Swahili people
 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Dar-Es-Salaam (Tanzania), Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Comoros | |
| Languages | |
| Swahili, Portuguese, English, French, Somali | |
| Religion | |
| Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Kikuyu, Makonde, Shirazi[1] |
The Swahili are a people and culture found on the coast of East Africa, mainly the coastal regions and the islands of Kenya and Tanzania, and north Mozambique. According to JoshuaProject, the Swahili number in at around 1,328,000.[1] The name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil, meaning "coastal dwellers", and they speak the Swahili language. They also speak the official languages of their respective countries: English in Tanzania and Kenya, Portuguese in Mozambique, Somali in Somalia, and French in Comoros. Note that only a small fraction of those who use Swahili are first language speakers and even fewer are ethnic Swahilis.
Definition
The Swahili are original Bantu inhabitants of the East African Coast mainly from Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. They are mainly united by culture and under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). This also extends to Arab, Persian, and other migrants who reached the coast some believe as early as the 7th-8th c. CE, and mixed with the local people there, providing considerable cultural infusion and numerous loan words from Arabic and Persian.[2] Archaeologist, Felix Chami notes the presence of Bantu settlements straddling the East African coast as early as the beginning of the 1st millennium. They evolved gradually from the 6th century onward to accommodate for an increase in trade (mainly with Arab merchants), population growth, and further centralized urbanization; developing into what would later become known as the Swahili City-States.[3]
The language is and remains today a language of trade between the interior and the coast, and government authorities over much of East Africa. In 1999, it was spoken as far away as the Ituri forest of the Congo and even Oman on the Persian Gulf. Many Germans in the military spoke it in colonial times, but at times badly, even recieving bonuses for the effort. Germany even sent teachers to Germany, for it was a main binding feature for the culture of the new colony. The European community was long convinced that Swahili was not African even after it had been recognized as Bantu. It was only when the population began mixing and developing that the language and people developed.
Swahili History
Swahili history is lied to the regions's natural resources and its position as a commercial go-between with the interior and the Indian Ocean. By the ninth century the annual monsoon winds would bring merchants along the coast to pick up sorghum, millet, rice and other cereals, while pots, courie shells, shell beads and textiles were exchanged with people or the interior for honey, cattle hides, and such luxuries as gold, copper, rock crystal and ivory.
The Swahili civilization of East Africa reached its pinnacle between the 1300 and 1500 centuries. Islam provided a connedction between the elites and traders that helped East Africa into international commerce. Even the Chinese, under admiral Zheng; with perhaps 28,000 men, may have gotten as far as Kilwa. Two East Africzan giraffes were received in Beijing, China, by way of Bengal, around 1415.
Swahili culture, as a single entity was never politically unified. The petty states were in constant competition and whatever the nature of the elite the region was never able to get its act together and put up more than token resistance to outsiders. Coloniztion also brought increased immigration of Arabs, East Indians, and Europeans to East Africa In cluding the Germans. Members of the former elite, no longer in a position of control, continued to conspire against ono another and allied themselves with colonizers through marriage, coming politicalpuppets. The defeated were hanged, or took refuge in hinterland hill fortresses.
It was predominatelly an urban living style which took great wealth, and it was the the slave and ivory trade that provided it. Two story coral houses and mosques, special quarters for the women, plumbing and bathrooms of cut coral, carvings in coral and wood, products of gold and silver, fabrics of silk and cotton, leather goods, furniture, fine iron work and, if possible, Chinese porcelains were all part of this style.
German colonial period
It was von Soden's plan (governor from March 1891 to early 1893) to restrict administration to the coast, just as the Zanzibar's Sultan had. The Swahili language and its people were to be used as go-betweens with the hinterland, and allies were to be made of the coast Muslims. Swahili speaking secular schools were to be considered important and the civil service open to talent.
Religion
Islam established its presence in the East African coast from around 1012 AD, when the traders from the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula continued to journey to these parts during monsoon seasons and to interact with the local people through trade, intermarriage, and an exchange of ideas. Because of this interaction, most of the Swahili today are Muslim. The unifying force of Islam consolidated into an amalgam of otherwise different ethnicities and provided an enduring common identity for many of the people in coastal East Africa. The Swahili follow a very strict and orthodox form of Islam. They believe in jinns and most men wear protective amulets around their necks, which contain verses from the Qu'ran. Divination is practiced through Qu'ranic readings. Often the diviner incorporates verses from the Qu'ran into treatments for certain diseases. On occasion, he instructs a patient to soak a piece of paper containing verses of the Qu'ran in water. With this ink infused water, literally containing the word of Allah, the patient will then wash his body or drink it to cure himself of his affliction. It is only prophets and teachers of Islam who are permitted to become medicine men among the Swahili.[4]
Economy
For centuries the Swahili depended greatly on trade from the Indian Ocean. The Swahili have played a vital role as middle man between east, central and south Africa, and the outside world. Trade contacts have been noted as early as 100 A.D. by early Roman writers who visited the East African coast in the first century. Trade routes extended across Tanzania into modern day Zaire, along which goods were brought to the coasts and were sold to Arab, Indian, and Portuguese traders. Materials attributed to this network of trade were also found at Great Zimbabwe. During the apogee of the middle ages, ivory and slaves became a substantial source of revenue. Many slaves sold in Zanzibar ended up in Brazil, which was then a Portuguese colony. Swahili fishermen of today still rely on the ocean to supply their primary source of income. Fish is sold to their inland neighbors in exchange for products of the interior.
Since the economy depended so heavely on slavery some slaves even became porters on caravan routes and members of armies. Throughout the 1800s as slaverly became distinctly more important, first on Zanzibar and the other islands and then along the coast as a result of plantation agriculture. It was the slave who produced grain, cloves, coconuts, oil seeds, and the classic slave crop, rice. Depending on the area, the Swahili region had a slave population of between 30 and 40 percent. Zanzibar's slave population may have been well over 100,000 people. The system of plantation slavery had gegun to separate the slaves into two broad categories, servants who had grown up within the swahili culture and those working in the fields speaking no Swahili. They were looked upon as different as savage and civilized. John Iliffe writes of the plantation slaves they generally worked five days a week...leaving the remaining time for their own plots. Their social life was little supervised, but they could be bought and sold. Their 'homeome born' children possessed higher status. If one parent was free, theoretically all children were free. Only plantation slaves, who became numerous on on the mainland after 1873...mounted slaves revolts. In general, however, few master feared seeing their slaves with weapons, for escape was so easy that revolt was seldom necessary. The Swahili considered themselves destinct and essentally urban, living in towns with a culture superior to that of slaves and interior Africans.
Architecture
Previously thought by many scholars to be essentially of Arabic or Persian style and origin; archaeological, written, linguistic, and cultural evidence instead suggests a predominantly African genesis and sustainment. This would be accompanied later by an enduring Arabic and Islamic influence in the form of trade, inter-marriage, and an exchange of ideas.[5][6] Upon visiting Kilwa in 1331, the great Berber explorer Ibn Battuta was impressed by the substantial beauty that he encountered there. He describes its inhabitants as "Zanj, jet-black in colour, and with tattoo marks on their faces", and notes that "Kulwa is a very fine and substantially built town, and all its buildings are of wood" (his description of Mombasa was essentially the same).[7] Kimaryo points out that the distinctive tattoo marks are common among the Makonde. Architecture included arches, courtyards, isolated women's quarters, the mihrab, towers, and decorative elements on the buildings themselves. Many ruins may still be observed near the southern Kenyan port of Malindi in the Gede ruins (the lost city of Gede/Gedi).[8]
Sources
- ^ Swahili people listing - JoshuaProject, Retrieved on 2007-08-28
- ^ Gilbert. Coastal East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean
- ^ African Archaeological Review, Volume 15, Number 3, September 1998 , pp. 199-218(20)
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
millermintzwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ East African Coastal Historical Towns: Asiatic or African? - by Jacob L. Kimaryo (2000)
- ^ Mark Horton, Shanga: a Muslim Trading Community on the East African Coast (Nairobi: 1996)
- ^ Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354 - Medieval Sourcebook, Retrieved on 2007-08-28.
- ^ Ruins of the walled city of Gedi, Kenya
See also
External links
- The Story of Africa: The Swahili — BBC World Service
- Swahili Culture