Iraqw people
The Iraqw are an ethnic group with about half a million members, who lives in Tanzania in the Arusha region. They settle on the high plateau between Lake Manyara and Lake Eyasi the. Administrative and economic center of its territory is the city Mbulu ( Imboru ), after which the Iraqw are called in Swahili also Mbulu or Wambulu. Their language, Iraqw, is a südkuschitische language.
According to their oral traditions, the Iraqw come originally from one place Ma ʿ angwatay, which should be in the vicinity of Kondoa. The Iraqw therefore lost a battle against the Datooga and eventually decided after Irqwa da ʿ aw ( " East Iraqw " ) southeast of Mbulu. From there they reached their present territory.
The Iraqw are farmers and grow corn, beans, wheat, sorghum, millet, finger millet, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, potatoes and bananas, of which up to millet, finger millet and sorghum were only recently introduced all. In addition, keep most Iraqw cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys and, more recently, pigs and chickens, their manure is used as fertilizer. The cattle have great cultural significance and usually get names.
Neighboring ethnic groups are the Datooga / Barabaig, the Hadza, Nyiramba, Mbugwe, Maasai and Gorowa. With the neighboring southern Datooga the Iraqw maintain the closest relations, and there is intermarriage and cultural rapprochement, the Iraqw spread to the south. The Iraqw sell maize to the Datooga and purchase them hardware. In the southeast there are around Babati close contacts with the Gorowa who speak the closely related with the language Irawq Gorowa. From the east adjoining rural Bantu people of Mbugwe - they there call Manda ʿ aw ( " East Manda " ) - relate the Iraqw pottery from the Nyiramba or Manda ʿ uuwa ( "West - Manda " ) in the southwest on the other hand there are friendly, but low-intensity relationships. The Iraqw tobacco trade for honey with the Hadza in the West. Among the Maasai in the north, which are regarded as enemies, there are no direct relations.
The traditional religion of the Iraqw includes the belief in the sun god loo'a as Creator and offerings to the spirits of deceased family members and to ward off evil powers that live in water and on mountains. The notion of ritual purity is important, and there are different rituals for purification of people, houses, land and territories. Both boys and girls are circumcised. Clans are important for the marriage rules, as members of the same clan are not allowed to marry each other ( exogamy ), but they have no political significance. Clans are usually not limited to one area, but scattered. Only certain clans can provide medicine men. The elders of each region meet to settle disputes within the community.
Swell
- Mous, Maarten: A Grammar of Iraqw, Hamburg, Buske Verlag, Cushitic Language Studies 9, 1993, ISBN 978-3-87548-057-3.
- Snyder, Katherine A.: The Iraqw of Tanzania: Negotiating Rural Development, Cambridge, MA, Westview, 2005, ISBN 978-0813342450. 196 pp.
- Thornton, Robert J.: Space, Time, and Culture among the Iraqw of Tanzania, New York, NY, Academic Press, 1980, ISBN 978-0126905809. 275 pp.
- Ethnic group in Tanzania
- Ethnicity in Africa