Chagga states
The Chagga States or Chagga Kingdoms also historically referred to as the Chaggaland were a pre-colonial series of Bantu sovereign states of the Chagga people on Mount Kilimanjaro in modern-day northern Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. The Chagga kingdoms existed as far back as the 17th century according to oral tradition, a lot of recorded history of the Chagga states was written with the arrival and colonial occupation of Europeans in the mid to late 19th century. On the mountain, many minor dialects of one language are divided into three main groupings that are defined geographically from west to east: West Kilimanjaro, East Kilimanjaro, and Rombo. One word they all have in common is Mangi, meaning king in Kichagga. The British called them chiefs as they were deemed subjects to the British crown, thereby rendered unequal. After the conquest, substantial social disruption, domination, and reorganization by the German and British colonial administrations, the Chagga states were officially abolished in 1963 by the Nyerere administration during its third year as the newly independent nation of Tanganyika.
History
The Bantu peoples began migrating to the Kilimanjaro region approximately five to six centuries ago, with some evidence suggesting even earlier settlements. Local traditions indicate that the mountain was already inhabited by the Wakonyingo or Wateremba pygmies prior to the arrival of the Bantu. Archaeological discoveries on Western Kilimanjaro, including stone bowls, obsidian flakes, pottery fragments, and tools, suggest human activity in the area dating back around 2,000 years.The initial Bantu settlers are believed to have migrated either directly from the Taita region or later from a more northern location known as 'Shungwaya,' situated between the Tana and Juba rivers. Scholars debate the timeframe of these migrations, with some proposing a dispersal between A.D. 1200 and 1300, while others suggest it may have occurred three to five centuries later. Support for the later timeline is found in oral traditions of the Mbokomu clan, which asserts that their founding ancestor originated from Gonja in Usambara and migrated north to the Pokomo area before reaching Kilimanjaro approximately six generations before the mid-19th century. Additionally, there are accounts of the 'Umbo' people from Usambara who migrated in large numbers across the southern slopes of the mountain.
Kilimanjaro lacked native iron ore, necessitating the acquisition of iron through trade. The Chagga people primarily sourced iron from the Pare and possibly the Kamba communities. The extent of iron usage prior to the mid-18th century remains unclear, although Chagga oral traditions reference a period before the introduction of iron spear technology. While the exact timeline for the arrival of iron is debated, it is acknowledged that from the late 18th century onward, the availability of iron increased significantly, leading to widespread use of iron spears.
Furthermore, the inhabitants of Kilimanjaro generally did not possess the means to produce pottery, likely due to a scarcity of clay. Consequently, they obtained pottery from settlements in the plains, such as Kahe, although some localized production occurred in areas like Usseri in the northeast and Narumu in the south. Overall, the Chagga relied heavily on trade with neighboring communities for essential commodities, including iron, pottery, and magadi—a type of soda used in cooking.
Etymology
The term "Chagga" is an exonym referring to the area around Mount Kilimanjaro and its slopes, rather than the mountain itself. Its origin is unclear, but some linguists believe it was coined by Bantu language speakers, including Swahili speakers, to describe the mountain's inhabitants following the arrival of coastal traders in the early 19th century. In contrast, the endonym "Wakirima," meaning "People of the Mountain" in Kichagga, is used locally, while "Chagga" does not have a specific meaning among the inhabitants.The word was taken by European explorers who arrived on the mountain in the middle to end of the nineteenth century from their Swahili guides. A pioneer in this was Johannes Rebmann. He referred to both individuals as "Jagga" in his letters and journal entries. While mentioning the various kingdoms, he thought of the mountain as one social and cultural realm. He was followed by explorers like Karl Klaus von der Decken who visited in 1869, Charles New in 1871, Harry Johnston in 1886–7, Hans Meyer in 1887, and William Abbott in 1888, and they all came to refer to the mountain as Kilimanjaro and the locals as Chagga.
The mountain was already referred to by the Swahili as "Kilima Ndsharo", "The Country of Dschagga," at the coast in the early 19th century. Rebmann said the mountains meaning from Swhaili is "Great Mountain" or "the Mountain of the Caravans" in 1848–1849, referring to the mountain that could be seen from a great distance and acted as a signpost for travelers. He and Krapf discovered that different adjacent peoples had different names for it: the Taita just reduced the coastal Swahili name to "Ndscharo." The Kamba termed it "Kima ja Jeu," or "Mountain of Whiteness." The Maasai dubbed it "Ol Donyo Eibor," or "White Mountain." It was simply referred to as "Kibo" by the Chagga themselves, particularly the Kilema and Machame. By 1860, Rebmann's German spelling of Kilimandscharo from 1848 to 1849 had adopted the anglicized name "Kilimanjaro".
The most striking illustration came from Johnston, who built a homestead on the slopes of the mountain and spent close to six months there. He described the kingdom in which he lived, Moshi, as one of many "Chagga states" on the mountain in his texts. He speaks to the mountain as if they are a single group, destined in the natural order of events to become politically unified, despite the division and animosity existing on the mountain.
The usage of a single name to describe Kilimanjaro sounded reasonable from a distance. The people spoke what was thought to be a dialect of the same language, lived on the same mountain slopes, engaged in the same types of agriculture, and shared many other cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and social structures. Nevertheless, it also revealed a basic misunderstanding of Africa, based on the presumption that individuals could and ought to be divided into tribes, regardless of their individual histories and ideas about what constitutes diversity.
This misconception quickly turned into the foundation of colonial rule. German expeditionary forces took over military command of the Kilimanjaro kingdoms in 1892, incorporating them into German East Africa. German control in the region drastically changed regional government in the years that followed. At the newly established town of Moshi, mangis were appointed local administrators who were tasked with keeping the peace, allocating land, organizing corvée labor, and collecting taxes under the supervision of a government official. Their prosperity now came from extorting money and labor from their subjects rather than through trade or combat.
Moreover, the Germans started to combine many of the lesser kingdoms into bigger ones. By 1916, the total had dropped to 28 as a result. The mountain was significantly impacted by Christian missionaries as well. Following the Germans into Kilimanjaro in the middle of the 1890s, the Catholic Holy Fathers and the Leipzig Lutheran Mission soon spread across the mountain, erecting churches, schools, and clinics. Every chiefdom on the mountain had a resident European missionary by the year 1915. Kilimanjaro was approached by these officials and missionaries in the same manner as it was by the explorers—as one mountain, one community.
For instance, Widenmann concluded that specific behaviors were distinctive to the "Chagga" people in his publications from the late nineteenth century concerning health on the mountain. The people were seen by missionaries as belonging to a single "tribe" that had only been divided by a century of inter-chiefdom conflict. Bruno Gutmann, a Leipzig missionary, provides one of the most extreme instances of this alleged oneness. Between 1907 and 1950, he wrote more than thirty books and essays about the inhabitants of the mountain. Along with acknowledging that they were all members of one tribe and shared an identity, he also recorded what he believed to be their shared cultural norms and rules.
Geographic context
On the slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, which rises 5,895 meters above sea level, were the Chagga kingdoms and states. Without any prior foothills, the mountain rises directly from the plain. The Shira plateau, which blends into the main shape, was created by one volcanic spout; the jagged spur Mawenzi, by another; and the summit Kibo, which is the highest point in all of Africa, by the third and final enormous eruption, which forced its way between the two.Despite being only 3 degrees south of the equator, Kibo is a natural wonder since it is permanently covered in snow and ice. The Chagga gave their mountain the name "Kibo," which in some areas of Chaggaland means "Speckled" and in others is pronounced with a remarkable felicity as "Kiboo!"
This having a mountain as focus, a precise position, in a single grate mountain which is one of the great spots of naturally fertile earth in the world, has bred the Chagga sense of identity. The sum of the individualistic histories of each tiny, long-established portion of the mountain rooted in that location, which itself drew its own identity from a mountain stream, ravine, spur of the hill, or a wall of the impenetrable forest; has colored their history, which is detailed and complex. Kahe and Arusha Chini are a part of the plain that is a component of the Chagga realm.
According to Johannes Rebmann's journals and correspondence with Johann Krapf and the Church Missionary Society, people called themselves "mountain people or "Wakirima,"and those who lived elsewhere were known as "Wanyika" or "people of the plains." Moritz Merker also made note of the classification word "wandu wa mndeni," which translates to "people of the banana groves." They used this to contrast themselves with the Humba and Kuavi, which are pastoralists, and the Kasi, or hunter-gatherers. They show how the Chagga's conception of themselves and other people was shaped by the landscape. The importance of the mountain next to the lowlands is suggested by the terms Wakirima and Wanyika.
In contrast to those who lived in the semiarid steppe, as the Maasai, those who lived on the mountain regarded themselves to be the benefactors of divine favor because they lived in a lush, well-watered environment. Meanwhile, Wandu wa Mdneny, Wasi, Humba, and Kuavi emphasize the value of sustenance. The mountain's main crop, bananas were also the defining element of the kihamba and daily life. They suggested a particular kind of social and political structure, which was viewed as lacking among the inhabitants of the plains.
Kilimanjaro has served as a signpost from which other distant tribes, trading caravans, and travelers can get their bearings in addition to providing the Chagga with a focal point. The great snow dome can be seen high in the sky for up to 240 kilometers in all directions: to the east, just inland from the Swahili coral stone coastal cities of the Indian Ocean; to the west, deep in the Serengeti plains leading through to Lake Victoria; to the south, from the Great Rift Valley on the way to Unyamwezi and Lake Tanganyika; and to the north, across an endless plain, from Mount Kenya.
The Chagga's northern neighbors are the Kamba, who are thinly spread throughout the arid region and have only one visible point, the Kamba hills; the Taita live to the east in the Taita Hills, which are visible from Chaggaland. The Taveta are situated next to them on the Lumi River's banks, down a plain that is concealed by a small area of forest. The Pare people reside to the south, concealed by the Pare Mountains' naked shoulder. The Maasai, who just recently migrated to the region from Kenya in the late 18th century, are to the south and west. Located on the slopes of Mount Meru, to the northwest, are the Meru and the Arusha.