Disentangling Ethnicity in East Africa, Ca. 1 – 2010 CE: Past Communities in Present Practices
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Disentangling Ethnicity in East Africa, ca. 1 – 2010 CE: Past Communities in Present Practices Daren Ellsworth Ray Mesa, AZ Master of Arts, University of Virginia, 2008 Bachelor of Arts, Brigham Young University, 2006 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Virginia May 2014 Joseph C. Miller John E. Mason Roquinaldo Ferreira Adria LaViolette ii Dedication For my wife Patience, Subira kuvuta heri iii Acknowledgements I have received funding, counsel, and encouragement from many organizations and individuals as I researched and composed this dissertation. Monetary support for most of my research in Kenya came from the Social Science Research Council as a Dissertation Proposal Development Fellow in 2008 and from the United States Department of Education as a Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Aboard Fellow from November 2009 to October 2010. A grant from the John Anson Kittredge Fund supported my research and writing in 2011-2012. The Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia awarded me several grants to present research at conferences and improve my language skills, a Research Travel Grant in May 2011, and a Dissertation Completion Fellowship in 2012-2013. I also benefitted from the workshops on “Muslim Modernities” sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and led by Bruce Lawrence and Charles Kurzman in May 2008, September 2008, and April 2013. The workshop provided opportunities to discuss my research with other early career scholars from several disciplines and institutions which enriched my scholarship and provided professional contacts for future collaborations. My research permit in Kenya was sponsored by the Research Institute of Swahili Studies in East Africa, a branch of the National Museums of Kenya. They provided me with office space, access to Fort Jesus Museum Library and other museum facilities, invitations to museum events, and introductions to my research assistants and many of my consultants. I would particularly like to thank Director Omar Kassim, Mohamed Karama, and Munira Mohammed for their administrative support, as well as my research iv assistants: Mohamed Hassan in Lamu, Amira Mselem in Mombasa, and William Tsaka in Rabai. Daniel Mrenje provided numerous consultations regarding the Chi-Rabai dialect of Mijikenda and Ustedh Zein provided ‘oud lessons, a welcome weekly diversion from my daily research routines. My consultants are too numerous to list here and the arguments I make in the dissertation cannot possibly integrate their many contributions to my understanding of eastern Kenya; I list each of their names in the bibliography. I would especially like to express my gratitude for the hospitality of Price Tsaka, Ahmed Sheikh Nabhany, and the families who let me join in some of their most cherished celebrations. Other Kenyan institutions that assisted me in my research include the Kenya National Archives (in Nairobi and Mombasa), the Wakf Commission in Mombasa, the Kenya Land Office, and the University of Nairobi. I would like to recognize the staffs at each of these institutions for the professionalism with which they maintain Kenya’s historical records. Several men and women deserve special mention for the access they provided me: Kassim Mazrui, the former Chief Kadhi of Mombasa, granted permission to access Wakf Commission records, Chief Stephen Mutta of Rabai arranged for me to photograph records stuffed in an old chimney of the guard house at Rabai, Deputy Vice Chancellor Henry Mutoro personally escorted me around the University of Nairobi, and Professors Milcah Amolo Achola and Mary Mwiandi provided access to the University of Nairobi History Department’s research project archive. I would also like to thank my fellow researcher in the field, Reynolds Richter of New York University, for his friendship, advice, and hospitality in sharing his home during our final month in Kenya. v I also wish to acknowledge the support of colleagues at home. Thomas Hinnebusch, David Nurse, and Ellen Contini-Morava graciously provided me with linguistic data in digital formats; Thomas Spear offered a thorough critique of my Masters Thesis, which this dissertation expands; Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton provided recommendations at nearly every one of my research presentations; Lydia Wilson offered helpful perspectives on historical archaeology; and Jared Staller provided moral support and motivation to keep up with him through our graduate program. My committee members John Mason, Roquinaldo Ferreira, and Adria LaViolette provided inspiration in teaching as well as guidance in my research. To my advisor Joseph Miller, I express my appreciation for years of incisive critiques and unflagging support from the incubation of this dissertation in my first graduate seminar to its completion. I reserve my greatest acknowledgement for my wife Patience, a constant companion through two (and counting) moves half-way across the world. Thank you. vi Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Contents ............................................................................................................................. vi Abstract ............................................................................................................................ viii Note on Terminology, Spelling, and Languages ............................................................... ix Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1 Introduction: Integrating the Historical Landscapes of Eastern Kenya ..............2 Chapter 2 Embodied Genealogies: Reading Rituals Historically ......................................40 Chapter 3 Collective Claims: Descent Groups and Marriage Alliances, ca. 300 BCE – 600 CE ...........................................................................................83 Chapter 4 Consolidating Sabaki Frontiers: Assembling Clans and their Knowledge, ca. 500 – 1000 CE ................................................................................................139 Chapter 5 Domesticating Commerce: Confederations and Councils, ca. 1000 – 1500 ...174 Chapter 6 Dancing with Swords: Military Alliances and Age-Sets, ca. 1500 – 1837 .....218 Chapter 7 Discourses of Difference: Culture, Religion, and Ethnicity, 1837 – 1964......275 Chapter 8 Conclusion: Transcending Ethnicity? ............................................................326 Appendix 1 ...........................................................................................................375 Appendix 2 ...........................................................................................................376 Appendix 3 ...........................................................................................................382 Appendix 4 ...........................................................................................................383 Appendix 5 ...........................................................................................................385 vii Appendix 6 ...........................................................................................................388 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................397 List of Maps Map 1 Eastern Kenya and the Nyali Coast……………………………………... 1 Map 2 Mombasa and its Hinterlands………………….……………….…….. 276 List of Figures 2.1 New Year Huts in Makunduchi and Rabai…………………………….......... 51 2.2 Estimated Chronology of Pottery Wares in East Africa..……………............ 64 2.3 Sabaki Cognate Retention Rates…………………………………….............. 66 2.4 Sabaki Language Tree………………………………………………….......... 67 2.5 Estimated Dating for Cognate Retention Rates….......……………........... 68-69 3.1 Bantu Spirantization and Vowel Assimilation……………………................. 94 3.2 Chronology of Bantu Proto-Languages ...………………………………....... 96 3.3 Patrifiliation through Preferential Marriage among Matrilineages………… 103 3.3 Semantic Merging of Lineages and Doorways…….............…...........…….. 107 3.5 Southern Cushitic Loanwords in North East Coastal Bantu.......................... 126 4.1 Southern Cushitic Loanwords in Sabaki………….............…………..... 158-59 4.2 Stages of Sabaki Divergence……….......………………………….............. 161 6.1 Central Kenya Bantu Cognates with Mijikenda………......……............. 257-59 viii Abstract This dissertation examines how Bantu-speaking communities in eastern Kenya adapted their shared linguistic heritage over the past two millennia to create the Swahili and Mijikenda ethnic groups whose members claim ownership over the region’s coastal and inland landscapes, respectively. It documents the integrative connections across this geographical contrast by discerning the social strategies and practices that residents of the region compiled over several centuries and which they now embed in celebratory rituals to distinguish the ethnic identities they have created. Exploring rituals as compilations of symbols that refer to older social strategies disentangles the practices of the past from the modern ethnicities that they legitimate. Residents of eastern Kenya