² See Shetler, Jan Bender, “‘A Gift for Generations to Come’: A Kiroba Popular History from Tanzania and Identity as Social Capital in the 1980s,” IJAHS 28(1995), 69–112.Google Scholar

³ I use the term “tribe” here in quotation marks to convey the idea that these are constructed identities of the colonial period.

⁴ Interview with Mahewa Timanyi and Nyambureti Morumbe, Robanda, 27 May 1995, with Wilson Machota.

⁵ The literature on the generation-sets in this region does not mention the secret nature of this walk, see for example, Ruel, Malcolm, “Kuria Generation Classes,” Africa 32(1962), 14–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bischofberger, Otto, The Generation Classes of the Zanaki (Tanzania) (Fribourg, 1972).Google Scholar

⁶ Kershaw, Greet, Man Man From Below (Athens, 1997), 16.Google Scholar

⁷ Guyer, Jane I. and Belinga, Samuel M. Eno, “Wealth in People as Wealth in Knowledge: Accumulation and Composition in Equatorial Africa,” JAH 36(1995), 91–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Ibid

⁹ This is a classic anthropological insight; for example, Bohannan, Laura, “A Genealogical Charter,” Africa 22(1952), 301–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the Tiv genealogies as a validation of present relationships, the genealogies must change over time and in different situations to be consistent with present social relationships. She argues that writing down these genealogies would make them rigid and thus incompatible with their usefulness as social charter.

¹⁰ This was the case in the 1993 coronation of the Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II in Buganda, where some of those officiating referred to the missionary/anthropologist John Roscoe's account of the ceremony. Roscoe, John, The Baganda: An Account of their Native Customs and Beliefs (2d. ed.: London, 1965).Google Scholar

¹¹ Niane, D. T., Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali, trans. Pickett, G. D. (London, 1965), viii.Google Scholar

¹² This confusion is evident in the population statistics of the various chiefdoms. In 1909 the German officer in Shirati reported a total of twenty-six Sultans (Chiefs) north and twenty-eight Sultans south of the Mara River with a total estimated population of 110,000. (Schultz, Schirati, to Governor, Dar es Salaam, 25 December 1909, Schirati, 1909-1910, G/45/2, TNA). A German classification of “tribes” listed more than thirty, with the major classifications, including the Nata and Ikoma as Maasai peoples and the Sizaki, Ngoreme, Ikizu and Ishenyi as “Shashi” peoples. (Musoma District, “Notes from the Musoma District Books on Local Tribe and Chiefdoms in German,” [ca. 1912?], CORY #348, EAF, UDSM). The first British census in 1928 listed a population total of 199,520 with nine major “tribes” (Kuria, Girango, Rangi, Jita, Sizaki, Zanaki, Ngoreme, Simbiti, and Ikoma) (Native Affairs Census 1926-1929, Chiefdom Census 1926, 246/P.C./3/21, TNA). A 1937 report on governance identified “upwards of forty petty chiefs” and thus corresponding “tribes” (Baker, E. C., “System of Government, Extracts from a Report by R. S. W. Malcolm,” 1937, MDBGoogle Scholar).

¹³ District Commissioner, Musoma, “Memorandum on the Revival and Application of the Clan Regime in the Musoma District,” 4 July 1945, CORY #347, EAF, UDSM. See also Hans Cory, “Report on the pre-European Tribal Organization in Musoma (South Mara District and Proposals for Adaptation of the Clan System to Modern Circumstances,” 1945, CORY #173, EAF, UDSM.

¹⁴ This point has been made my many; see Schmidt, Elizabeth, Peasants Traders and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939 (Portsmouth, NH, 1992), 98–108Google Scholar, and LeroyVail, , “Introduction” in The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, 1991), 1–20.Google Scholar

¹⁵ However, agreement on what was customary was far from settled. In 1928 the Musoma District Officer reported that the Ikoma, Ishenyi, and Nata “women have the men completely under their thumbs” and “divorce is more frequent than with most native tribes.” Acting D.O. Musoma to P.C. Mwanza, 10 October 1928, Monthly Report for September 1928, 10 March 1928, Monthly Report for February 1928, and 13 September 1927, Monthly Report for August 1927, 1926-29 Provincial Administration Monthly Reports, Musoma District, 215/P.C./1/7, TNA. Litigation in the Musoma District on the issues surrounding marriage and bridewealth counted for the biggest percentage of court cases. As Martin Chanock noted in his study of the creation of customary law in colonial Africa, traditional understanding of justice which had been open to situational interpretation now became fixed and inflexible, with a clear bias toward the interests of a male elite and supported by the colonial regime. See Chanock, , “Making Customary Law; Men, Women, and Courts in Colonial Northern Rhodesia” in African Women and the Law; Historical Perspectives, ed. Hay, Margaret Jean and Wright, Marcia (Boston, 1982), 53–67.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For the classic elaboration of the British position on Indirect Rule see Lugard, John Frederick, The Dual Mandate in Tropical Africa (London, 1965).Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Shetler, , “Landscapes,” 81–92.Google Scholar This has been observed by many in Africa, including early anthropologist Fallers, Lloyd A., Bantu Bureaucracy: A Century of Political Evolution among the Basoga of Uganda (Chicago, 1965), 90Google Scholar, who states that, “lineage males must often draw upon the genealogical knowledge of wives and mothers … women often remember genealogical complexities better than men.”

¹⁸ Feierman, Steven, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison, 1991)Google Scholar, chapter 8, and Iliffe, John, Africa: A Modern History (Cambridge, 1979), chapters 10, 13, and 15.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See for example, Chacha, Gabriel N., Historia ya Abakuria na Sheria Zao (Dar es Salaam, 1963)Google Scholar; Kamera, W. D, Hadithi za Wairaqw was Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, 1978)Google Scholar; Ntiro, S. J., Desturi za Wachagga (Dar es Salaam, 1953)Google Scholar; and Dodoma Literacy Committee, Ugogo na Wilaya Zake (Dar es Salaam, 1965).Google Scholar Examples of schoolbooks with this agenda, Elimu, Taasaisi ya, Historia, Shule ya Msingi: Jamii za Watanzania tangu 1880 (Dar es Salaam, 1984)Google Scholar and for secondary schools, Institute of Education, Development of African Societies up to the Nineteenth Century (Dar es Salaam, 1981).Google Scholar

²⁰ Interview with Mohere Mogoye, Bugerera, 25 March 1995 (Nata),who mentioned this in connection with the story of how Megasa was made the first Nata chief. It is a standard motif in all of the chief-making stories throughout the region.