Sandawe people

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The Sandawe are an agricultural ethnic group based in the Kondoa District of Dodoma Region in central Tanzania. In 2000 the Sandawe population was estimated to number 40,000 [1].

The Sandawe language is a tonal language with clicks, apparently related to the Khoe languages of southern Africa. Recent research suggests that the ancestors of the Khoe were pastoralists, and migrated into southern Africa from the northeast, perhaps from the region of the modern Sandawe.

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The Sandawe today are considered descendants of an original Bushman-like people, not at all like the Gogo, and are considered shrewd, cunning, and crafty by their neighbors, (much as Stanley did when he wrote of the Gogo). They lived, and still do, in the geographic center of the old German East Africa, the 'Street of Caravans' passing on their southern edge.

Peppercorn hair and 'click sounds in their Koi-san language described as 'bird-like' and very difficult to learn by the surrounding Banu - are features relating them to the Bushmen of Southern Africa. The language is similar to the Nama Hottentot of Namibia and is totally unrelated to the Bantu of their neighbors, even though they have mixed with these people for centuries. They were and are the most culturally and linguistically diverse people in Africa.

Many Sandawe are small, light-boned, and light skinned, or as Lt. Prince would have it 'small and yellowish', have thin lips, an epicanthic eye fold, excessive wrinkling of the skin in old age, and some have steatopygia (the accumulation fat in the buttocks and haunches.)

They were considered expert survivalists during time of food shortages as a result of having a strong hunting and gathering tradition. During the expeditions of Stokes and Emin Pasha they had also become herdera and herders and agriculturalists, but still tended to be called Wagogo; It was only during the travels of Lt. Prince in 1895 they were finally recognized as a separate prople maintaining their independence, having a low level of culture, and being politically and militarily insignificant. By 1902 they were no longer militarily insignificant.

The Sandawe adopted agriculture from their Bantu neighbors, probably the Gogo, and scattered their homesteads wherever a suitable piece of land was found for millet, sorghum, or maize. They were uncomfortable with and had no use for, village life. They were basically a stateless people, showing little talent for 'empire building' who did, however, have a tradition of mutual cooperation in such things as hoeing and threshing, home building, and organizing informal temporary parties to hunt pig and elephant. When the Germans finally checked them out they appeared very primitive, and were described as such. They built their very temporary huts away from waterholes, and then went hunting in surrounding country and probably did not practice polygamy until adopting agriculture from the Bantu, again possibly from the Gogo.

Colonial Times In colonial times, some clans used their prestige as rainmakers to lay claim to chiefly status, but were never really accepted as such. The Germans were told that Mtoro wielded some authority. He was officially made headman or leader of a recently established Nyamwezi colony.

The Sandawe so hated Mtoro and the Nyamwezi settlers that they threw them out in 1902, and seized their cattle. Lieutenant Kohlerman was sent and within three days killed 800 men, reportedly without suffering a casualty, while a second espedition then came and captured 1,100 cattle. The district commander reported 'progress'.

"The rock-strewn land of Usandawe...is inhabited by a still thoroughly warlike, predatory, and unexplored mountain people whose members do not recognize German rule, live far apart and tolerate no headmen or superiors, and have hereto rid themselves in drastic fashion of those experimentally installed by the station. We now have the situation well in hand."

Encouraged he withdrew the military. The Sandawe attacked as the German military left, announcing a willingness to confront a nww expedtion and began harassing the Nyamwezi. In the end the Sandawe were brought to heel and 'pacified' and 22 headmen were appointed, mainly from the traditional rainmaking clans. They now had chiefs. One of the headmen said "If any one defies my order, I will appeal to the European (Sergeant Linke. He is one who punishes with fetters and the whip....Therefore, my people see that you live in peace.

With the end of colonialism, the institution of chiefdom quickly crumbled and disappeared. In telling their stories the Sandawe identify with small animals that use their cunning and intelligence to outwit their dangerous and more powerful enemies. The Wasandawehave been doing this for their own survival for a long time. As Tom Prince understood it in his book "Gegen Araber und Wahehe","the deathly fear that must have existed to drive these people thousands of kilometers from their homes south of the equator, into the middle of countless strange tribes to find peace, can only be guessed at."

Culture of the Sandawe 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 twig broken. Once a year the Wasandawe would go to the caves to sacrifice in order to make sure the spirits would not be spiteful and interfere with the 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. The Sandawe beliefs also centered on a veneration of the moon, the stars, the seasons, and mantis insect. The moon was seen as a symbol of life and fertility, it is cool and beneficial, it brought rain, and it controlled the cycle of fertility in women, The mantis was divine messenger with a special reason for appearing and a medium was usually consulted to find the explanation.

There was a God, Warongwe, who was, however, 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 between living beings and a very remote all-powerful God.

The Wasandawe were and remain an outgoing people, fond of singing, dancing, music making, and beer drinking, having 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 dance, in which dancers imitated lions in order to combat witchcraft. Even today the Sandawe retain a strong oral tradition, loving to recount stories, which embody the collective wisdom of the group.

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