Nyamwezi

NYAMWEZI Nyamwezi They are currently the second largest group in Tanzania, about two hundred million. Many years ago they emigrated to Tanzania when the great Bantu emigration of the centuries occurred from the Great Lakes region of Central Africa XVI and XVIIThey currently occupy the provinces of Tabora and Shinyanga, south of Lake Victoria and east of Lake Tanganyika, a region named Unyamwezi, meaning “the place of the Wanyamwezi”. In addition to other languages such as Swahili or English, they mainly speak the Kinyamwezi language. In fact its name comes from the swahili meaning “people or way of the Moon”, a name given to indicate that this town comes from the west, where the moon appears. It is not a united group, like many other peoples in Africa, it is formed by four groups of different cultures, the Wagalaganza group, the sagala, the kahama and the iguluibi, being the first most important of all, besides having received strong influences from their neighbours and even from the Arabs and Western colonizers. Closely related to the Sukuma people. Islam and Christianity have also exerted a great influence, not only on a religious level but also on a cultural level. However, as in most African peoples, converts to these religions have continued to celebrate the cult of ancestors and various rites of passage, known as syncretism. Good traders and skilled elephant hunters enriched themselves with the ivory trade and it seems that it was they who opened the caravan routes to the coast. They also had great clashes with other ethnic groups and mainly with the Germans throughout much of the colonial period. Defeated by the Germans in World War I, they were replaced by the British, who incorporated indigenous leaders into the colonial administration. The improvements acquired with the trade and purchase of modern weapons and all the avatars they faced strengthened the unity of the Nyamwezi They began to see themselves as one people and have actively participated in the political, economic and cultural process in Tanzania. As we have said, despite the conversion to other religions the African people continue to worship forefathers daily, traditional spirituality is based on the relationship between the world of the living and the ancestors. The Nyamwezi believe in a Supreme God, Likube, also in a Creator God, Limatunda, and in the Sun, Limi, and in the Univero, Liwelolo. As in other peoples, ancestors are believed to be actively involved in the world of the living. For them continuous interaction. One of the first rites of passage in which an entire initiation is celebrated is birth. A feast is held, if the baby is a boy, his father will build a bow with an arrow and present him to the elderly men of the village, and each of them will peel a peanut near the child’s ear, at the ceremony called “bupatula matwi” to be a wise and awake child when he grows up. If the newborn is a child, then the ceremony will take place before the elderly of the village. The villages are made up of houses or huts made of clay bricks, and the roofs with iron bars corrugated with earth-enforced straw. Tanzania, except Dar es Salaam, where the standard of living is quite modern, the country is quite poor, mainly the south coast. The Nyamwezi are in the middle of these two extremes. It is a tolerant people with a great cultural heritage, highlighting music and dance. Hunting remains an important factor within the culture of Nyamwezi, gathering hunters in secret societies that have their special rituals and also continue to practice trade, agriculture and crafts. Men deal with livestock and heavy labour and women with repetitive domestic work and pottery. After the creation of Tanzania many Nyamwezi And as in almost all African cultures there is also magic, practiced mainly by men.