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.

History of Pangani town!

Pangani is a town in northeast Tanzania that lies 45 km south of Tanga, at the mouth of the Pangani River. It is the headquarters of Pangani District.

   Several historical sites in and around the town serve as reminders of the strong Arabic influence and the later German   and British colonial era in Tanganyika. The district boma or headquarters is the most impressive building remaining from the period of Zanzibari rule

   Pangani was once a secondary center of the sisal industry, servicing sisal plantations to the north and south of town. Pangani also has a fishing industry. In recent years beach resorts north and south of the town have brought tourists. The town is a district headquarters. Its hospital draws patients from many parts of the region. Funguni Secondary School is in Pangani Town and Boza Secondary School is a short distance north.

 
for more info : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangani

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THE TONGONI RUINS IN TANGA

The Tongoni Ruins are 15th century ruins of a mosque and forty tombs in Tongoni, a small fishing village 17 km south of Tanga in Tanzania. The area was a different place four to five centuries ago. Contrary to its almost unnoticed presence today, it was a prosperous and a respected trading centre during the 15th Century.

The ruins at Tongoni are under the Antiquities department. The ruins are open to the public but there have been no Phase III excavations. Decades ago, a small test excavation was conducted at the site and a site plan was drawn. A more recent ruin of a mosque (of about one hundred years) at the other end of the village, on the beach, can also be visited. 

EXPERIENCE SWAHILI CULTURE IN COASTAL AREA OF TANZANIA.

    Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili Coast. This littoral area encompasses Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique, as well as the adjacent islands of Zanzibar and Comoros and some parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi. They speak Swahili as their native language, which belongs to the Niger-Congo family.
Swahili culture is the product of the history of the coastal part of the African Great Lakes region, an area that has been influenced by Middle Eastern, Indian, Persian and Portuguese cultures. As with the Swahili language, Swahili culture has a Bantu core that has been modified by those foreign influences.
                                                        ART AND CRAFT
         Another cultural aspect of the Swahili is their use of arts and crafts, which they find significance in. When creating art, they express themselves through creativity as well as through shape and function. Some multicultural influences can be seen in Swahili art, furniture, and architecture. They do not often use designs with images of living beings due to their Muslim heritage. Instead, Swahili designs are primarily geometric. There are important clothes that are part of their arts and crafts such as the Kanga. The Kanga is not only a rectangular piece of cloth but is an artifact of the Swahili culture. The cloth should be made with extreme care. If the cloth doesn’t match the season then it doesn’t deserve to be a Kanga and can be used as a baby diaper or an apron for the kitchen. Even though the Kanga is quite cheap, it is still a main part of Swahili culture. The Kanga is made in Tanzania and is mostly appealing to woman rather than men but men are not restricted to using it. The cloth is used as a sling to carry babies, melons on their heads and can also be used as a kitchen apron.
                                                            MUSIC
  The most typical musical genre of Swahili culture is taarab (or tarabu), sung in the Swahili language. Its melodies and orchestration have Arab and Indian influences (although Western instruments, such as guitars, are sometimes used).
In the 20th century several musical genres have emerged in the Swahili worlds, that are derivatives of Western popular music. One major example is muziki wa dansi, which is the Tanzanian counterpart of Congolese soukous (rumba). In the last decades of the century, most Swahili music has been in the afropop vein. This includes several local derivatives of American hip hop.

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Maasai People the popular tribe in Tanzania

     The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group of semi-nomadic people inhabiting southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress .The Maasai speak Maa (ɔl Maa), a member of the Nilo-Saharan language family that is related to Dinka and Nuer. They are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahili and English.

Settlement in East Africa

Maasai territory reached its largest size in the mid-19th century, and covered almost all of the Great Rift Valley and adjacent lands from Mount Marsabit in the north to Dodoma in the south. At this time the Maasai, as well as the larger Nilotic group they were part of, raised cattle as far east as the Tanga coast in Tanzania.

Culture

    Traditional Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle which constitute their primary source of food. The measure of a man's wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better. A man who has plenty of one but not the other is considered to be poor. A Maasai religious belief relates that God gave them all the cattle on earth, leading to the belief that rustling cattle from other tribes is a matter of taking back what is rightfully theirs, a practice that has become much less common

All of the Maasai’s needs for food are met by their cattle. They eat the meat, drink the milk and on occasion, drink the blood. Bulls, oxen and lambs are slaughtered for meat on special occasions and for ceremonies. Though the Maasai’s entire way of life has historically depended on their cattle, more recently, with their cattle dwindling, the Maasai have grown dependent on food such as sorghum, rice, potatoes and cabbage

    The men in the Maasai tribe are born and raised to be warriors. They don‘t marry when they are young but instead they stay in the woods. This is the reason why there is a great age difference between husbands and their wives, because they are not allowed to marry until they are older while the women marry when they are young.
For more information click below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people