CHAGGAA TRIBE OF AFRICA.
Tribes of AfricaPlay episode
Show notes
The Chagas who are also called Chagga or Wachagga are Bantu-speaking indigenous Africans and the third largest ethnic group in Tanzania. They traditionally live on the southern and eastern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru and near. The people of Chaga descended from various Bantu groups who migrated from somewhere in Africa. The Chaga area is traditionally divided into a number of chiefdoms and early accounts identify the inhabitants of each chiefdom as a separate tribe. Chaga chiefdoms traded with each other, with the people of the regions such as the Kambas, the Maasais, the Pares, and also with coastal caravans. Some of these tradings were hand to hand. Many chiefdoms had several produces largely controlled by women, just as they are today. Chaga society experienced a radical and tough change. Taxes in cash were imposed to force Africans to work for Europeans from whom they could receive wages. Germans who were fully armed successfully ruled the people of Chaga by controlling them through their chiefs. The chiefs who cooperated were rewarded with more power while those who resisted were removed or executed.
Research shows that there are no nucleated villages on Kilimanjaro as Each household lives in the midst of its own banana-coffee garden, ringed with living fences that mark their boundaries. There being no land shortage, they could, with the consent of the local chief head in the new location, establish themselves elsewhere. However, available lands became scarce and many households moved down the mountain while some moved up. Then, as the open land has filled up, the mobility of households has been increasingly restricted. The movement of the early Chaga banana farmers to Kilimanjaro caused rapid and extensive cultural amalgamation, in which large numbers of the Ongamo people and the Rift Southern Cushites were taken into the newly expanding Chaga communities.
Before the arrival of Christianity, the Chaga practiced a different level of faith. The importance of ancestors is strongly maintained by them till date. The name of the chief Chaga deity is Ruwa who resides on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, which is sacred to them.
Currently, the Chaga population is at about 2 million. The Chagas are one of the most economically successful people in East Africa. The Chaga women take the top positions of the Chaga society. From economic issues to education. Chaga women contribute a large part to the economical progressions in northern Tanzania.
---
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/tribesofafrica/support
