Haya (ethnic group)

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The Haya are an ethnic and linguistic group based in the Bukoba, Muleba and Karagwe Districts of Kagera Region in northwestern Tanzania. In 1991 the Haya population was estimated to number 1,200,000 [1].

1 Haya History
2 Archeological Dicoveries
3 References
4 See also

[edit] Haya History

The Haya were said to have settled in the Kagera region of north western Tanzania during the time of the Bantu expansion. They are believed to be some of the earliest inhabitants in the area to practice metal work which allowed them to create various forms of pottery. They were organize into small groups which were loosely affiliated with one another and organized in a system similar to feudalism with commoners and nobles as the main participants [2] . With the arrival of the Europeans and christianity the region became famous for yielding the first African Roman Catholic Cardinal the late Cardinal Laurian Rugambwaalso they valued formal education early compared to other tribes [3]. In 1978 The ancestral region to which the Haya belong was subject to an attempt at annexation by the former Ugandan president Idi Amin Dada whose invasion of the Kagera region eventually lead to the toppling of his government by the Tanzanian army [4].

[edit] Archeological Dicoveries

The haya people of Tanzania have been linked to one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time the advent of steel. Anthropologist Peter Schmidt discovered through the communication of oral tradition that the Haya have been forging steel for nearly 2000 years. This discovery was made accidentally while Schmidt was learning about the history of the Haya via their oral tradition. He was lead to a tree which was said to rest on the spot of an ancestral furnace used to forge steel. When later tasked with the challenge of recreating the forges, a group of elders who at this time were the only ones to remember the practice, due to the disuse of the practice due in part to the abundance of steel flowing into the country from foreign sources. this skill was all but forgotten. However, in spite of the lack of practice the elders were able to create a furnace using mud and grass which when burnt provided the carbon needed to transform the iron into steel. Later investigation of the land yielded 13 other furnaces similar in design to the recreation set up by the elders. These furnaces were carbon dated and were found to be as old as 2000 years,whereas steel of this calibur did not appear in Europe until several centuries later. These findings may help alter the perception held by modern society that technological advancement occurred uniquely in Europe but not in Africa [5].

[edit] References

Haya,an ethnic group of northwestern Tanzania (html). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Retrieved on 2007-09-21..