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

   ADVERTISE WITH US: +2250653683428
          Email: teresiamsanga@yahoo.com

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..!

            Do you wish to visit Amani Nature Reserve: Call +2250653683428

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 

HADZABE PEOPLE: The unique tribe in Tanzania, are not closely genetically related to any other people

The  Hadzabe are an indigenous ethnic group in north-central Tanzania, living around Lake Eyasi in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau, they are among the last hunter-gatherers in the world.

The Hadzabe are not closely genetically related to any other people. While traditionally classified with the Khoisan languages, primarily because it has clicks, the Hadzabe language appears to be an isolate, unrelated to any other. As descendants of Tanzania's aboriginal hunter-gatherer population, they have probably occupied their current territory for thousands of years, with relatively little modification to their basic way of life until the past hundred years

Since the 18th century, the Hadzabe came into increasing contact with farming and herding people entering Hadzaland and its vicinity, the interactions were often hostile and caused population decline in the late 19th century. The first European contact and written accounts of the Hadzabe are from the late 19th century. Since then, there have been many attempts by successive colonial administrations, the independent Tanzanian government, and foreign missionaries to settle the Hadzabe, by introducing farming and Christianity. These have largely failed, and many Hadzabe still pursue virtually the same way of life as their ancestors are described as having in early 20th-century accounts. In recent years, they have been under pressure from neighboring groups influence on their land, and also affected by tourism and safari hunting

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

The Hadzabe are organized into bands, called 'camps' in the literature, of typically 20–30 people, though camps of over a hundred may form during berry season. There is no tribal or other governing hierarchy, and conflict may be resolved by one of the parties voluntarily moving to another camp. The Hadzabe live in a communal setting and engage in cooperative child rearing, where many individuals provide high quality care for children.

The Hadzabe move camp for a number of reasons. Conflict is resolved primarily by leaving camp; camps frequently split for this reason. Camps are abandoned when someone falls ill and dies, as illness is associated with the place they fell ill. There is also seasonal migration between dry-season refuges, better hunting grounds while water is more abundant, and areas with large numbers of tubers or berry trees when they are in season. If a man kills a particularly large animal such as a giraffe far from home, a camp will temporarily relocate to the kill site (smaller animals are brought back to the camp). Shelters can be built in a few hours, and most of the possessions owned by an individual can be carried on their backs.

The Hadzabe are predominantly monogamous, though there is no social enforcement of monogamy While men and woman value traits such as hard work when evaluating for mates they also value physical attractiveness

SUBSISTENCE

 Hadzabe men usually forage individually, and during the course of day usually feed themselves while foraging, and also bring home some honey, fruit, or wild game when available. Women forage in larger parties, and usually bring home berries, baobab fruit, and tubers, depending on availability. Men and women also forage cooperatively for honey and fruit, and at least one adult male will usually accompany a group of foraging women. During the wet season, the diet is composed mostly of honey, some fruit, tubers, and occasional meat. The contribution of meat to the diet increases in the dry season, when game become concentrated around sources of water. During this time, men often hunt in pairs, and spend entire nights lying in wait by waterholes, hoping to shoot animals that approach for a night-time drink, with bows and arrows treated with poison. The Hadzabe are highly skilled, selective, and opportunistic foragers, and adjust their diet according to season and circumstance. Depending on local availability, some groups might rely more heavily on tubers, others on berries, others on meat. This variability is the result of their opportunism and adjustment to prevailing conditions.

Traditionally, the Hadzabe do not make use of hunting dogs, although this custom has been recently borrowed from neighboring tribes to some degree. Women's foraging technology includes the digging stick, grass baskets for carrying berries, large fabric or skin pouches for carrying items, knives, shoes, other clothing, and various small items held in a pouch around the neck. Men carry axes, bows, poisoned and non-poisoned arrows, knives, small honey pots, fire drills, shoes and apparel, and various small items.

While men specialize in obtain meat, honey, and baobab fruit, women specialize in tubers, berries, and greens. This division of labor is rather apparent, but women will occasionally gather a small animal or egg, or gather honey, and men will occasionally bring a tuber or some berries back to camp