Mafia District

Mafia District Council is one of eight administrative districts in the Pwani Region of Tanzania. It administers the main Mafia Island as well as the Mafia Archipelago. The district covers an area of, and is surrounded by the Sea of Zanj. Rufiji District lies on the other side of the Mafia Channel to the west. The district is comparable in size to the land area of Saint Lucia.
The town of Kilindoni serves as its administrative capital. The district is home to the largest concentration of Whale Sharks in Africa, the Mafia Island Marine Park, the historic Chole Island Ruins, the Kisimani Mafia, the Kua Ruins, and the Mlola Forest Reserve. According to the 2012 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Mafia District was 46,438.

Administrative divisions

Mafia District, created in 1959, contains 136 suburbs, 23 villages, 8 wards, and 2 divisions.
The Mafia District is administratively divided into eight wards and twenty villages. Before 2010, The Mafia District had seven wards, when Ndagoni Ward was created from the western part of Baleni Ward.
The wards, alongside their area and population, are listed in the below table:

Ward	Area km²	Population 2002	Population 2012	Division	Villages
Baleni	132.1	9,137	5,870	North	Baleni, Kungwi
Jibondo	21.9	3,405	3,729	South	Jibondo, Chole, Juani
Kanga	52.7	3,317	3,758	North	Kanga, Bweni
Kiegeani	40.3	3,379	4,094	South	Kiegeani , Marimbani
Kilindoni	36.8	11,696	14.221	South	Kilindoni, Dongo
Kirongwe	77.0	5,260	5,701	North	Kirongwe, Jimbo, Banja, Jojo
Miburani	52.3	4,363	4,106	South	Miburani, Mlongo, Chemuchemu
Ngadoni	n/a	n/a	4,959	North	Ndagoni, Chunguruma
Mafia Island	413	40,557	46,438	2 divisions	20 villages

Geography

Mafia District is bordered by Mkuranga District, northwest across the Mafia Channel, Rufiji and Kilwa in the Lindi Region to the southwest, and the Indian Ocean to the east and south. Mafia District has a total area of 972 km², of which 407 km² is made up of land and 565 km² is water. In addition to Mafia Island, there are eight islands within Mafia District: Juani Island, Chole Island, Jibondo Island, Bwejuu Island, Shungumbili Island, Barakuni Island, Miewi Island, and Niororo Island.
The eastern side of Mafia District is bordered by the Indian Ocean, with a 33 km outer fringing reef that runs the whole length of the eastern seaboard. It comprises Mafia, Jibondo, and Juani islands, with Kitutia Reef located at the southernmost point.

Climate

Mafia Island has a hot and sub-humid tropical climate that is affected by two monsoon winds and the East African Equatorial current, which flows north. While the southeast monsoon blows from June to October, the northeast monsoon blows from November to March. Between the varying monsoons, there may be prolonged rainfall. The typical annual rain precipitation is 1,900 mm and the typical annual temperature averages about 26.6°C.

Marine National Park

More than half of the Mafia Island Marine Park area, which covers an area of 822 km², is located at a depth of less than 20 meters below mean tide levels. The vast area south of the bay which is bordered by Mafia, Jibondo, and Juani Islands, as well as other reef sections in south Bwejuu, make up the majority of the marine park. The region is home to various tropical marine habitats, including mangrove swamps, coral reefs, and seagrass meadows. Additionally, it is home to a wide variety of fish and other marine species. The park offers a home for two threatened species of sea turtles.
The park also includes a portion of the lowland coastal forest that runs along the island's eastern shore. A total of 23,000 people live inside the park, spread across 14 communities that are entirely or partially located along the park's perimeter.

History

The earliest inhabitants of Mafia Island are Bantu communities from the Matumbi, Ndengereko, and the Rufiji across the Mafia strait on the mainland. On Mafia Island, those who claim to be of Bantu ancestry, yet occasionally identify as Washirazi make up the largest group. This indicates their longstanding Muslim status where they claim to be descended from Persian immigrants who arrived on the East Coast in about the tenth century. However, in Mafia, these individuals frequently refer to themselves as Wambwera rather than Washirazi. Wapokomo, who is claimed to have arrived in the community from northern Kenya during the Portuguese era, belongs to a second, considerably smaller category. Since the Wambwera and the Wapokomo have intermarried, a significant section of the population now considers themselves to be either one depending on the circumstances.
The first written records of the island begin with various conquests starting with the Swahili Sultanate of Kilwa, then the Portuguese, Oman Arabs, the German Empire, and the British Empire.
The coastal civilizations of Swahili city-states were at their height during the 12th and 15th centuries. Their kings and merchants constructed mosques, pillar tombs, and palaces; they issued coins and imported products from most of the known world, including Tang and Ming China. Africans and traders from other parts of the Indian Ocean, particularly the Persian Gulf region, coexisted in these settlements.
Mafia Island had taken a leading role in long-distance trade networks circling the Indian Ocean during the Swahili period. Following its absorption in the 11th century, the Mafia's connection to the sultanate of Kilwa expanded its role in commerce networks. The Kisimani Mafia was founded on the strength of Kilwa's power. Coins recovered at both Kisimani Mafia and Kua also demonstrate this. According to the discovery of Kilwa coins, Kisimani peaked during the 11th and 13th centuries. The Kilwa Chronicle also mentions that some of the first Kilwa sultan's sons made their way to Kisimani Mafia, a modern-day name for the island's southwest tip. The Mafia Island was taken over by the Portuguese when they came in the 16th century. To oversee and protect the trade connections with the far east of the island, they constructed a fort on the east coast.
Since the Kilwa sultanate, colonial control has had a mixed impact on the history of the Mafia archipelago. Both German and British colonial rule have had a significant impact on the Island's current sociopolitical situation.
According to historian Revington, slaves of affluent people whose descendants now live in Kua and Kisimani Mafia were the main inhabitants of Mafia Island during the 17th century. The Madagascar-born Sakalava people "arrived with small canoes called 'laka' and captured many people" in the 18th century, raiding local treasuries of these small cities on Mafia Island. Despite the eventual release of the prisoners, Kua was never again conquered, and as a result of the attack, the sultan's capital was transferred to Chole Island.
The Imams of Muscat took over control of the Mafia at the beginning of the 18th century. This gained momentum when the Omani Sultan Seyyid Said moved his headquarters to Zanzibar and annexed the islands. During the Omani Arab colonial era, many Arab settlers moved to the southern region of Mafia, where they established extensive coconut plantations that relied on enslaved labor brought from the mainland. The original Mafia residents, who went by the names Wambwera or Washirazi, were driven into the northern region of the island, where the soil is better suited for sustaining crops than for coconuts.
Mafia, which had been a part of the Sultan of Zanzibar's realm, became part of German East Africa in 1890. The production of coconuts increased. To produce copra, which was widely used at the time in various industries, and to generate revenue for taxes, the Germans established large plantations and mandated that all adult males plant at least fifty coconut trees.
After the borders between Germany and the British Empire were established in 1890, the German Empire took control of the Mafia Island. In 1912, the German Empire relocated from Chole to Kilindoni, the former Mafia capital. British troops captured the Mafia in 1915, and in 1922, it was incorporated into the Tanganyika Territory. More European-owned coconut plantations were established in the south of Mafia during the British era. After the enslaved peoples were emancipated by the British administration in 1922, the Arab plantations went into decline.

Archaeology

The oldest ruins are found in Kisimani Mafia, which is close to Kilindoni. The earliest strata of mosques, according to archaeologist Neville Chittick, who performed excavations in the 1950s, date from about the 10th and 11th centuries. However, many of them have since been washed into the sea. A second British archaeological expedition in the 1950s discovered coins from the 13th to the 15th centuries on Juani island. While many archaeologists date Kua to this period, others suggest a later timeframe. Tanzanian archaeologist Felix Chami recently completed his research on Mafia Island, contributing to discussions about the origins of the Swahili peoples along the coast and their connections to both the interior of Africa and the Indian Ocean. On Juani Island, he also recently conducted a cave excavation.

Etymology

The names of the archipelago have been up for debate among academics. In the late 19th century, The Mafia's major island was depicted as Chole Shamba and its smaller island, Chole Mjini. Following the sacking of Kua by the Sakalafa in the 18th century, Arab elites moved to the small island that came to be known as Chole Mjini and Chole Shamba, respectively. Some academics suggest that the name Mafia originated after the Portuguese arrived in the late 16th to early 17th century as a shortened version of their spelling of Monifiyeh.
Mafia is referred to as Monfia in the Kilwa Chronicles, and it appears to have been named and included in the realm of the first sultan of Kilwa, Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi, who had dispatched his son to conquer the region in around 1000 AD. It is believed that the Portuguese, who later controlled the Indian Ocean, abbreviated the term to Mafia.