Kaguru people

The Kaguru, or Kagulu, are an ethnic and linguistic group based in central Tanzania. In 1987 the Kaguru population was estimated to number 217,000 [1].

Ukagura (Kaguraland about 3,600 square miles) lies roughly 200 miles directlly due west of Bagamoyo and Sadani on the 'Street of Caravans' (reached by the German caravan of Stokes on August 12, 1890, about two and three weeks after starting from Sadani). The mountains formed part of a belt stretshing diagonally from southwest to northeast across the East Rift system of German East Africa. To the west and north lies the central plateau comprising two-thirds of Tanzania.

There are three very different areas, the core, the plateau, and the lowlands. The core is mass of mountain peaks (6,000 - 7,000 ft.) considered part of of the east rift system, and represents one third of the area. In (the German) Sergeant Bauer's time only a a few of its mountains were, and remain today, thickly wooded, for most were already deforestedbecause of the iron smelting industry with its intense need for charcoal and the severe agricultural clearing.