and traditional clothes. But sometimes looks can be deceiving - some of these men and women are actually of the Larusa tribe (from which Arusha takes its name—it's literally "place of polluted Maasai"). They're ethnic Maasai who at some point in the past where forced to take up agriculture, either because they'd been expelled by their tribe or lost their land in one of the many skirmishes between the Maasai and the Meru.

Of course not everyone we've met has been Meru, Machame, Larusa, or Maasai, as there is free movement of people throughout the country and nothing to stop someone from say, Kigoma, from buying land here. And though those who've lived here all their lives may resent rich retirees from other parts of the country coming in and buying all the best land, it's still peaceful and neighbourly for the most part.

More to come, marafiki!
Upendo,
Robin