The Shambaa people, also called the Sambaa, Shambala, Sambala or Sambara are an ethnic group. The Sambaa people are related to the Bondei people. Their ancestral home is on the Usambara Mountains of Lushoto District, Korogwe District and Bumbuli District. They are native to the valleys and eastern Usambara Mountains of Korogwe District, Korogwe Urban District and western Muheza District of northern Tanga Region of Tanzania.Katariina Vainio-Mattila (2000), Wild vegetables used by the Sambaa in the Usambara Mountains, NE Tanzania, Annales Botanici Fennici, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2000), pages 57–67 The word Shamba means "farm", and these people live in one of the most fertile Tanzanian regions. Shambaai in Kisambaa means "where the bananas thrive". In 2001, the Shambaa population was estimated to number 664,000.
Overview and origins The Shambaa lived on one of the numerous isolated mountain blocks of the Usambaras in the northeast, a "green island in a brown sea." According to their historian, "The Shambaa" are inhabitants of a distinct botanical habitat that was unique to that region. Its native name, Shambaai, literally translates to "where bananas thrive," and the locals used it to distinguish it from the nearby nyika, or dry plains. In eastern Tanganyika, where the contrast between the mountains and the plains is stark, this categorization by adaptation to a particular habitat was typical. The Bondei, or "people of the valley," were the Shamba's lowland neighbors.Iliffe, J. (1979). A Modern History of Tanganyika (African Studies). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511584114
Below 1,000 meters, malaria is endemic, and it is seasonal in many higher locations. Since it was frequently fatal to the young and crippling to their seniors, it was probably a significant population growth restraint and another reason why people preferred the highlands. The highlanders of Shambaa were aware of the link between malaria and mosquitoes and were afraid to stay even one night in the nyika.
When a Shambaa left the mountains, he frequently lost his identity as a Shambaa. Civilization was the result of a people's environmental adaption. Mbegha, the hero credited with founding the Shambaa empire, was the subject of a fantastic legend among the Shambaa. According to the legend, he hunted wild pigs in the nearby region of Ungulu. Because he had cut his upper teeth first when he was a baby, his kinsmen withheld his inheritance because they believed he was mystically dangerous. As a result, he ran away and hunted till he reached Usambara.
He met Shambaa there. Megha provided them with meat, and they fed him vegetables. They gave him a wife when he slaughtered the wild pigs that were destroying their crops. They made him their king after he killed a lion that had been attacking their cattle. The story contrasted the life of a hunter with an agriculturalist's, as well as meat with veggie sustenance, among its many levels of meaning. Megha was a fierce hunter who was outside the bounds of civilized civilization until the Shamba gave him vegetable food and introduced him to their way of life, civilizing him. The dichotomy between cultivated land and the wilderness of the nyika and the mountain rainforest that they had been clearing for generations was important to Shambaa views of civilization.
Language The Shambaa people speak the Shambala language, also known as Kisambaa, Kishambaa, Kishambala, Sambaa, Sambala, Sambara, Schambala, Shambaa.
Kishambaa is the Sambaa word for the Shambala language, Wasambaa are the people (Msambaa for a person), and Usambaa or Usambara is used for Sambaa lands. The Shambaa call their lands Shambalai.
They are related to the Bondei and Zigua people, and the Shambala language is mutually intelligible with Bondei and Zigua, with the three groups sharing significant overlap in territory and a long history of intermarriage. The similarity between them has prompted some to refer to themselves as "Boshazi" (the first syllable from each of the three groups).
Sambaa belongs to the North East Coastal Bantu languages. This is a group which includes Swahili; however, Swahili is not mutually intelligible with Sambaa.
History Early history Some members of the Sambaa community assert that they have lived in the Usambara mountains for all of recorded history. Other groups claim to have arrived much earlier than the Kilindi. During famines in Zigualand, usually in Ngulu, the majority of the ancient clans of southern Usambara assert that they made their way up into the fertile hills. They benefited from greater rainfall and hardy banana trees after relocating to the highlands. They built extensive irrigation systems. Some made their home at the edge of the plains near the base of the mountains, while others moved higher up the hillsides and cut their way through the forests at the top of the mountains. The Shambaa were still clearing forests when European settlers arrived in the late nineteenth century. It appears that the immigrants started by chopping around the mountain's edge and continued all the way up to the higher, more central areas of Usambara.Roberts, Andrew, and Beverley Brock. Tanzania Before 1900 Published for the Historical Association of Tanzania by the East African Pub. House, 1968.
There was obviously no central political authority in those days, and people from villages a mile apart would be wary of one another. Typically, all of an ancestor's descendants would reside on a single hill, apart from those of other ancestors. The local populace offered sacrifices to the ancestors as a group. It was always possible for some individuals to relocate to a different village, and the relationship between the two villages would frequently lose significance. Despite this, it was evident that meeting and working together was important for the residents of multiple villages, even in cases where economic specialization was not the source of cooperation. The person conducting the ritual in rites of passage and ancestor sacrifices had to be unfamiliar with the host village.
Marriage served as a bridge between two communities. Although the men of a single village were remarkably self-sufficient in their daily activities, the early Shambaa's religion mandated frequent meetings and communal drinking, feasting, and dancing. When there were disagreements between two villages, the elders from a wider region would get together to talk about the situation. There was some economic cooperation and specialization at the same time. It was evident that an entire neighborhood benefited from shared irrigation works. The only way to obtain shell ornaments, which were required for some rituals, was through coastal trade. A few locations on the plains produced salt, which was traded throughout Usambara. Iron tools for a whole area were made by designated blacksmiths.
The Masai people migrated to Tanzania from the north, probably in the early to late 1700s, and this contributed significantly to the development of more centralized political structures by the Sambaa. Because of the risk of Masai raids and violence, settlement on the lower slopes became more precarious, and even in the highest areas, centralized towns were helpful for defense. Furthermore, a considerable number of recent Sambaa immigrants were entering the relatively safe mountainous area. The Mbughu and Nango refugee groups were particularly significant. They both originated in roughly the same region that eventually became known as the Masai steppe. They ran east to Pare Mountains and from there to Shume, which is the western border of Usambara.
The Mbughu, an immigrant Cushitic pastoralist group, threatened the small clan-chiefdoms that Shambaa had initially established since their tribal structures were incompatible with the local cultivators' organization. Tradition holds that Mbegha, the roving hunter from Ungulu, was the old culture's savior.
He subdued the Shambaa by using force, guile, diplomacy, and marriage into Shambaa noble households. His empire was a living example of the previous way of life. Vugha, the royal capital, was created as a sizable Shambaa town and was thought to have 3,000 residents in 1857. The Shambaa state was founded on kinship. The monarchy aimed to undermine the strength and morality of the clans, but lineages arbitrated internal conflicts and assumed collective responsibility for their members. The Kilindi, a group of people with royal ancestry who were Mbegha's offspring according to Shambaa wives, represented the governmental system. Their maternal uncles, who were commoners, held the sub-chiefs of the Kilindi in check.
Cattle-keeping had been vital to both the Mbugu and Nango, and the Masai had threatened their lives and means of subsistence. The majority of the previous immigrants to Usambara were small-family groups from Zigua, Pare, and Taita, and they assimilate into Sambaa culture quite easily. However, the Nango and Mbughu attempted to preserve their individual identities and arrived in sizable, well-organized groups. Up until the era of colonization, the Mbughu people lived in isolation.
In the tall forests above the Shambaa farming, they took care of their cattle. The Nango migrated throughout the entire Shambaa settlement, assimilating into the language and absorbing much of the customs while upholding the religious customs they had carried with them. Large numbers of Nango had to periodically return to Shume to perform certain rituals. The head of all the Nango was a man of some influence who resided in Shume.
Shambaa Kingdom
Kilindi era
The WaSambaa were ruled by the Kilindi dynasty from the mid-18th century to the end of the 19th century. The founder of the dynasty was Mbegha, who was from Ngulu and his son Bughe established the hilltop capital at Vuga in the Usambaras. The kingdom reached its greatest extent under Kimweri ye Nyumbai. After he died in 1862 a civil war broke out over the succession, fueled by competition for the new wealth that the caravan trade in the Pangani valley had brought to the region.
The Kilindi originally arrived in the Usambara, which was in disarray due to the start of recent Masai raids and the inflow of a sizable number of immigrants from a foreign culture. The Kilindi, a group of royal people, arrived in this environment.
Mbegha's reign and the establishment of the Shambaa Kingdom
Mbegha was the name of the first Usambara king. All throughout Usambara, his story is told and repeated. Mbegha was a hunter in Ngulu, where it all began. After being driven from Ngulu by his relatives, he embarked on an extended journey of hunting and wandering. Mbegha came to Usambara to hunt near the mountains' southernmost point.
When the Shambaa spotted him, he descended to find out who the stranger was. He gave the Shambaa meat in an incredibly kind gesture. The discovery of a hunter capable of eliminating the wild pigs that were despoiling all the crops thrilled the Shambaa. Mbegha proceeded on a victorious tour throughout Usambara, executing pigs, mediating conflicts, and giving away free meat. In appreciation and thanks, the Shambaa bestowed upon him wives and crowned him king of all Usambara.
During the more than a century that the Kilindi ruled Usambara, anyone who suggested that the Kilindi's rule was the result of cruel conquest, cun-ning, or threats faced the risk of death. To challenge the Mbegha narrative was to challenge Kilindi authority. So, even though the story might be true, we have to keep in mind that it is the story as the Kilindi intended it to be told.