Swahili culture

As Swahili is called a cosmopolitan, composed of a variety of cities company whose trading activities the entire coast of East Africa dominated for centuries. The term Swahili is derived from the Arabic word saahilii ( coastal people ), and was only in the 19th century ethnonym. Inhabitants of the coastal regions originally designated themselves as Arabs or Omani, another name was the term Zanj or Zenj (Arabic for, black ' ). The Swahiligesellschaft was pluralistic, but there was a hierarchy based on ethnic origin. The company defined itself by Islam, the language and the urban culture. However, it never came to a nation-building. She had a händlerischen character, probably because of its geographical situation in the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean and maintained relationships with various other cultures such as the Somali, the Indians and the Europeans.

Transport and relationships with other companies

The earliest settlements of the Swahili are dated to 100 BC to 400 AD. They lived as shepherds, robbers / pirates or farmers. They knew early on to work iron. The Swahili used Daus, small boats, with which they took advantage of the waterways in the monsoons to operate transcontinental trade. Through it arrived Asian rice, coconut, bananas, millet, the domestic chicken and goats to Africa. The existence of Swahiligesellschaft occupied since about the 1st millennium through historical written sources. There is, for example, a mention in the Periplus Maris Erythraei as Azanische coast, a -written in Greek navigational guide to mariners. There were immigrants to the Swahiligesellschaft for example from Indonesia (via Madagascar), from Arabia and Persia, and the Swahili were also the first company to more detailed contact with Europeans, namely the Portuguese, had. Within the Swahiligesellschaft lives an Indian diaspora, whose members never understood as Swahili for over 1000 years. On the island of Lamu many stranded sailors lived from countries such as Persia and China.

Economy

The prosperity of the Swahili founded on trading. They acted both as intermediaries for goods from the landlocked African country such as gold, tortoiseshell and rock crystal, from the 18th century, especially for ivory and slaves. On the other hand, they were firmly embedded in the international trade in the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean into it. However, the pulses from the trade also promoted the local economy. So Mogadishu was famous for the production of valuable cotton fabrics, shipyards emerged in many cities, Zanzibar and Kilwa were talking mints. Operated In addition, the Swahili horticulture, grain plantations, livestock, some gold mines and various crafts. In the 19th century Zanzibar became rich mainly through its extensive clove plantations, but also as a transit point for intensive caravan trade to the Congo into it. The caravans from the coast were feared because of their slave rape, Swahili was known for centuries among Africans as the language of slave traders and thus had a bad reputation.

Urban Culture

The cities of the Swahili were famous throughout the Indian Ocean for its wealth and flourishing culture. Mombasa, Lamu, Zanzibar town or Bagamoyo still bear witness to this past.

Typical of Swahilistädte was the separation into parts and the combative contest between these neighborhoods, for example, by dance groups.

The Tanzanian poet, author and essayist Bin Shaaban Robert, who worked primarily in the city of Tanga, is considered the " poet laureate of Swahili ".