Hima people

Not to be confused with Hema people.

The Hima or Huma are a pastoralist social class that is native to Western Uganda and Karagwe, Tanzania

Hima

Regions with significant populations
Uganda and  Tanzania
Languages
Rutara languages
Religion
Predominantly: Christianity traditionally: Belief in Ruhanga

Person	MuHima, MuHuma
People	BaHima, BaHuma

Etymology

Birgitta Farelius claims that the term "Hima" probably derives from the Bantu word for monkey (enkíma), which is a totem animal of some clans originating from Karagwe and Ankole. ^[1]

The name "Bahuma" comes from the verb "okuhuma", which means the "cacophony of sound made by a herd of cattle on the move, lowing, thudding of hooves, and cries of herdsmen".^[2]

Genetics

According to data from 1969, the Hima and Tutsi groups possessed the enzyme of milk sugar lactose tolerance, which is highly prevalent in European populations, but the other Bantu-speaking tribes were largely lactose deficient,^[3] similar results and conclusions were reached by the geneticist Sarah A. Tishkoff in 2007.^[4][5][6]

Excoffier et al. (1987) claimed that the Hima and Tutsi, despite being surrounded by other Bantu speakers, are "closer genetically to Cushites and Ethiosemites".^[8][9]

Physique

According to observers, "The typical Muhima of pure descent is tall, with well proportioned body and limbs...his nose is longer, more prominent and finer, and the lower part of his face narrower than in the average negro. Some (Hima) are lighter in colour, a dark bronze, but all have woolly hair".^[10]

light skin was seen as a sign of ill health among some Hima. A worried Hima woman in Buganda requested medicine from Lucy Mair to make her child darker.^[11]

History

Origins

The historian Christopher Ehret believes that the Hima mainly descend from an extinct branch of south Cushitic he calls "Tale south Cushitic." The Tale southern cushites were pastoralists par excellence, relying only on their livestock and conceivably growing no grains themselves, and their way of life was similar to the Bahima, who exclusively rely on the milk, blood, and meat of their cattle and traditionally shun the cultivation and consumption of grains with the sole exception of beer.^[12][13]

During the northward Rutara migrations from their homeland in the Kagera Region and into the grasslands of western Uganda in search of new pasturelands in 1200AD; David Lee Schoenbrun says, "it is conceivable that small groups of Tale Southern Cushites, Central Sudanic or Sog Eastern Sudanic-speaking herders took up Bantu speech" and moved into these grasslands alongside the Rutara speaking Bantu peoples.^[14][15][16]

According to Birgitta Farelius, the Bahima probably descend from a specific clan who monopolized the designation for “noble herder”.^[17]

Central Sudanic peoples likely form another part of the ancestry of the Bahima. Central Sudanic farmers and herders formerly lived in the lands that the Hima reside in now, and some of their cultural practices have stayed on after their disappearance. For example, in Central Sudanic-speaking societies, women are kept away from cattle. Among the Bahima (and the neighboring Tutsi to the south), women are strictly forbidden to milk cows.^{[18][19][20][21]}

Precolonial times

The Bahima have been influential and regarded as having high status in some of the African Great Lakes Kingdoms. Hima kings ruled the kingdoms of Ankole, Karagwe, and Mpororo. Although the Bahuma claimed and were accorded high status, they have always, as Bahuma, lacked major political importance, and they have never been rulers in Bunyoro-Kitara but were herdsmen who "attached themselves to the great chiefs as custodians of their herds."^[22]

The Hima were not always high-status people. In the Kingdom of Burundi, the Bahima were regarded as less prestigious than both the Tutsis and the Hutus. While the Ganwa dynasty of Burundi intermarried with Tutsis and Hutus, they would not take Hima spouses. Hima were considered impure and were kept far from the court and away from the kingdom's public affairs.^[23][24]

In Buganda, the Hima were simply servants who looked after the cows of the farming Baganda who regarded (and regard) them as menial people. Farmers had high status in Buganda.^[25] The Bahima were often called slaves by the agricultural Baganda and looked down upon as being culturally inferior.^[26]