Zigua people

The Zigua or in some sources Zigula (Wazigua in Swahili) are a Bantu ethnic and linguistic people hailing from far northern Pwani Region and western southern Tanga Region in Tanzania. In Tanga Region they are the majority in Handeni District, northern Kilindi District and also are a historically significant population south of the Pangani River in Pangani District. They speak the Zigula language. In 1993, the Zigua population was estimated to number 355,000 people, today they number 631,000 people.^[1]

PB177541f Mwana Hiti Figure with beaded headdress on a decorated calabash, Zigua, Tanzania (10897010124)

Zigua

Wazigua
Total population
631,000
Regions with significant populations
Tanzania Tanga Region (Kilindi District) , (Korogwe District), (Handeni District), (Pangani District) Pwani Region (Chalinze District)
Languages
Kizigua & Swahili
Religion
Majority Islam, Minority Christianity and African Traditional Religion
Related ethnic groups
Bondei, Zigua, Chaga, Pare & other Bantu peoples

Person	Mzigua
People	Wazigua
Language	Kizigua

The Zigua are considered to be the parent tribe of the Shambaa people, the Bondei people and the Ngulu people, which today all live in north-eastern Tanzania. For instance, the king Mbegha, who was to become the leader of the Shambaa people and the grandfather of the Shambaa ruler Kimweri ye Nyumbai (†1862), was born among the Zigua.

History

In the 1830s, the Zigua people acquired firearms, occupied the Pangani valley, and presented a danger to the mountain empire. In 1857, Burton declared that "the watch-fire never leaves the mountain" and "the war-horn is now silent." Kimweri was reluctant to recognize the importance of firearms, but his border chiefs embraced them and attracted supporters from outside the nation. Kimweri governed a conservative kingdom from a mountain capital remote from the trade routes.^[2]

Firearms offered those who originally acquired them a short-term edge. The Zigua were the ones who initially acquired weapons and drove the Maasai from the lower Pangani valley by 1850, while the Arusha were the ones who did so in the upper valley. But as the First World War would demonstrate, muskets were primarily defensive weapons. With said weapons, Saadani was burned by the Zigua in the early 1850s.^[2]

The residents of the coastal hinterland were exposed to Islam. Many Segeju and Digo people converted to Islam. In the 1870s, missionaries discovered a sizable Islamic population in Bonde (Muheza). One person wrote that "there is a little mosque in almost every town" and "an Arab School in the larger ones." It is said that the Zigua converted the Bondei people to Islam in Bonde, and it is undeniable that Islam spread to Uzigua at this time.^[2]

One factor contributing to the German period's first widespread adoption of Islam by inland peoples was the fervor of Muslim teachers, particularly Qadiri Khulafa. In the past, there were Muslim communities in the country's commercial towns and among hinterland peoples like the Bondei and Zigua, and a few interior monarchs had converted to Islam or adopted an Islamic façade.^[2]

The three areas of deeper influence in German times were as follows: In the hinterland in the north, there was one breakthrough. By 1914, the Segeju were predominately Muslim, whereas the Bondei appeared to be split between Christians and Muslims, with the latter group being particularly prevalent in the east near the Tanga coast. As their position of power declined in Usambara, many Kilindi converted to Islam. Both coastal waalimu Islamic teachers and Shambaa were present there by 1913. Omari Mgaza, a Zigua Qadiri trained in Bagamoyo, is linked to the Zigua conversion. By 1914, the majority of Zigua were likely at least nominal Muslims, and the dhikr was said in a remote area that included migratory workers and traders. It embraces individuals who were becoming peasants due to their close proximity to the coast.^[2]

As Zigua claimed to be descended from Harun al-Rashid's warriors or, as some dynasties in the Southern Highlands claimed Arab ancestry, the adoption of Islam allowed people looking to connect their small-scale communities to the broader history of Islam. And it includes the political figures who were frequently Muslim pioneers because they interacted with the outside world the most and were therefore most exposed to its hazards. John Saidi, the Bondei apostle to the Zigua and a practicing Christian, was a former exorcist.^[2]

The land of the Zigua has been plagued by famines for most of its 19th century history due to the introduction of rinderpest by Europeans earlier in the century. "Great numbers of cattle have died in the last year or two from cattle disease, and I nowhere saw the vast herds which used to be such a striking feature of the Zigua country," wrote a missionary who was in Uzigua in 1907 while on a visit. Twenty years later, trypanosomiasis was endemic and cattle had all but vanished from Uzigua.^[2]

The German East African Company (DOG) sent out 18 trips to north eastern Tanzania between 1884 and 1886 to negotiate treaties with the powerful states there that would expand its territory. By April 1888, it had also built up 18 little trading and research stations on the mainland. These sparked a lot of animosity. The headman of Dunda, a village inland from Bagamoyo, requested that the Company close its outpost for fear that "at some point, white people will be masters of the land." At Korogwe, the Zigua protested against a station. Two stations at Uzaramo were assaulted in the beginning of 1887. Throughout 1886 and 1887, there was a lot of discussion about the prospect of resisting the Germans, especially by Saadani's monarch, Bwana Heri.^[2]

The Sambaa king at Vugha was recognized by the British as their overlord or paramount chief. As a result, the Shamba native government annexed the once independent Zigua headman. But in the interim, the majority of the Zigua—who resided in different districts—were united in 1928 to form a tribal federation. One gleefully exclaimed, "It was not like in the olden days of our ancestors when they met with furious faces ready for war." "Let all the Zigua descendants return and enter into the unity and become a nation," the Zigua people said, "so that our fellow Zigua people in various countries will hear that now Zigua has united into one nation." The Zigua under Kilindi authority were thus motivated to establish an organization "to protect their interests in the country of their adoption."^[2]

They asked for the valley lands' restitution in 1943, arguing that they had been a part of Uzigua before the German invasion. The British dismissed the plea on the basis of history after receiving advice from a hardly impartial missionary in Mlalo.

The Zigua were completely correct because their ancestors had taken control of the valley during Kimweri ya Nyumbai's declining years. Responses to nationalism in this region in the 1950s would be significantly influenced by the persistence of Zigua irredentism. Old conflicts were thus brought into modern politics, as in Usambara and Bonde, while African political philosophy and organization acquired the framework of colonial administration.^[2]

Informally formed in 1938 to raise money for a Zigua boarding school, Moyo wa Uzigua na Nguu, often known as "The Heart (or Spirit) of Uzigua and Ungulu," had deeper roots. One was the conflict between the inherited Muslim chiefs and the educated Christian Zigua. Another was the local economy's collapse after tsetse's invasion. The fall of the Pangani valley to Shambaa rule and the split of Uzigua among multiple British districts as the third factor gave Zigua tribalism a significant irredentist component. Moyo evolved into possibly the most active tribal betterment society in the nation. Its originator, a teacher by the name of Paul Nkanyemka, joined the tribal council with the support of the district office, and he was appointed council secretary.^[2]

However, just like the Sukuma Union, it had to deal with the challenge of defining the tribe in an area where various groups blended into one another almost invisibly. Moyo not only embraced Zigua and Ngulu—two distinct "tribes" on British lists—but also claimed kinship with the Bondei and Shamba, who are also thought to be decedents of Seuta. At the offices of the native administration, the provincial commissioner unveiled a clay statue of Seuta, the Zigua national hero in 1951. The figure was the creation of a Makerere student.^[2]

When Moyo first opened its doors to Seuta's descendants, it also pushed for the return of the lost Pangani valley, or Tambarare as it was known locally, from Shambaa to Zigua authority. In 1954, the Zigua established the Tambarare Citizens Union on the advice of counsel in order to "protect the interests of the people of the plains as against those of the hills." Moyo's campaign for the election of a Zigua paramount chief, meantime, exacerbated the conflict in Zigua relations with Shamba.^[2]

References

1. "Zigula". Retrieved 2012-02-12.
2. Iliffe, J. (1979). A Modern History of Tanganyika. African Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511584114. ISBN 9780511584114.