Traditional Institutions' Management of Sacred Forests in Tanzania
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Traditional Institutions’ Management of Sacred Forests in Tanzania: History, Narratives, and Evidence from Njombe Region, 1880s-2019 By Edward Simon Mgaya A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Victoria University of Wellington (2020) i Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ i Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ v Abbreviations ................................................................................................................... vii Glossary ............................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 Problem statement ........................................................................................................................ 5 Thesis aims and argument ............................................................................................................ 6 Literature review .......................................................................................................................... 7 Theoretical framework ............................................................................................................... 19 Geography, demography, the scope, and the significance of the study ...................................... 25 Primary sources .......................................................................................................................... 29 Human ethics .............................................................................................................................. 32 The organisation of the thesis ..................................................................................................... 33 Chapter 1 .......................................................................................................................... 35 1.Forests and forestry in Tanzania: topographical, historical, and legal contexts ............................................................................................................................................ 35 1.1. Tanzania’s vegetation cover today ................................................................................. 36 1.2. Pre-colonial forest management (before 1891) .............................................................. 41 1.3. German forestry management in East Africa (1891-1919) ............................................ 43 1.4. British forest management in Tanganyika, 1919-1961 .................................................. 46 1.5. Post-independence forest management (1961-today) ..................................................... 50 1.6. Forest categories and forms of management .................................................................. 54 Chapter 2 .......................................................................................................................... 61 2.Traditional ecological knowledge, institutions, and sacredness: A conceptual discussion .......................................................................................................................... 61 2.1. Traditions and Traditional Ecological Knowledge ......................................................... 61 2.2. Formal versus informal institutions ................................................................................ 67 2.3. New Institutionalism ...................................................................................................... 73 2.4. Traditional institutions in Tanzania ................................................................................ 75 ii 2.5. The concept of sacredness .............................................................................................. 78 Chapter 3 .......................................................................................................................... 84 3.Traditional institutions and the sacred forests: Formation, development, and management...................................................................................................................... 84 3.1. Spiritual foundations of sacredness among the Bena ..................................................... 85 3.2. Formative processes: how sacred forests were formed .................................................. 89 3.3. Nyumbanitu sacred forest (NSF): main tambiko for the Bena ....................................... 95 3.4. Rites in the underworld: The sacred cave and its connection to the NSF .................... 103 3.5. Bena ancestral clans and the tale of three sons ............................................................. 107 3.6. Migration and the extension of groves in Tanzania’s Southern Highland ................... 115 3.7. Folklore: sacred forests’ restrictions and repercussions against defaulters .................. 119 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................ 127 4.The changing meaning of sacred forests and practices in Njombe: Colonial encounters, 1880s-1961 .................................................................................................. 127 4.1. One landscape, different perceptions between Africans and Europeans ...................... 128 4.2. The land alienation and the change in sacred landscapes in Njombe ........................... 133 4.3. Colonial administration and economic systems, and the fate of Bena sacred forest practices .................................................................................................................................... 140 4.4. Faith blending and the destiny of Bena ritual practices: the role of Christianity ......... 145 4.5. Weakened but not extinct: Resilience in indigenous beliefs and sacred practices ....... 152 Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................ 159 5.Sacred forests’ dynamics and endurances in the post-colonial Njombe, 1961-2019 .......................................................................................................................................... 159 5.1. From forest to a tree: economic drives versus sacred forest conservation ................... 160 5.2. Cultural politics of sacred forests: Sacred sites as contested terrain ............................ 166 5.3. Tourism meets the sacred: emerging tourism interest at Nyumbanitu shrine .............. 174 5.4. Tradition versus modernity: will the young generation adhere to sacred traditions? ... 182 5.5. Rationality for contemporary conservation and management of sacred forests ........... 189 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 198 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 208 Appendices ...................................................................................................................... 233 iii Abstract Forest management entails interdependence between nature and society at different levels and systems. In Africa, one example of the interdependence of nature and society is ‘sacred forests,’ groves of trees with special religious importance to a people’s culture. In Tanzania, sacred forests are comparatively small in area, scattered over the entire country, and primarily managed by local village lineages, or kinship groups. In these communities, the close interaction in a small-scale society acts as a monitoring and sanctioning device. The patches of sacred forests have historically been managed as part of local tradition. Their management demonstrates Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), the linkages between biodiversity and cosmology, and the intersection between the social and the natural sciences. Scholars of traditional forestry in Tanzania have for decades compared sacred woodlands with the state- or private-owned forests. Comparing these different forest management systems cultivated a ‘relic stance’ in much of the scholarship regarding sacred groves. Anchored in the language of ecology, the predominant tone of sacred forest scholarship has been to describe sacred landscapes as static communal sites without exploring their associated constitutive dynamics. In such an interpretation, sacred forests have been regarded as remnants of the primordial past, a frozen view of these fragments of woodlands. Studying sacred groves without considering the institutions that uphold them is problematic, as it assumes traditional institutions have continued to be stagnant, interacting with sacred forests in the same way throughout time. This thesis studies traditional institutions’