The Sandawe tribe in Tanzania

   The Sandawe are an indigenous ethnic group of Southeast Africa, based in the Kondoa district of Dodoma Region in central Tanzania. They were predominantly hunter-gatherers before Europeans colonized Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Sandawe language is a tonal language with clicks, apparently related to the Khoe languages of southern Africa. 

   Culture

 The Sandawe practice an insular and deeply spiritual culture with an emphasis on animism. Caves in the hills were believed to harbor spirits and were respected and even feared. So as not to disturb these spirits, the caves were avoided, no animals were herded there, and no wood cut or twigs broken. Once a year the Sandawe would go to the caves to perform rituals of sacrifice in order to make sure the spirits would not be spiteful and interfere with the community's general well-being. People would go to the caves in the hills as a group shouting prayers to the spirits, assuring them that no one had come to disturb them, but had come to pay their respects. These prayers were shouted as loudly as possible, to make sure that the spirits could hear no matter where they were. 

    There was a god, Warange, who was so abstract, distant, and unrelated to the well-being of normal life that it was rarely prayed to or given sacrifices. As in almost all African areas, religion consisted of a long line of ancestors and a strongly-knit extended family system that mediated between living beings and a very remote all-powerful God. The Sandawe were and remain an outgoing people, fond of singing, dancing, making music, and drinking beer, and have an enormous store of songs. All ceremonials and rituals differed from one another, such as those of harvest and courtship, as did those of the curing rituals with their trances, the circumcision festivals, and simba possession dances, in which dancers imitated lions in order to combat witchcraft. The Sandawe still retain a strong oral tradition, loving to recount stories, which embody the collective wisdom of the group.