Maasai Groups Tribal Tribes Indigenous

Tanzania is home to over 120 different tribal groups. Though most stem from the extensive Bantu - South East Africa's main ethnic and linguistic group - on Zanzibar and Pemba, the strong historical Arab influence is very much visible in the faces around you. Asians and Europeans make up Tanzania's smaller minority ethnic groups - all creating an exciting and generally comfortable mix of peoples, cultures and traditions.

Indigenous Tanzanian's have been relatively successful in preserving their cultural heritage, arguably despite the insistence of independent Tanzania's founding father, Julius Nyerere, on the widespread teaching of Kiswahili - Tanzania's official language

Today there are still tribes who live as they always have - including the aboriginal Wa-Tindiga who occupy age-old underground shelters and who live off roots and whatever they can hunt. Click languages are still also spoken amongst the Kangeju and Ndorobo tribes. The Maasai, who for Westerners have long-symbolised all the romance and nobility of 'native Africa,' have also stubbornly retained many of their traditional practices and ways of life.

Having moved across from Kenya, where the majority of Maasai still live, Maasai clans have occupied Tanzanias's Ngorongoro Crater and highlands for over 150 years. Cattle are fundamental to the Maasai way of life and, though increasingly less so, some tribes still move from place to place to graze them. The cow's blood, milk, hide, dung and flesh are used in all aspects of Maasai life and are vital to their physical and psychological survival. Heads of cattle are still a direct representation of family wealth

National and international concerns about environmental degradation, water management, land rights and tribal settlement have immediate and long-term implications for the nomadic Maasai and numerous other indigenous groups. Recent governments have made concerted efforts to settle Tanzania's tribal peoples in modern villages complete with schools and clinics and increasingly the freedom of movement innate to so many of these indigenous tribes is fast diminishing.

Environmentally too, Tanzania's tribes face a similar threat, as huge tracts of land are handed over for commercial agricultural production, rangeland (ecological and economical) management and conservation. These schemes may make good economic and financial sense for Tanzania in the long term, but in the short term they may prove fatal for those living off and with the land.

In an attempt to ensure their survival, many of Tanzania's tribal groups are diversifying; cultivating or trading items amongst themselves and directly to the growing tourist markets. Several Maasai clans make their living selling beads and craft-work or sharing their traditional dances or 'ngomas' with visitors. However, the issue of contact is a problematic one and most of Tanzania's indigenous peoples have been hard hit by foreign influences and the lure of foreign wealth. Many are loosing younger members to Tanzania's towns and cities, disrupting the passing on of deep-rooted values across the generations. Other tribal groups are assimilating or, on the contrary, outright rejecting these influences - all with varying degrees of success.

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