Cultural Visit to Maasai Boma

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Maasai Boma

      Throughout history succession of cattle herding people moved into the Ngorongoro Area and lived here until forced to move on by other stronger tribes. Around 200 years ago the Maasai arrived driving all before them. It is still possible to visit their communities and see their traditional way of life.

     About 42,200 Maasai herders in the NCA. During the rainy season they move on to the open plains and in the long hard dry season they move into the nearby woods. The Maasai are permitted to descend with their animals into the Ngorongoro Crater for water and grazing. They are not allowed to live or farm there. Elsewhere in the NCA they can to roam freely. 

       Visitors are welcomed at several designated Maasai cultural bomas. A visit to one of the following is highly recommended:Kiloki Senyati Cultural Boma, Loonguku Cultural Boma, Irkeepusi Cultural Boma or Seneto Cultural Boma.

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

Hifadhi ya Arusha

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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.

Amani Nature Reserve the home of butterflies..!

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