Fipa
Encyclopedia
The Fipa are an ethnic and linguistic group based in the Sumbawanga
and Nkansi
districts of Rukwa Region
in southwestern Tanzania
speaking the Fipa
and Mambwe languages. In 1992, the Fipa population was estimated to number 200,000.http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=fip
, appearing as a bridge joining east to central Africa
and the Congo. They were a mixed population – Fipa, Wanda
, and Nyika
– with roughly 20,000 people in the 1890s. Many had come from the Congo, with chiefdoms dominating a number of clans. Since iron was a precious commodity, and iron smelting
required technical knowledge, it was jealously guarded, resulting in a number of clans being subject to ironsmiths
. The central chiefdom, Milanzi ("the eternal village"), was headed by a dynasty of ironsmiths, which exchanged its products for woven cloth.
These clans and dynasties were later taken over by an even newer immigrant group, the Twa
, possibly the Tutsi
from the north, who were organized as a single clan and dominated others by force and cunning. While the Twa established themselves as an aristocracy
, the older Milansi dynasty retained ritual power and the right to install the Twa chief. It was, however, the Twa (after splitting into two chiefdoms) who exercised territorial and administrative authority through their appointed officials, with orders then transmitted to elected village headmen. The Fipa had now finally become more stratified, had even more precise borders, and were governed in a more strictly supervised manner. It had become a real state.
The Queen Mother was also important, having her own separate palace and court, a large estate that paid her tribute. On the lowest administrative level was an elected village headman with a female magistrate whose special function was to decide breaches of the public order by either sex, particularly in regards to the use of obscene language and brawling.
The judiciary could also be elaborate. Cases were first heard by a headman; from there a defendant could appeal to the district sub-chief, then to the royal court, and finally to the chief, queen mother, and council of elders. If a person were found guilty of murder, the murderer was ordered to give a man (or woman, if a woman had been killed) to the family of the murdered person. If there was no one to give, the murderer was told to choose between death and becoming a slave to the murdered person's family. If the murderer became a slave, his family could ransom him. Their readiness to do so was expressed by the gift of a hoe, and an agreement was reached in front of the royal court. Only the chief could impose the death penalty, which was carried out immediately by poison, spearing, or decapitation.
-style hide shields and spears. The villages had become palisaded, and slowly chaos, terror, and warfare began to dominate the area, primarily as a result of the private army of Kimaurunga (Kimalaunga).
The rulers of Ufipa, from 1860–1890, made alliances with coastal traders, and the state experienced stability and outward prosperity. On entering Ufipa, a visitor paid a small tribute and then became the chief's guest. Each village provided the visitor with accommodations and carried his load to the next settlement. The Fipa were not aggressive, were said never to wage war, but generally obtained enough firearms to deter most potential aggressors by exchanging their grain for slaves, with which they then bought guns from the coastal traders.
Below the surface, however, there were a number of destructive consequences. The local weaving industry declined, while the Twa chiefs were able to enforce much heavier contributions in goods, livestock, and labor from their subjects. In place of cotton, beads, and wire being exchanged, there were guns and powder going into the interior to trade for human beings. In 1889–1890, British explorer H. H. Johnston wrote of the Ufipa area: "I...have seen all human life and culture stamped out for a distance of 50 miles along the road, where only a short time before the most flourishing villages existed."
Almost all of East Africa's people viewed forests and fields to be at least somewhat antagonistic. There was hostility between cultivated land and the wildness of the bush. The Fipa in particular saw the bush as full of dangers and stressed the village as properly dominant over the surrounding bush. With the Wafipa, each spirit cult was associated with rocks, mountain, groves, and lakes, and had a shrine where a priest tended a sacred python whose domestication represented man's control over nature.
, to be made into dry porridge and usually eaten with the fingers accompanied by beans.
Traditionally, all land belonged to the chief. Any Fipa could plant wherever they wished, as long as payment was made to the local official. While there was no shortage of land itself, there was a shortage of fertile land, and distances between settlements tended to increase. Fishing was supposed to be important in the area of Lake Rukwa
(although the Germans make no mention of fish products found in Kimaurunga's Boma), Lake Tanganyika, and the surrounding rivers.
, collecting firewood, making and spreading compost piles, cutting grass, and threshing millet. The threshing was often done by cooperative groups of kinsmen and neighbors.
The women's most important tasks were drawing water, weeding, cooking, plastering huts and granaries, winnowing, pounding grain, sweeping huts, using the coil method to make pottery, and raising children.
or forge
, while all other visitors had to acknowledge the smith's authority with a payment. The smith and his assistants were supposed to abstain from sexual intercourse, for the smelting and forging of ironwork was a very specialized craft totally bound up with knowledge and magic, using very particular ingredients from doctors and sorcerers.
Spinning and weaving locally grown cotton was universal and always the work of men. The cloth was open, heavy, strong, and durable, was white with a black-stripped border and five by six feet long, sufficient for the toga-like dress worn by men and women (somewhat as the Wahehe are said to look).
, the Wafipa had no initiation ceremony for either sex. It was general practice among unmarried girls to extend their labia minora
by constant manipulation. This was thought to enhance their sexual attractiveness and favor giving birth. If a birth was difficult, the midwives asked the name of the unborn child's father, for it was thought that unconfessed adultery could cause death in childbirth. At the birth of a girl, the father brought firewood on his head; when a boy was born, a bow and arrow was carried in the father's right hand. Following death, a meeting of kin decided the issue of inheritance and a widow was assigned to the heir, if she was willing.
If a woman died in childbirth, the unborn child was cut from the belly and placed on its dead mother's back inside the grave, while the women would weep and chant inside the hut with the corpse; the men would sit quietly outside. Following the burial, the hut in which the woman died was totally destroyed. The dead were not "thrown away", Sangu
-style.
The Wafipa, as with most Africans, had a supreme god: Umweele, the creator of ultimate power in the world. There was, however, no cult to this god, although it was common for those needing help to utter "Umweele, forgive me". Worship was also directed to lesser and closer divinities, the most important and terrible being Katai, said to be the enemy of domestic animals and the bringer of smallpox
and other diseases. Katai could come as a dog with shining eyes, in dreams; a mouse in a hut corner; a beautiful youth; or even smoke (the African concept of deities included the souls of animals, spirits, and humans being interchangeable)
When an epidemic
occurred, dances were forbidden, children ceased playing noisy games, and water-pots were covered. Katai could, when s/he was in a kindly mood, also cure illness and heal suffering. When Katai was in an evil-minded mood, s/he could be appealed to for revenge or spite. There was no agreement on the sex of Katai: in the north it was male, in the south, female.
There were other, more localized spirits. Hills, lakes (such as Lake Tanganyika), large trees, oddly shaped rocks, groves of trees, could all be the home of a spirit. Truly large tame pythons, representing the spirits of these places, would coil themselves on specially made stools and receive offerings of millet porridge and meat from worshipers. Worship was often conducted by a hereditary priest, often seemingly possessed of a particular spirit.
Lastly, there was the worship of ancestral spirits. These were thought to inhabit the threshold of their descendants' huts. Periodically, the owner of a hut would honor them by sprinkling the walls and floors with water and flour.
Twins were considered divinities, having special powers over rain and crops. They could also cause epidemics. They were publicly acclaimed, being carried around the village on a tray, and sacrifices were communally held in their honor at the new moon. They were not killed or allowed to die through starvation as with so many other groups. They were in fact so important as to be especially honored by having sacrifices offered at an altar erected by their parents outside their hut during harvest time or epidemics.
Sumbawanga
Sumbawanga is a city located in western Tanzania. It is the capital of Rukwa Region. The regional population is approximately 150,000 based on a 2002 census.Many people living in Sumbawanga are Fipa, called so for the native language also spoken there...
and Nkansi
Nkansi
Nkansi is one of the 4 districts of the Rukwa Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Mpanda District, to the East by the Sumbawanga Urban District, to the South by the Sumbawanga Rural District and to the West by Lake Tanganyika....
districts of Rukwa Region
Rukwa Region
Rukwa is one of the 26 regions of Tanzania. Sumbawanga serves as the region's capital. The region is bordered to the north by Kigoma and Tabora Regions, to the east by Mbeya Region, to the south by Zambia and to the west by Lake Tanganyika which forms a border between the region and the Democratic...
in southwestern Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
speaking the Fipa
Fipa language
Fipa is a Bantu language of Tanzania. It is spoken by the Fipa people, who live on the Ufipa plateau in the Rukwa Region of South West Tanzania between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rukwa. The ethnic group of the Fipa people is larger than the group of Fipa language speakers...
and Mambwe languages. In 1992, the Fipa population was estimated to number 200,000.http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=fip
Dynastic history
Historically, the Fipa lived on a largely treeless plateau looking down on Lake TanganyikaLake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake. It is estimated to be the second largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest, after Lake Baikal in Siberia; it is also the world's longest freshwater lake...
, appearing as a bridge joining east to central Africa
Central Africa
Central Africa is a core region of the African continent which includes Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
and the Congo. They were a mixed population – Fipa, Wanda
Wanda
-Derivation:It is derived from Wandalus or Wandalarius , the name of several Amali Gothic rulers. The first Polish historian Kadlubek wrote the Princess Wanda story. He describes her as live amongst the Wandali and claims that a river in the land of the Vandals is named Wandalus after Wanda...
, and Nyika
Nyika
Nyika is a Swahili word meaning "bush" or "hinterland" . More specifically, it can refer to:* a collective term for nine ethnic groups in coastal Kenya, see Mijikenda* a desert in Kenya, see Nyiri Desert...
– with roughly 20,000 people in the 1890s. Many had come from the Congo, with chiefdoms dominating a number of clans. Since iron was a precious commodity, and iron smelting
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
required technical knowledge, it was jealously guarded, resulting in a number of clans being subject to ironsmiths
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
. The central chiefdom, Milanzi ("the eternal village"), was headed by a dynasty of ironsmiths, which exchanged its products for woven cloth.
These clans and dynasties were later taken over by an even newer immigrant group, the Twa
Abatwa
Abatwa/Abathwa/Batwa is a derivative root word common to the Bantu language group of sub-Saharan Africa. It is often mistakenly glossed as 'elf' or 'spirit'...
, possibly the Tutsi
Tutsi
The Tutsi , or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group in Central Africa. Historically they were often referred to as the Watussi or Watusi. They are the second largest caste in Rwanda and Burundi, the other two being the Hutu and the Twa ....
from the north, who were organized as a single clan and dominated others by force and cunning. While the Twa established themselves as an aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
, the older Milansi dynasty retained ritual power and the right to install the Twa chief. It was, however, the Twa (after splitting into two chiefdoms) who exercised territorial and administrative authority through their appointed officials, with orders then transmitted to elected village headmen. The Fipa had now finally become more stratified, had even more precise borders, and were governed in a more strictly supervised manner. It had become a real state.
Nkansi
Nkansi, in Ufipa, was a chiefdom with a particularly extreme and elaborate form of political organization, even having a prime minister, and according to some, had a life comparable to peasantry in the richest of European countries. It became traditional to have hereditary chiefs who were surrounded by a court of at least nine titled officials and others to administer specific areas of the chiefdom.The Queen Mother was also important, having her own separate palace and court, a large estate that paid her tribute. On the lowest administrative level was an elected village headman with a female magistrate whose special function was to decide breaches of the public order by either sex, particularly in regards to the use of obscene language and brawling.
The judiciary could also be elaborate. Cases were first heard by a headman; from there a defendant could appeal to the district sub-chief, then to the royal court, and finally to the chief, queen mother, and council of elders. If a person were found guilty of murder, the murderer was ordered to give a man (or woman, if a woman had been killed) to the family of the murdered person. If there was no one to give, the murderer was told to choose between death and becoming a slave to the murdered person's family. If the murderer became a slave, his family could ransom him. Their readiness to do so was expressed by the gift of a hoe, and an agreement was reached in front of the royal court. Only the chief could impose the death penalty, which was carried out immediately by poison, spearing, or decapitation.
19th century history
Until the 1860s, the Wafipa were described as still peaceful and prosperous, although somewhat plagued by raiders. By the 1870s, however, warriors were now carrying WaheheHehe
The Hehe are an ethnic and linguistic group based in Iringa Region in south-central Tanzania, speaking the Bantu Hehe language. In 1994, the Hehe population was estimated to number 750,000.-History:...
-style hide shields and spears. The villages had become palisaded, and slowly chaos, terror, and warfare began to dominate the area, primarily as a result of the private army of Kimaurunga (Kimalaunga).
The rulers of Ufipa, from 1860–1890, made alliances with coastal traders, and the state experienced stability and outward prosperity. On entering Ufipa, a visitor paid a small tribute and then became the chief's guest. Each village provided the visitor with accommodations and carried his load to the next settlement. The Fipa were not aggressive, were said never to wage war, but generally obtained enough firearms to deter most potential aggressors by exchanging their grain for slaves, with which they then bought guns from the coastal traders.
Below the surface, however, there were a number of destructive consequences. The local weaving industry declined, while the Twa chiefs were able to enforce much heavier contributions in goods, livestock, and labor from their subjects. In place of cotton, beads, and wire being exchanged, there were guns and powder going into the interior to trade for human beings. In 1889–1890, British explorer H. H. Johnston wrote of the Ufipa area: "I...have seen all human life and culture stamped out for a distance of 50 miles along the road, where only a short time before the most flourishing villages existed."
Contact with Europeans
Prophet Kaswa is said to have prophesied the coming of Europeans: "There are coming terrible strangers who bring war; they will surely come. O you people, you are going to be robbed of your country: you will not even be able to cough." It was not until 1905–1919 that the Wafipa began seeking employment with Europeans.Settlements
The Wafipa tended to live in concentrated, widely spaced settlements of 20–30 round huts, no more than a few yards apart, each housing three to five each, with two surrounding corridor walls for small livestock. An inner room was for eating and sleeping. Reed mats for sleeping and filtering beer were made by the women, who also used a small hoe when working the fields. Men also made the beds: a single cow hide, or cow hide strips, stretched over a wooden frame with a reed mat placed on the bed before sleeping in it. A total of 100 people in a village were normal; 300–400 people were large and not common. Everyone wore durable cotton cloth of black and white stripes of six by five feet. It took four to five hours to cover the eight-to-nine miles between settlements. Within the settlements, there was a strong emphasis placed on communal values, the most important being sociability.Almost all of East Africa's people viewed forests and fields to be at least somewhat antagonistic. There was hostility between cultivated land and the wildness of the bush. The Fipa in particular saw the bush as full of dangers and stressed the village as properly dominant over the surrounding bush. With the Wafipa, each spirit cult was associated with rocks, mountain, groves, and lakes, and had a shrine where a priest tended a sacred python whose domestication represented man's control over nature.
Land
The Ufipa plateau was deforested and the soil exhausted. The Fipa planted their principal crops on earth-covered compost piles of vegetation roughly a mile or more from a settlement. Thompson wrote: "They are more of a purely agricultural race than any other tribe I have seen. To the cultivation of their fields they devote themselves entirely." During the busy time of harvest, those working the land built round huts in which to sleep and find shelter. The main crop was milletMillet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
, to be made into dry porridge and usually eaten with the fingers accompanied by beans.
Traditionally, all land belonged to the chief. Any Fipa could plant wherever they wished, as long as payment was made to the local official. While there was no shortage of land itself, there was a shortage of fertile land, and distances between settlements tended to increase. Fishing was supposed to be important in the area of Lake Rukwa
Lake Rukwa
Lake Rukwa is a lake in southwestern Tanzania. The alkaline Lake Rukwa lies midway between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa at an elevation of about 800 metres, in a parallel branch of the rift system. The lake has seen large fluctuations in its size over the years, due to varying inflow of streams...
(although the Germans make no mention of fish products found in Kimaurunga's Boma), Lake Tanganyika, and the surrounding rivers.
Gender roles
The most important tasks for the men were hunting wild animals, building huts and granariesGranary
A granary is a storehouse for threshed grain or animal feed. In ancient or primitive granaries, pottery is the most common use of storage in these buildings. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals.-Early origins:From ancient times grain...
, collecting firewood, making and spreading compost piles, cutting grass, and threshing millet. The threshing was often done by cooperative groups of kinsmen and neighbors.
The women's most important tasks were drawing water, weeding, cooking, plastering huts and granaries, winnowing, pounding grain, sweeping huts, using the coil method to make pottery, and raising children.
Industry
Ironsmiths were hereditary specialists. The knowledge was integrated with magic and a special bag of magical ingredients was passed from father to son. The Twa chiefs of the Wafipa, any of his family, and all women were forbidden to visit the site of a kilnKiln
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, or oven, in which a controlled temperature regime is produced. Uses include the hardening, burning or drying of materials...
or forge
Forge
A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...
, while all other visitors had to acknowledge the smith's authority with a payment. The smith and his assistants were supposed to abstain from sexual intercourse, for the smelting and forging of ironwork was a very specialized craft totally bound up with knowledge and magic, using very particular ingredients from doctors and sorcerers.
Spinning and weaving locally grown cotton was universal and always the work of men. The cloth was open, heavy, strong, and durable, was white with a black-stripped border and five by six feet long, sufficient for the toga-like dress worn by men and women (somewhat as the Wahehe are said to look).
Birth, life, and death
Aside from extracting two or four lower incisors before or after pubertyPuberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
, the Wafipa had no initiation ceremony for either sex. It was general practice among unmarried girls to extend their labia minora
Labia minora
The labia minora , also known as the inner labia, inner lips, or nymphae, are two flaps of skin on either side of the human vaginal opening, situated between the labia majora...
by constant manipulation. This was thought to enhance their sexual attractiveness and favor giving birth. If a birth was difficult, the midwives asked the name of the unborn child's father, for it was thought that unconfessed adultery could cause death in childbirth. At the birth of a girl, the father brought firewood on his head; when a boy was born, a bow and arrow was carried in the father's right hand. Following death, a meeting of kin decided the issue of inheritance and a widow was assigned to the heir, if she was willing.
If a woman died in childbirth, the unborn child was cut from the belly and placed on its dead mother's back inside the grave, while the women would weep and chant inside the hut with the corpse; the men would sit quietly outside. Following the burial, the hut in which the woman died was totally destroyed. The dead were not "thrown away", Sangu
Sangu
The Sangu, at times called Rori , are an ethnic and linguistic group based in southwestern Tanzania. By 1907 the Sangu numbers were thought to be about 30,000. In 1987 the Sangu population was estimated to number 75,000 ....
-style.
Worship
Fipa diviners blamed illness on sorcery, territorial or ancestral spirits, or a neighbor or relative. Commoners tended to blame sorcery alone. Illness made it necessary to discover its cause: an ancestral spirit, a divinity, a demon, a sorcerer, or even a witch (Fipa witches were supposed to be carried upside down at night by their wives, work evil, and be all that was opposite of being good), for only with the discovery of the cause could appropriate measures be taken, such as sacrifices, ritual burning, or certain medicines, etc.The Wafipa, as with most Africans, had a supreme god: Umweele, the creator of ultimate power in the world. There was, however, no cult to this god, although it was common for those needing help to utter "Umweele, forgive me". Worship was also directed to lesser and closer divinities, the most important and terrible being Katai, said to be the enemy of domestic animals and the bringer of smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
and other diseases. Katai could come as a dog with shining eyes, in dreams; a mouse in a hut corner; a beautiful youth; or even smoke (the African concept of deities included the souls of animals, spirits, and humans being interchangeable)
When an epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
occurred, dances were forbidden, children ceased playing noisy games, and water-pots were covered. Katai could, when s/he was in a kindly mood, also cure illness and heal suffering. When Katai was in an evil-minded mood, s/he could be appealed to for revenge or spite. There was no agreement on the sex of Katai: in the north it was male, in the south, female.
There were other, more localized spirits. Hills, lakes (such as Lake Tanganyika), large trees, oddly shaped rocks, groves of trees, could all be the home of a spirit. Truly large tame pythons, representing the spirits of these places, would coil themselves on specially made stools and receive offerings of millet porridge and meat from worshipers. Worship was often conducted by a hereditary priest, often seemingly possessed of a particular spirit.
Lastly, there was the worship of ancestral spirits. These were thought to inhabit the threshold of their descendants' huts. Periodically, the owner of a hut would honor them by sprinkling the walls and floors with water and flour.
Twins were considered divinities, having special powers over rain and crops. They could also cause epidemics. They were publicly acclaimed, being carried around the village on a tray, and sacrifices were communally held in their honor at the new moon. They were not killed or allowed to die through starvation as with so many other groups. They were in fact so important as to be especially honored by having sacrifices offered at an altar erected by their parents outside their hut during harvest time or epidemics.