Chaga people

The Chagga, also Dschagga, Tschagga, Waschagga; are around the Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania living people.

You use for generations a sophisticated irrigation system. This system has them - integrated into a tree garden culture with hundreds of different edible plant species ( fruits, etc.) (other tall trees, shrubs and grasses) on several vegetation levels - for centuries possible to operate intensive agriculture on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Now, however, most channels were replaced with pipes. By cutting down large parts of the original rainforest below the border of the national park ( 1,950 m) and the resulting desertification and desertification of soils in conjunction with increasing aridity in this system is at risk.

The Chagga comprise about 800,000 people and are a Bantu- speaking, agricultural people. They traditionally cultivate bananas, from which they produce among other things, a Mbege called pombe ( Kiswahili for " beer " ), and keep mainly cattle. In pre-colonial times they had a chieftain system, the clans often warred against each other. After the establishment of the colony of German East Africa, the cultivation of coffee, for which the documents at Kilimanjaro offered the best conditions began.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chagga could earn good profits by selling coffee. Many could therefore send their children to secondary schools and universities. There was a formation layer, which included many teachers who spread over the whole of Tanzania. Many of these families are affected since the 1990s and especially in the new millennium by HIV / AIDS. Dying parents to send their children back home to Mount Kilimanjaro to grandparents and relatives. For this reason, there is in this region a demographic imbalance. There are many children and many old people.

Under German colonial rule, the Chagga often served as auxiliary troops, partly also in the protection force itself 1891/92, there was an uprising after Carl Peters, 1891 Reich Commissioner for the Kilimandscharogebiet, his concubine Jagodia and a servant, with whom she had a relationship, hang up and let destroy their home villages. Only after months, the Germans, quell the insurgent Chagga.

The historic center of the Chagga is Kidia in Old Moshi, where the German Lutheran missionary Bruno Gutmann built a church, Mission and hospital docked and the plantation economy promoted. For decades he explored intensively language and culture of the people.

Today, the Chagga are suspended due to lack of land ownership a strong social change. Many now have jobs in agriculture in neighboring regions or in tourism, particularly in the region around Moshi.