The man-eater of Uroa and other collective fictions in Zanzibar by Martin Walsh, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge

This full article (which is very interesting) relates to events during the Colonial Administration of Zanzibar from 1948. You may download it here:

https://www.academia.edu/29187227/The_man-eater_of_Uroa_and_other_collective_fictions_in_Zanzibar


Introduction
 In the early hours of 30th June 1948 a small boy was seized and dragged from a field hut near Uroa on the east coast of Unguja island, Zanzibar, and was never seen again. Pugmarks were found nearby, and it was presumed that he had been taken and devoured by a leopard. Over the next seven weeks three more people were killed in similar circumstances in the same general area: a young girl, a middle-aged woman, and another boy. These events generated considerable alarm not only in the local communities involved, but also among officials in the British colonial administration, who ascribed the killings to a “man-eating leopard”, imagined in the mode of other “man-eaters” of African and Indian jungle lore. In an effort to prevent further deaths and contain the panic, the authorities went to some lengths to trap and kill the supposed man-eater, and its demise was announced in the second week of September 1948.

We know these and other details from the contemporary documents that have survived. The archival record includes official correspondence – some of which reached up to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London, district and other administrative reports, newspaper articles, and the personal notebook of Zanzibar‟s Senior Commissioner at the time, R.H.W. Pakenham. But though these written archives give us some insight into the knowledge and beliefs of officialdom, including Zanzibari Arab civil servants and local administrators, the voices of the villagers who experienced these events first hand are largely absent, though there are hints that they might have had something very different to say, not least their own interpretation of events. The few paragraphs that Pakenham wrote in his notebook make this very clear, though they were not intended for public consumption and did not enter the official record at the time.

Most of the people who witnessed or were close to the events of 1948 are now dead. In November 2011, having read the archives in Zanzibar some months before, I began to seek out and interview elderly people on the east coast who could recall something of what had happened more than 63 years earlier. Their accounts were very different from those preserved in the government archives, and not just richer and thick with local colour. Rather than a single man-eater, they described the depredations of multiple “kept leopards”, sent to do the bidding of the various witches who owned and controlled them. This reflected an understanding of leopard predation that persists to this day and that Helle Goldman and I have described in some detail in earlier publications (Goldman and Walsh 1997; Walsh and Goldman 2007; 2012). This paper is my first attempt to process material relating to the 1948 case, and to explore answers to some of the questions that it raises. Who and what should we believe? Can we reconcile the conflicting interpretations of Zanzibar‟s one-time rulers and the oral performances of their former subjects, discern unequivocal truth behind the competing fictions of colonial writing and postcolonial memory? What really happened?

Ibāḍī Muslim Scholars and the Confrontation with Sunni Islam in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Zanzibar

by Prof. Valerie J. Hoffman, Head of Department of Religion

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Published: in Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Inter-Faith Studies 7, 1 (Spring-Summer 2005): 91-118

THIS IS A LONG (21 PAGE) ARTICLE. HERE IS A PART WITH SECTION HEADINGS. IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE THE WHOLE ARTICLE, PLEASE SEND A COMMENT BELOW WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

The Origins and Distinctiveness of Ibāḍī Islam        

Bū Sa‘īdī Rule in Zanzibar

            The first sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Sa‘īd ibn Sulṭān,[1] was the grandson of the last recognized Imam, Aḥmad ibn Sa‘īd al-Bū Sa‘īdī, whose reign from 1741-1783 (he was elected Imam in 1753-4) inaugurated the Bū Sa‘īdī dynasty, which remains in power in Oman to this day. Omanis had long settled in East Africa, and city-states ruled by Omani families emerged in Mombasa and Pate. Successive Omani rulers were only able to subject these city-states to Omani rule temporarily. Periodically the ruler of Oman would be invited to repel the Portuguese from Mombasa, but the Mazrū‘ī family that ruled Mombasa would withdraw their fealty to Oman once the immediate threat had passed and the Omani ruler had gone. Perhaps this is why Sayyid Sa‘īd (ruled 1806-1856) decided to settle in East Africa, a pleasant region with great potential for trade and agriculture. He first visited Zanzibar, then a small town of little consequence, in 1828, and decided at that time to make it his permanent residence. He transferred his council from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1832, officially making Zanzibar the capital of the Omani empire.  Hundreds of Omanis accompanied him in his move to Zanzibar. After his death in 1856, however, the Bū Sa‘īdī empire was divided, with the rule of Oman passing to his son Thuwaynī, and the rule of Zanzibar passing to another son, Mājid. The Bū Sa‘īdīs remain in power in Oman to this day, but were overthrown in Zanzibar in January 1964.

Although Zanzibar’s rulers were Ibāḍī, the vast majority of their subjects were not. The overwhelming majority of the indigenous population of Zanzibar and the East African coast follow the Sunni school of al-Shāfi‘ī. Zanzibar was an extremely complex society during the period of Omani rule, consisting not only of Omani overlords and African subjects and slaves, but a sizable and mixed community of people originating from other parts of the Indian Ocean: Ḥanafī soldiers from Baluchistan, Ismā‘īlī, Bohorā, and Hindu merchants from India, Shāfi‘ī scholars and traders from the Ḥaḍramawt, and Twelver Shī‘a of Arab, Iranian, and Indian background. The Ḥaḍramīs frequently intermarried with the local population and became integrated into Swahili society, who were also Shāfi‘ī Sunnis, but the Omanis did so less often, and the Indians formed a very separate set of religious and social communities that married only among themselves, and tried to preserve their native languages. 

Considering the Ibāḍī attitude that non-Ibāḍī Muslims are of doubtful Islamic status and ought to be avoided, what attitude did they take toward the different sects of Zanzibar, especially the Shāfi‘ī majority? Whereas in the Omani interior Ibāḍī scholars engaged the questions of walāya and barā’a in relative isolation from contact with non-Ibāḍī Muslims, in Zanzibar the situation was entirely different. Ibāḍī scholars had to rethink the meaning of barā’a in a context in which they were required to work closely with Sunni Muslims. Furthermore, Sunni scholars on the Swahili coast were critical of Ibāḍī doctrine, and succeeded in attracting converts to Sunni Islam from among the Ibāḍī population of East Africa. The ubiquity and challenge of Sunnism confronted Ibāḍī scholars of Zanzibar with dilemmas that could be ignored in the Omani interior.

It appears that the Zanzibar sultans were usually quite tolerant of Sunni Muslims, that indeed they honored Sunni scholars in a manner similar to the way they honored Ibāḍī scholars. Sayyid Sa‘īd encouraged both Ibāḍī and Sunni scholars to come to his new capital. Scholars migrated there from the coasts of Somalia and Kenya, from the Comoro Islands, and from Oman itself. Qāḍīs were appointed for the Sunnis as well as for the Ibāḍīs, and there are cases in which Sunni and Ibāḍī qāḍīs delivered joint adjudication.[2] The first sultan of Zanzibar, Sa‘īd ibn Sulṭān, directed his governors in the provinces to have Sunni subjects ruled by Sunni judges, specifically mentioning in one of his letters “the shaykh and scholar Muḥyī ’l-Dīn al-Qaḥṭānī” as the authority to be consulted in matters of dispute.  He also told the Ibāḍīs of Pemba to greet non-Ibāḍī Muslims living on their island with courtesy, just as the Ibāḍīs in Zanzibar did.[3] In his account of the Shāfi‘ī scholars of East Africa, Abdallah Saleh Farsy (d. 1982) made a point of emphasizing the great honor various Sunni scholars received from sultans, to the point that some of them served as trusted counselors, and, if we are to believe him, virtual ministers of the realm.[4] Some of more prominent scholars so honored included Muḥyī ’l-Dīn al-Qaḥṭānī (d. 1869), ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Amawī (1838-96), his son, Burhān ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Amawī (1861-1935), Sayyid Aḥmad ibn Sumayṭ (1861-1925), and ‘Abdallāh Bā Kathīr (1860-1925).  Zanzibar became a center of Sunni religious scholarship during the reign of the Bū Sa‘īdī sultans, and it appears that Sunnis and Ibāḍīs, for the most part, coexisted amicably.  

The greatest Sunni scholars of nineteenth-century Zanzibar came from outside Zanzibar. Of the four who are considered the greatest Shāfi‘ī scholars of Zanzibar, two came from Somalia (an interesting fact considering that Farsy mentions very few Somali scholars among those who worked in Zanzibar): Muḥyī ’l-Dīn al-Qaḥṭānī and ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Amawī were both born and studied in Brava;  the latter originally came to Zanzibar for the purpose of studying with al-Qaḥṭānī, and Sayyid Sa‘īd appointed him judge in Kilwa at the age of sixteen. Sayyid Aḥmad ibn Sumayṭ was born of a Ḥaḍramī scholar residing in the Comoro islands, and Abdallāh Bā Kathīr came from Lamu. Large numbers of students and teachers in Zanzibar came from the Comoros. Sa‘īd al-Mughayrī wrote that “the wars of the sultans of Ngazija led to the emigration of many Comorians to Zanzibar. In 1899, fifteen thousand Comorians migrated to Zanzibar, where they became part of the upper class, holding fast to the commands of their Islamic religion and spreading knowledge.”[5] The trend toward mobility among the scholars of Zanzibar diminished in the twentieth century; by mid-century, scholars who studied or taught in Zanzibar tended to come from Zanzibar, and those born in Zanzibar were less likely to travel for the sake of study.

Sayyid Sa‘īd’s attitude toward Ibāḍism may be discerned from his checkered relationship with the family of the aforementioned Abū Nabhān, the most powerful religious scholar of his day in Oman. Al-Sālimī wrote, “Abū Nabhān was the most outstanding scholar of his time in knowledge, virtue, and nobility (sharaf), and the people had taken him as an example for guidance in all matters of their religion as well as their worldly affairs. The virtuous people obeyed him, because they knew his knowledge and piety.”[6] Abū Nabhān publicly denounced Sayyid Sa‘īd and declared him unfit to lead the Muslims. His authority constituted a direct challenge to Sayyid Sa‘īd, but the latter dared not act against him, not only because of Abū Nabhān’s popularity, but even more because of his well-known skill in ‘ilm al-sirr—the knowledge of hidden things, such as divination, the writing of talismans, and other esoteric secrets.[7] After Abū Nabhān’s death in 1822, his son, Nāṣir ibn Abī Nabhān, says that Sayyid Sa‘īd was deceptively kind to him in order to convince him to write a talisman that would protect him from all other talismans. He did so, only to find that Sayyid Sa‘īd commenced an all-out assault on their fortresses, which forced them after seven months to abandon their homes and property. Nāṣir’s family beseeched him to write a talisman to protect them against Sayyid Sa‘īd and his local governor. Nāṣir was able to concoct a talisman even more powerful than the one he had given to the sultan, although it took a year and a half to prepare it, because of the previous talisman he had written protecting Sayyid Sa‘īd. His work on this talisman was supported by the “pious people of Nizwā,” who kept him awake with coffee to enable him to recite his incantations through the night. The purpose of the talisman was to cause the kingdom of the sultan to be destroyed. “I did not want the sultan to die,” Nāṣir is quoted as saying, “out of fear that the tyrannical Muḥammad ibn Nāṣir al-Jabarī would come to power instead, and he is a Ḥanafī [a follower of the Ḥanafī school of Sunni Islam], and one could not be sure that if he came to power he would not force the people of Oman to convert to his rite.” Finally the talisman was completed, and the sultan began to experience defeats in his military engagements in Oman and overseas. Sayyid Sa‘īd’s fear of Nāṣir grew to the point that he took him into his inner circle and brought him on all his military expeditions, and finally to Zanzibar.[8] Upholding Ibāḍī ideals was clearly not Sayyid Sa‘īd’s priority, but neither could he afford to ignore the many dimensions of the potency of religion.

Sayyid Sa‘īd’s chief Ibāḍī judge belonged to a family with deep roots in East Africa, the Mundhirīs (al-Manādhira). The Mundhirīs were a wealthy family originally from the Omani interior, who had become major plantation owners in Mombasa, Pemba and Zanzibar. Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-Mundhirī (d. 1869) was a man of towering intellect. His known works include a book on theology entitled Al-Khulāṣa ’l-dāmigha,[9] another book dealing specifically with the theological problem of the vision of God, which the Ibāḍīs deny but the Sunnis affirm,[10] a book on etiquette,[11] a teacher’s text on grammar,[12] and a Sufi-style prayer of petition bearing special instructions for its recitation and promises of its efficacy in revealing divine secrets.[13] Shaykh Muḥammad served under Sayyids Sa‘īd ibn Sulṭān (1828-56) and Sa‘īd’s son Mājid (1856-70), until the shaykh died in 1869. His position was inherited by his younger brother, ‘Abdallāh. Shaykh Muḥammad’s cousin, Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Muḥammad al-Mundhirī, was chief Ibāḍī judge during the reign of Sayyid Barghash ibn Sa‘īd ibn Sulṭān (1870-88) and was among those who accompanied Sayyid Barghash during his visit to Europe in 1875.[14] Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī’s son, ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī al-Mundhirī (born in 1866, only three years before his father’s death), later became the chief Ibāḍī judge during the reigns of Sayyids ‘Alī ibn Ḥammūd (1902-11) and Khalīfa ibn Ḥārib (1911-60), until he died in 1924-5.

---

[1] Sayyid was the common title of the rulers of Oman and Zanzibar, until the British began referring to them as sultans. It does not refer to descent from the Prophet, whereas the use of the title Sayyid preceding the name of Aḥmad ibn Sumayṭ and other Sunni scholars does indicate descent from the Prophet.

[2] E.g. Sunni judges Aḥmad ibn Sumayṭ (1861-1925) and Burhān ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Amawī (1831-1935) heard cases jointly with Ibāḍī judges.  Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Amawī explained in a conversation with an adviser to Sultan Ḥamad ibn Thuwaynī (1893-96), “The sultan of Zanzibar rules according to all the sects and customs and laws, because he is entrusted with the guardianship of all the Muslims, and they follow many sects—Shāfi‘īs, Mālikīs, Ḥanafīs, Ḥanbalīs, and Shī‘a.  Each must be judged according to the requirements of his sect.  His judgment also extends to the Hindus, Banyans [Indian traders], and Zunūj (non-Muslim Africans), and they are people who have customs and laws; he should not compel any one to follow what he does not approve.”  This conversation was recorded by Amawī and I found it in some miscellaneous papers owned by the Amawī family and found in Dar Es Salaam by Mwalimu Muḥammad Idrīs Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ of Zanzibar.

[3] Mughayrī, Juhaynat al-akhbār, 271.

[4] Abdallah Saleh Farsy, The Shāfi‘ī ‘ulamā’ of East Africa, ca. 1830-1970, trans. and ed. Randall L. Pouwels  (Madison: University of Wisconsin African Studies Program, 1989).

[5] Mughayrī, Juhaynat al-akhbār, 524-5.

[6] Sālimī, Tuḥfat al-a‘yān, 2: 192.

[7] Sa‘īd ibn Sulṭān’s predecessor, Imam Sa‘īd ibn Aḥmad, offered a handsome bribe to anyone who would kill Shaykh Abū Nabhān. The shaykh wrote a talisman that his son Nabhān hung over the water of the canal by the mosque where Abū Nabhān was staying. He ordered his son not to let the talisman touch the water, because if it touched the water the Imam would die, and the shaykh did not want that; he merely wanted to weaken him. Then, Sālimī tells us on the authority of Nāṣir ibn Abī Nabhān, “the ambition of the sultan failed and his strength weakened and his kingdom left him. His brother, Sulṭān son of Aḥmad ibn Sa‘īd, rebelled against him and took every place in his kingdom except Rustāq. He [Imam Sa‘īd] lost the respect of the people to the point that fish would be taken from a dish in his hand as he carried it from the market, and he could not stop them.  He became a warning to onlookers and a sign to passersby. All the people knew this came from the shaykh’s work against him, and they all humbled themselves before the shaykh, and he became the most highly respected person. The shaykh then ordered his son to stop the work of the charm and to destroy it, lest it kill him.” After that the Imam left him in peace. Sālimī, Tuḥfat al-a‘yān, 2: 202-203.

[8] Ibid., 2:196-205.

[9] Mentioned by Abdallah Saleh Farsy in the context of a Sunni book written in response to it, to be discussed below. I have not found any copies of this book, either in Zanzibar or in Oman.

[10] Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī al-Mundhirī, Jawāb al-sā’il al-ḥayrān al-mushtabah ‘alayhi fahm āyāt al-Qur’ān fī jawāz ru’yat al-bārī ta‘ālā, ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Mazrū‘ī [Answering the bewildered questioner, ‘Alī ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Mazrū‘ī, who is unable to understand the Qur’anic verses concerning the permissibility of seeing the exalted Creator] (Muscat: Ma‘had al-Qaḍā’ al-Shar‘ī wa-al-Wa‘ẓ wa-al-Irshād, 1997), 160 pp. This book was written in response to a question put to him by ‘Alī al-Mazrū‘ī, the same Omani convert to Sunnism who wrote a response to Al-Khulāṣa ’l-dāmigha (see below).

[11] Manuscript ZA 9/1 in the Zanzibar National Archives, a response to questions regarding: teaching and disciplining students (among other things, the shaykh recommends contests between students, in which the winner is allowed to beat his opponent!); the legality of buying what is hidden in the ground, like onions, carrots and garlic; whether it is permissible for a woman to adorn her body with things like henna; the necessity of waiting for permission before entering someone’s house; and the necessity of giving a proper greeting. The Arabic Literature of Africa, ed. John O. Hunwick and R.S. O’Fahey (Leiden: E.J. Brill), vol. 3: The Writings of the Muslim Peoples of Northeastern Africa, compiled by R.S. O’Fahey and currently under preparation, calls this collection Risālat al-irshād.

[12] Kitāb tashīl al-muta‘allim, the third manuscript in a collection listed as ZA 8/40 in the Zanzibar National Archives.

[13] Ms. ZA 2/4 in the Zanzibar National Archives is a hodgepodge of mixed papers of magic and medicine belonging to and written by Muḥammad’s brother, Sulaymān, and dated 27 Rabī‘ al-Ākhar 1274 (14 December 1857). For some reason, someone has marked an X over the text on pp. 4-10 that has the du‘ā’ of Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-Mundhirī. The X stops precisely at the point where the prayer stops. This is followed by instructions for the care of the du‘ā’: it should be written on a piece of silver or white silk on a night of full moon at a particular sign of the Zodiac, fumigated with musk and amber, carried on the head, kept clean of all contamination, and recited seven times a night with incense, but 21 times on Friday nights. “Whoever does this will have divine proofs revealed to him.”

[14] Mughayrī, Juhaynat al-akhbār, p. 361. 

Ibāḍī Conversions to Sunni Islam

‘Alī al-Mundhirī’s Defense of Ibā∙ism

Ibāḍī-Sunni Interactions

Conclusion

            Ibāḍī theological doctrines emerged from the heat of the political disputes of early Islam and were nurtured in relative isolation from people of other Islamic sects, in the mountainous interior of Oman and remote areas of North Africa. The cosmopolitan character of East Africa brought Ibāḍīs into close contact with Sunnis, Shi‘a, Hindus, and followers of other faiths. The Ibāḍī sultans of Zanzibar ruled over a highly diverse population, who were mostly Sunni Muslims. Bū Sa‘īdī rule in Zanzibar inaugurated the development of a scholarly Islamic culture in Zanzibar, where scholarship was fostered and attracted both teachers and students from other parts of East Africa. Ibāḍī doctrine excludes Sunni Muslims from the category of “Muslim,” so theoretically Ibāḍīs should abstain from religious friendship with them, although they are included in the ahl al-qibla, and are accorded all the rights of a Muslim. In practice, Ibāḍī–Sunni relationships were very friendly, and the Bū Sa‘īdī sultans sponsored Sunni as well as Ibāḍī scholars and appointed them as judges, and some Sunni scholars have been among the sultans’ closest confidants. During the reign of Sayyid Barghash (1870-88), there were some prominent conversions of Ibāḍī scholars to Sunni Islam, provoking a severe reaction from the monarch, who established the first printing press devoted to the publication of Ibāḍī works. The brief treatises by Shaykh ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-Mundhirī indicate the real sense of threat late-nineteenth-century Ibāḍī scholars in Zanzibar felt from the attraction Sunni Islam held for many Ibāḍīs. Nonetheless, Ibāḍī scholars had cordial and collegiate relationships with their Sunni counterparts, and in the second half of the nineteenth century some scholars crossed sectarian lines for the purposes of study and adjudication. Religious conflict was remarkably absent from the domains of the sultans of Zanzibar.  

Memories of the Maalim Healers in old Zanzibar by Amir Rashid

Zanzibar never had witch doctors, per se. They were respectfully known as "Maalim". There were some psychics and some administered herbal medicines derived mostly from plants and natural elements.

I remember one gentleman of Iranian/Agha descent who lived at Mwembetanga also provided psychic services. He had a bicycle and, I believe, worked as a debt collector for some company (Smith Mackenzie ?), but also did some part time work in giving herb medicines, at a nominal charge of Shs.2 (or US$.028).

Another lady, mother of the late Bwana Aziz, a gymnast, who resided behind the then Kuku market (now fish market), also provided psychic services for a nominal fee of also Shs.2. She normally would have a silver plate full of sand and one had to dip one's palm of right hand in the sand and think of the issue one had come to get her services for, and she was expected to respond and try to assist in solving that particular issue. For example, if one lost a wedding ring, and she would make a suggestion to look at a particular spot (under a mattress , etc.) in one's home.

The Zanzibar "Maalims" should not be confused with Tanganyikan and other African witch doctors. We read a lot on how Tanganyikan witchdoctors brutalize albino villagers - cut off their body parts for so called "healing" purposes. When I was in UK as a student during the 60s, I remember reading in London Times or Sunday Observer that a team of Cambridge University scientists had gone to Southern Africa to research types of herbal and plant medicines used by locals or natives, and incorporate such organic medicines in Western pharmaceuticals.

In Unguja, Zanzibar, we were also blessed by having two retailers at Hurumzi, right behind Khoja Ismaili Jamatini, Late Bwana Saleh and Late Bwana Bando. They were experts in recommending right herbal medicines and would sell small amounts at an affordable cost. We also had a Zanzibari Bahora businessman at Malindi, next to Abedi Samosa, who would give out freely some sticky stuff which when heated, could then be applied, (using a piece of cotton cloth), on a wound for speedy healing. We could not then afford imported Johnson & Johnson bandages, and this home made remedy worked like charm.

There was another word in Zanzibar Swahili witchcraft vocabulary. And that was "HALBADIRI". When someone had a grudge or had been wronged by another party, they would ask a witch doctor back home to send a "halbadiri" spell on the offending party. The witch doctors were often reluctant to administer such a strong spell on the offender, as the spell could backfire and return to the sender, who could then have mental breakdown or suffer from schizophrenia for the rest of his/her life!

I remember in the 50s, a middle aged lady passing everyday at Ngambo (by our residence) and screaming at the top of her voice in Swahili, apparently cursing someone. We were told that someone had sent a halbadiri spell on her. (It was obvious that poor lady was suffering from schizophrenia or some mental disorder).

There was another spell called "KIFARA".  This was a quick type of spell which a victim would have his Maalim or witch doctor  send on  a party which had done wrong to the victim.  Kafara would result in a major accident or disaster that would befall on the enemy.  Unlike "halbadiri", kafara cannot revert on the victim.

Yes, Zanzibar was gifted by locals who were not materialistic, as now, and we all lived like one family, although, like in any family, there were ups and downs every now and then. Unfortunately, foreign interference in Zanzibar's politics ended all that one family relationships among Zanzibaris. (Now even our Wapemba brothers try to smuggle cloves to Kenya in order to get more money for their produce). Yes, times have changed and drug culture has taken over everywhere in this dunia.

Wa salaam, Amir Rashid.

What’s Wrong with Shikamoo?

The CITIZEN SUNDAY, APRIL 17, 2016

By Esther Karin Mngodo

There is something peculiar about the greeting, exclusive to Swahili culture.  

In Summary

Shikamoo is a greeting for those older than us. Surprisingly, when greeted this way, some people just utter a simple ‘Poa.’

There is something unique about the way we greet our elders, starts Rachel Magege. There is something peculiar about the greeting, exclusive to the Swahili culture. Rachel, 24, recently returned to Tanzania from the US where she was pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in Law. When she arrived in the US, she immediately noticed the difference. 

“I remember feeling awkward that a child could say ‘Hi Rachel’ like it was normal.  And you can greet your Professor with a simple Hello. But when you get used to him, you greet him with his first name. ‘Hi James’. There is no way I could do that here,” she says and adds: “That is why I appreciate our way of greeting. I think it is a way of showing respect.” 

That awkward moment

Not everyone wants to be respected this way, says James Martin, 31, a businessman based in Arusha. “I hate Shikamoo,” he says of the greeting, especially if it is a young woman involved.

 “I prefer to be asked how I am doing. Shikamoo creates so much boundaries. It makes me feel like they are showing me so much respect. It becomes hard for me, or men in general, to make any other advances. The relationship becomes too formal.”

Robby Salehe, 33, a management accountant based in Dar es Salaam, knows this too well. In fact, most young women must have encountered this situation. 

In her view, there must be a reason why her shikamoo gets an abruptly spoken ‘poa’. Poa is usually a response to mambo, a greeting among peers. 

“If it is a woman, perhaps they think I am too old to say shikamoo. I am big in size, so that confuses many. But if it is a man, it is possible that they want something else from me,” she says.

What is this shikamoo about?

Swahili Professor, Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi, a Professor Emeritus at Uppsala University in Sweden, explains that shikamuu is derived from nashika miguu yako, (I touch your feet). This is an ancient Bantu greeting used to address respectfully all elders and people in position. 

In all civilisations people develop new greetings from time to time influenced by economic and social developments, political changes and integration with immigrants. 

Our Kiswahili civilisation has a continuous history of almost 2,000 years developed by the coastal people coming in close contact with people from various parts of the Indian Ocean. 

The professor explains that in different Bantu tribal cultures, it was normal practice to kneel in front of the Chief, or even lie down and touch his feet as if he were a king as kings were divine and representatives of God on earth. Such practices have gradually disappeared with the abolition of divine kingship and feudalism in many societies. 

The response, marhaba, which meant ‘You have my blessings’ is of course derived from Arabic. Prof Lodhi believes this Arabic loan replaced a longer original Bantu response during the 8th century when Islam was firmly established along the EA coast and Arabic became the literary language of the people all around the rim of the Indian Ocean. 

Prof Lodhi recalls how he and Mwalimu Nyerere (Tanzania’s first president) used to greet each other and how that changed with time. Back in the 60s and early 70s, he always greeted Mwalimu Nyerere with a shikamoo mwalimu, and Nyerere would respond with a simple marhaba! 

“But later in the mid-70s when I was Chairman of TANU-ASP in Scandinavia, Mwl Nyerere responded with marhaba maalim! And later from 1994 when we travelled together to Swaziland he started responding with a marhaba profesa! or marhaba bwana profesa! 

“Only once in Stockholm in the home of Balozi Wilson Tibaijuka, an old colleague from Dar es Salaam from the 60s, did he greet me shikamoo Profesa before I could greet him first. I had to respond with marhaba mwalimu. Then he added with a hearty laughter ‘Nimekuwahi leo! Nawe upate fursa ya kunipa marhaba.’ (I greet you first today so that you can also say marhaba to me.) Mwl. Nyerere and I had serious literary and political relations and at the same time a joking relationship.”  

Is it another form of oppression?

In her blog, Nasaha.net, Ashura Kayupayupa analyses an unpublished essay, ‘What’s wrong with Shikamoo’ (1995) authored by Rakesh Rajani who is currently Head of Civic Engagement and Governance with Ford Foundation. The paper reflects on the effects this greeting has in the process of learning and public engagement. 

 “Rakesh explained that since the salutation was brought by Arab Sultans to undermine Tanzanian elders and creating inferiority complex, it was not an appropriate salutation for people with equal relationship, rather for the one who is a master and the other one who is a slave. He challenges this greeting among adults today,” writes Ashura.

Ashura highlights Rakesh’s views, saying that this is also true for the teacher-pupil relationship whereby the student surrenders their right to equal participation in learning by saying shikamoo to the teacher.

Rakesh dares us to imagine a day when a teacher will encourage students to question, challenging them to think outside the box without holding a stick. That is his problem with shikamoo.   

  Changing times

Amina Juma, 42, a librarian based in Dar es Salaam says she remembers how wives used to greet their husbands shikamoo in her tribe of Wanyamwezi from Tabora. 

“When I was a young girl, there were many homes where the man was much older than his wife. The wife would comfortably greet her husband this way. I know it might sound strange today, but why not? It was considered a respectful greeting. However, I don’t think that women today would greet their husbands this way,” she says with a laugh. 

Robby, the management accountant says that this generation does not like shikamoo at all. It is quite normal for a teenager to say ‘Hi’ to a 10-year senior than themselves. 

It is partly the fault of the ones receiving this greeting, says James, the Arusha-based businessman. He is also of the view that most young people think that they are too cool for shikamoo. 

He blames it on ‘utandawazi’ (globalisation). Many would say ‘unanizeesha’ which translates to ‘you are making me look older than I really am.’ 

Prof Lodhi explains that his younger colleagues, and sometimes even those who are his age, greet him with a shikamoo profesa! However, recently one of the Kiswahili Professors in Dar greeted him with ‘mambo profesa?’ Instead of responding with a poa, Prof Lodhi said mambo bambam! Which the younger professor had never heard before! “People think mambo is a new greeting developed by the young generation – No! It was there already in the 40s and we boys of my generation were using it. In my experience, most people in the world have no historical depth. Most of them are acculturated, in fast growing unplanned urban areas living in a cultural vacuum.” 

Its cultural significance

Modern African cities are a good example of large uprooted populations that are developing vibrant new Western-influenced cultures, which are exploited by new technologies and related commercialism necessitating new terminologies and language usage, says Prof Lodhi. 

Prof Lodhi further explains that in East Africa, we have a special linguistic situation where Kiswahili, the only native language with a long literary tradition in the whole of east-central Africa, which is a minority language as far as the number of native speakers are concerned, is the most widely spread language with a very high status, always competing with English. 

It has been ‘nationalised’ and it is the 2nd or 3rd language speakers of Kiswahili, who are the vast majority and who have been changing it especially by mixing it with their own ethnic tongues, marginalising the traditional native 1st language speakers of Kiswahili. 

“I think that this point has to be made clear before one can answer your question “Do we really need shikamoo anymore?” For a Mswahili like me, the question cannot arise since it is part of our deep-rooted basic culture and social mannerism expressing good upbringing and showing respect to elders! What is wrong with it? On the contrary we need it even more today when an increasing number of children are growing up with little or no respect for elders.”

“I would suggest one should go and present this question to those to whom Kiswahili belongs as their legitimate cultural heritage. The ‘cultural significance’ of shikamoo – marhaba and many such socio-cultural elements depends on who is using them and in which contexts.”

The professor goes on to say that; “the question raised, I believe involves an insignificant minority of people in East Africa and who I am inclined to claim are not traditional native speakers of Kiswahili. 

One cannot ‘prescribe’ which greetings people should use and which not; however, one can do a good job ‘describing’ how certain greetings are used by a specific group/category of persons, in what contexts and why, and what are their socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Only then one can claim it is a scientific study.”

Email: ekmngodo@tz.nationmedia.com

Time Past in Africa - My Father

A Biography of my Father, Mervyn Vice Smithyman

My Father was very keen to get his family story written down. In 2005 he was 94, and he asked for help with a booklet about his Mother. That was this book’s origin and these words are mostly his words. This is a story. Perhaps it is a true story. However, all family recollections are stories from a particular viewpoint.

He and I then began to plan his life story and this interest occupied him during his last years and particularly during his last difficult months. I hoped that after his retirement my brother, Michael Smithyman, would help with the unfinished project, but sadly, Michael died too young in 2011.
The Smithyman family depicted in this book were Africans, born and brought up in Africa of British ancestry. They eventually grew up in Zomba, speaking fluent Chinyanja, the language of Nyasaland.

As children they were independent,  resilient and resourceful and often barefoot! The ten children were born over a period of 25 years (1905-1930) and loyal bonds were formed between them.
I am one of the children of those ten. I have, or had, 23 cousins spread across the world and every one of them and their children has an individual view on the story of the Smithyman world. It was a fascinating world.

In my family our Smithyman aunts and uncles were always honoured and spoken about. There was the eldest, Doris; Fred, the eldest boy; Harold on his farm in Zimbabwe; Victor who was always such fun and so close to my father; Jessie, Pearl and Freda my father’s dear sisters; Wilfred, the young pilot who died in France and was always mourned; and John.
I came to realise my Father would do anything for his siblings. He loved them all and was always caring and giving advice even if it wasn’t always taken on board.

The photographs I have included are old and faded but we have these as memories and they are precious. I have realised these images have historical value beyond our family. I have given the Society of Malawi at the Mandala Centre in Blantyre, Malawi, copies of my Father’s photos as well as sending the Tanzanian Museum in Dar-es-Salaam copies of the photos of my Father’s social welfare programs from Samé in the Pare Mountains in the 1950s.

****

Section One is about Fred and Catherine Smithyman’s family from their beginnings in Port Elizabeth to settling in Zomba, Nyasaland. Of course, it focuses mostly on my Father, Mervyn Vice Smithyman, the fourth child, as it is mostly through his eyes and memories that the stories came to me. Section Two starts after the war and focuses on my Father and Mother.

The first time I really understood the depth of my Father’s dedication to his family and particularly his Mother was while we were on a family visit to Italy. It was 1961 and I was a thirteen year old. We were on a bus travelling to Venice as my Father told me the story of the Spanish Influenza of 1919 and how his Mother had ministered to her seven small children while she herself was sick and unable to walk. He told me how she had crawled to the kitchen to make soup for them. My Father wept as he told the story. I had never before seen my Father weep.

I met my grandparents only twice but the story of their lives in Zomba was made very real to me over the years. Theirs was a vibrant, exciting world. The children had a freedom not seen in modern times and, with it, a great deal of fun. Someone once told me that the Smithyman family did not need other friends, they had one another.

There has been a mystery to solve — it was the family background of our grandmother, Catherine Jessie Vice. My Father told and imagined all sorts of stories to demonstrate and understand her sterling character. Part of this mystery has been solved since he died through the determined research which my daughter, Shannon Adams, has done on Ancestry. Shannon has also discovered more about Fred Milner Smithyman, my Grandfather.

Section Two deals with my Father and Mother’s move to Tanganyika in 1946 and their life in East Africa till the terrible 1964 Zanzibar Revolution / Invasion.

This is the world I remember as a child and which I absorbed as my world. I felt that I was not really British: I was some sort of hybrid with a deep love of Africa and a growing awareness that our living there was complicated.

I am aware this book largely neglects my Mother’s story. Her strength and her grace sustained us all.
This book is for the future generations: so the story of our past is remembered and is not lost. It is for my Father who is no longer here; for my brother, Michael, who is sorely missed; for my children, Shannon and David; for Mike’s children, Matthew, Stephen and Sarah, and for our greater Smithyman family that they should know something of these remarkable lives.


Anne M. Chappel, née Smithyman

This book is available as a print book on Amazon.

http://amzn.com/1517172276

The Sultan's Spymaster by Judy Aldrick

from Coastweek-- Many books have been written about the history of Zanzibar from 1850 to 1900, but these books focus almost entirely on the role of the European powers and their relationship with the Sultans.

Left out of these histories is any mention of the important role played by Indian merchants and politicians.

This new book attempts to fill in the missing information by looking at the role of Indians during this complex period of Zanzibar history.

The main character in this intriguing book is a man named Peera Dewjee.

He was born in India in 1841 and lived until 1904. Much of his life was spent in Zanzibar during the years when European nations were taking an active interest in Zanzibar and the eastern coast of Africa.

He started out as a lowly labourer for Sultan Barghash and over the years rose to become a prominent advisor to four different Sultans.

Although raised in India, Peera Dewjee was a Muslim belonging to the sect called Nizari Ismaili.

The founder was an Iranian missionary named Pir Sadruddin who traveled to India at the end of the 14th century and converted many Hindus to Islam.

These Indian converts called themselves Khojas and they organized themselves into a close-knit community based in Bombay.

Their Imam was later referred to as the Aga Khan, a title still used by subsequent Imams to this day.

Their society was based on trade with an annual tithe paid to the Aga Khan.

Close trade links were set up between Bombay and Zanzibar with many Ismailis eventually settling on Zanzibar where they became prominent members of society.

Peera Dewjee was raised in Bombay and was well educated.

He knew how to read and write and spoke numerous languages including Arabic, English, Hindustani and Urdu.

As a young man he moved to Zanzibar where he lived with relatives in the Khoja community.

Eventually he got a job in the Sultan’s palace as a lamp cleaner and barber.

Over time he earned the trust of Sultan Barghash and worked his way up to the roles of messenger, spy, chief steward, advisor and ambassador.

He even travelled to England with the Sultan to meet Queen Victoria.

When Sultan Barghash died, Peera Dewjee continued to serve as advisor to the three following Sultans in turn.

In spite of his great influence during this jumbled period of history, Peera Dewjee remained a shadowy figure, hidden in the background of Zanzibar politics.

The author of this book, Judy Aldrick, has done extensive research in libraries and through interviews.

Her research is to be commended as Peera Dewjee is revealed through the haze of Zanzibar history.

In later life Peera Dewjee was a significant figure in Zanzibar politics.

He had the ear of the various Sultans and was at the forefront in dealing with British, French and German ambassadors.

He was involved in negotiating many treaties - especially in ending the slave trade.

He was considered to be a smooth and able politician - often playing one side against another.

During his career he continued to be a successful merchant and businessman.

At various times he was the manager of the Sultan’s steamship line and collector of customs tribute at the port.

Above all he was a highly skilled organizer. At the installment of Sultan Hamoud, he planned the festivities, called Siku Kuu in Swahili.

He organized a feast in the Sultan’s palace for 8,000 people.

Over 10,000 plates were used at this feast and 55 different entries were served.

It took over 300 cooks to prepare the food. For such feats he was often referred to as the “Majordomo to the Sultans.”

This book is a fascinating history of Zanzibar as seen through the eyes of Peera Dewjee, an Indian merchant and confidant of the Sultans.

For a new and insightful look into the history of Zanzibar, I highly recommend this book.

Reviewed by Jon Arensen, Professor Emeritus, Houghton College