"&Notes Hunter-gatherers in the hinterland of Mombasa: Notes on the Maumba of Chonyi and related traditions Martin T. Walsh Introduction In the introduction to his ‘Notes on the History of Vumba’, A. C. Hollis made the following tantalising remarks about traditions of earlier populations on what is now the Kenya coast: The aboriginal inhabitants of this country are thought to have been the Wasi, who were divided into three groups, the Wamaraka, the Wamaumba and the Watwa. A few Wamaraka are now settled at Ada, a town some fifty miles west of Gasi, the Wamaumba live with the Wachonyi, one of the Wanyika tribes, some thirty miles north of Mombasa, whilst the Watwa are to be found in small numbers round Lamu, a well-known town not far from the mouth of the Tana river.1 None of the ethnonyms given to Hollis is now in common use on the Kenya coast. ‘Wasi’ and its cognates (including Gikuyu Athi) is a widespread term for hunter-gatherers in the Bantu languages of central and eastern Kenya and north-eastern Tanzania — but it is not used in contemporary Mijikenda or Swahili. Derek Nurse2 has speculated that it may be the origin of the name Wasini (i.e. ‘Place of the hunter-gatherers’), though there is no other evidence to support this at present. Twa is an even more widespread Bantu term for aboriginal peoples. By ‘Watwa’, Hollis was apparently referring to the former hunter-gatherers generally known in the modern literature as the Dahalo. The Dahalo are speakers of a Cushitic language with a ‘click’ substratum, who still live, albeit in dwindling numbers, in the north of the Tana Delta (Nurse 1986, Tosco 1991). The name Twa seems to have been formerly much more widely used on the coast, and it appears in the Mombasa Chronicle as a term for the local washenzi or ‘barbarians’ (Knappert 1964). The ‘Wamaraka’ were first noted in the mid-nineteenth century under the names Masaka and Madhaka (these are all cognates). More recently the Maraka / Madhaka have been identified with the Degere and/or Vuna who live to the south and west of the Shimba Hills respectively. The Degere and Vuna are former hunter-gatherers related to the Oromo-speaking Waata, but now largely assimilated to the Mijikenda-speaking Digo and Duruma (Walsh 1990, 1992/93). The Waata once hunted and gathered in various coastal forests (including the Arabuko-Sokoke) and throughout the drier thorn-bush country to the west, but lost much of their hunting grounds in the latter area when they were ejected from Tsavo East National Park (Ville 1995). Although Hollis was quite specific about the location of the ‘Wamaumba’ (i.e. Maumba), described as living among the Chonyi to the north of Mombasa, the literature 1 2 Hollis 1900, 277, fn.12. Personal communication, November 1987. Notes "' on coastal history has otherwise been largely silent on their identity as a group of assimilated hunter-gatherers. The following notes gather together existing sources on the Maumba and discuss these and related traditions, with a view to enhancing our understanding of the history of the Kenyan coast and the role of hunting and gathering groups in that history (see the existing syntheses by Stiles, 1981, 1993). The Maumba in Northern Mijikenda traditions The Maumba are no longer an identifiable ethnic group, and they barely figure in the published traditions of the Chonyi and other Mijikenda sub-groups. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that Hollis’ early statement about them has generally gone unnoticed. The anthropologist David Parkin,3 who began work among the Giriama and neighbouring Mijikenda peoples in 1966, was told that the Maumba were the ‘original’ people in the Chonyi area. There is, however, only one clear reference to the Maumba by name in Spears’ (1982) collection of Mijikenda historical traditions, originally recorded in 1971. This occurs towards the end of an interview with a Jibana man, born in Tsunguni in 1933 (the Jibana are southern neighbours of the Chonyi). After recounting a version of the standard story of Mijikenda origins in Singwaya, to the north of their present country, he added the following information in response to a question about the foundation of the main Jibana kaya (fortified village, now sacred site): Before the migration the Mijikenda were hunters. At that time there was a tribe called the Maumba [or the Mijikenda hunters’ caste]. The Maumba had shot an elephant which they tracked onto the island of Mombasa at Ngomeni. They sheltered in the caves in the rock while they ate the meat. When the war with the Galla broke out, they told the others what they had found and invited them to join them. The kaya was established by three mbari [sections or clans — MTW]; the one which christened [kuhaswa: to initiate or cleanse, in this case by an elder sleeping with his wife] it was a Remere and the other two were the Vumbi and the Tsuma. The other mbari followed later because they had become dispersed.4 Interpreted literally, this tradition implies that the Maumba were living and hunting in the vicinity of Mombasa before the Mijikenda (who were also hunters at this time) migrated south from Singwaya. After tracking a wounded elephant onto Mombasa Island, they discovered caves at Ngomeni — which is now the site of (and common name for) the Portugese-built Fort Jesus. When the Mijikenda fell into conflict with the Galla (Oromo-speakers who are widely agreed to have pushed them south from Singwaya), the Maumba invited them to join them in the south. And it is on Maumba territory (not on Mombasa Island) that the Jibana clans settled and built their kaya. More will be said about the interpretation of this and related traditions in the next section below. Spear himself does not seem to have fully appreciated the reference to the Maumba, and his gloss looks like the loose translation of an assistant’s further attempt to 3 4 Personal communication, August 1995. Interview with Michael Chirongo, 23 March 1971, in Spear 1982, 99-100. In this and a subsequent quotation all of the glosses in square brackets are Spear’s except those I have initialled [MTW]. # Notes explain who the Maumba were. This is the only reference to the existence of such a ‘Mijikenda hunters’ caste’ in Spear’s writings, though it might not be an entirely inaccurate description of the role once played by partially-assimilated Maumba in northern Mijikenda society. Otherwise, it should be noted that young Jibana informants I asked about the Maumba in the mid-1980s had never heard of them. Umba: a place in Chonyi The published traditions say nothing more about the Maumba, at least not by this name. Chonyi traditions do, however, refer to the existence of a kaya or settlement called Umba. Justin Willis has the following to say about this site, which he locates at 39041’E, 03047’S, to the north of the principal Chonyi kaya: This is one of a number of Chonyi kayas mentioned by some people, but dismissed by others as being not ‘really’ kayas, but just residences. No informant offers any further information on it or any family history of involvement with this kaya; it is not possible to put any date on settlement of this site.5 As it happens, this site was mentioned by one of Spear’s Chonyi informants, in a passage describing the latter stages of the migration of the Chonyi from Singwaya: From Rabai they moved to Dzivwani in Duruma, where there is another Chonyi. At Dzivwani their uganga [traditional ritual practice — MTW] told them that they had already passed their hill, so they turned back and went to Umba. They said they were going to build [umba] their home there. This was at the bottom of Kaya Chonyi hill. Later they moved into the kaya. They examined the soil and decided that it was fertile and suitable for their crops. The man who led them to the kaya was Mwambura Mbaga, a Mandiri. This man stumbled, but he was pushed from behind by his son, Kovu Kiringi, who led the people into the kaya.6 Later in this passage Kiringi is described as the chief mganga, traditional ritual specialist, of the Chonyi; and this position seems to have been inherited by other Mandiri (Spear 1982, 72-73). Little else is said about the Mandiri in the traditions collected by Spear, though ‘Mwajinji, a Mandiri’ is said by another Chonyi informant to have been the owner of Kizurini, near Kaloleni (1982, 68). The etymology of Umba and Maumba None of this connects Umba definitively with the Maumba, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the place name and the ethnonym are cognate and linked. Spear’s Chonyi informant implied that the name Umba is derived from the verb root -umba, ‘to mould, create’; while David Parkin7 has also suggested this as the origin of the ethnonym. However, this postulated etymology fails to explain the lack of assimilation between the second and third vowels in the latter word. 5 6 7 Willis 1996, 87. Interview with Thomas Govi, 17 April 1971, in Spear 1982, 72. Personal communication, August 1995. Notes # In Chonyi and other northern Mijikenda dialects the ethnonym is amaumba (singular mumaumba): Hollis’ wamaumba is a Swahili version of the same name (following convention, the ethnonym is anglicised by dropping the Bantu noun class prefixes). This name seems to have been formed in the same way as the (now obsolete) ethnonym amadhaka (see above), which appears to derive from the noun stem -dhaka, originally meaning ‘bush’ (amadhaka therefore translates as ‘people of the bush’). The phonology of –dhaka indicates that it is a loanword from the historical Segeju, originally speakers of a Central Kenya Bantu language (Nurse 1982). The unusual shape of the ethnonym amaumba suggests a similar origin. One of the features of Segeju loans in Mijikenda is loss of Central Kenya Bantu /g/. A plausible etymology for amaumba might therefore derive it from earlier *amagumba, cognate with the Central Kenya ethnonym Gumba (Gikuyu agumba), a name for autochthonous inhabitants of Mount Kenya and the Rift Valley. If correct, this etymology would imply that the Maumba were neighbours of the northern Mijikenda when the Segeju first entered this area in the sixteenth century or earlier (Gray 1950). It would also imply that the Segeju recognised broad similarities between the indigenous hunter-gatherers of their homeland on the upper Tana and the aboriginal peoples they met with on the coast. This does not tell us what the Maumba’s own name for themselves might have been. Nor does it give us any clues as to their general cultural and linguistic origin and affiliations. For tentative answers to these last questions we have to turn to other traditions. Related traditions from the hinterland of Mombasa Although they do not mention the Maumba by name, there are a number of published traditions which parallel the Jibana one quoted above and share many of its key elements (the pursuit of a wounded animal onto the island of Mombasa and the discovery of the site of Fort Jesus) or variations upon them. In Spear’s collection of historical traditions there are seven others based on the same set of themes: four from Chonyi informants; and one each from Ribe, Duruma and Digo informants (1982, 68, 76, 82, 85-86, 112-113, 141, 149). Another version, of unstated provenance, is summarised in Mwangudza’s introduction to Mijikenda history and culture (which is partly written from a Chonyi perspective) (1983, 28). Finally, a number of similar traditions were collected by Willis in the mid-1980s: these are discussed by him, and one of them (from a Jibana informant) reproduced in his book (1993, 35-37). Willis also refers to an early version recorded in the Digo District Station Diary in October 1925 (1993, 35, fn.68). Willis notes that these traditions articulate poorly with the Singwaya traditions, and argues that they have (or had) contemporary political significance. On one level they act to claim political primacy for the Mijikenda at the coast — they were on Mombasa Island before the Swahili or Arabs. On a second level they signal the historical alliance between the Mijikenda and Swahili: they are the same people because the Mijikenda were the first inhabitants of Mombasa and have been there since. On a third level, however, the tradition can be reworked into the historiography of Mijikenda independence, becoming a story of dispossession and hostility (1993, 36-37). While Willis’ interpretation is compelling, and these stories can certainly have been used for different political ends, this does not account for many aspects of them. The # Notes details of the traditions (including persons and places mentioned) demand further explanation, as does their distribution among different Mijikenda sub-groups, with an apparent focus on the Chonyi and Jibana. When the details of the traditions are examined and these different factors considered, it is not hard to come to the conclusion that they contain older strands of knowledge which have been periodically adapted to different political purposes (as all traditions are) — not simply created during the past century or so to satisfy common Mijikenda aspirations. Perhaps the most telling feature of many versions which undermines Willis’ thesis is the fact that the hunters who cross over to Mombasa are often described in terms which suggest that they are not Mijikenda at all, but really coastal hunter-gatherers of quite different origins. The Jibana tradition already quoted makes it clear that the elephant hunters were Maumba. Other traditions identify the hunters, either explicitly or implicitly, as Laa (alaa), a widely-used Mijikenda name for the hunter-gatherers who preceded the Waata and later became either Waata themselves or assimilated to different Mijikenda sub-groups (Walsh 1992, 6-7, 12-13). A Duruma tradition identifies the hunter who first shot the elephant as a Laa, who was then joined by Duruma in tracking the animal (Spear 1982, 141). One of the Chonyi versions calls the principal elephant hunter ‘Malaa Ngore’, saying that he later crossed to the island with other Chonyi hunters: in this case the name Malaa is presumably derived from the ethnonym Laa (Spear 1982: 85). In a Digo tradition the hunter is first called ‘Duru of Kwale’ and then, in response to a question, later identified as ‘Digore’ (Spear 1982, 149). The first of these names comprises the first two syllables of the ethnonym Duruma, while the second appears to be a blend of the names Digo and Degere, the latter being former hunter-gatherers assimilated to the Digo on either side of the Kenya-Tanzania boundary (Walsh 1990, 1992/93). If anything, these traditions look like claims for the primacy of non-Mijikenda hunter-gatherers in the settlement history of the coast. Modern Waata do in fact make this assertion themselves. One of Spear’s two Waata informants from Gede contended that the Waata had first lived in the Nairobi area and then migrated to Mombasa and settled around Fort Jesus (1982, 161). In Kisimeni, Kasigau Location, a Durumaassimilated Waata informant8 told me that the Ryangulo (aryangulo, the Duruma name for the Waata) had originated in Mombasa, before moving inland to Samburu and dividing in the directions of Kilibasi and Baisa Shilango. Another Kisimeni resident, a Giriama man,9 told me that ‘Ngomeni’ (i.e. Fort Jesus) in Mombasa “belongs to the Langulo” (alangulo, the Giriama name for the Waata). Later, when I mentioned these claims to a Digo-assimilated Degere informant in Mombasa,10 he immediately assented, “Yes! Ngomeni, Fort Jesus, is ours!”. These assertions by and on behalf of the Waata all make fairly blunt reference to modern urban locations and symbols of political and economic power. The general claim to precedence, however, is not thereby invalidated. Ignoring specific clichés and claims about Fort Jesus and Mombasa, there seems little doubt that hunter-gatherers — including the ancestors of some of the modern Waata — did indeed precede the Mijikenda and 8 9 10 Dereva Dadi, interviewed on 12 November 1987. Mwaro Marai, interviewed on 16 November 1987. Joseph Tembe Zani, interviewed on 2 March 1990. Notes #! other farmers and livestock-keepers on the coast, and may have remained a significant component in the coastal population until after the middle of the second millennium 11 A.D. Conclusions This does not, unfortunately, leave us any wiser about the particular history and identity of the Maumba. The concentration of these stories in the Chonyi and Jibana areas might lead us to suspect that they have their origins there, and are all derivatives of earlier traditions about the Maumba and/or Laa. However, the evidence for this hypothesis is weak at present; and more systematic collection and analysis of the relevant traditions would be prudent before pursuing it further. Nonetheless, it does seems likely that Maumba and Laa are (were) ethnonyms with overlapping referents. It is possible that Maumba is a name of Segeju and Central Kenya Bantu origin, possibly cognate with one of the names for the indigenous inhabitants of Mount Kenya, the Gumba. It is also possible that the ethnonym Laa is the reflex of a self-applied name. Derek Nurse12 has suggested that it may be cognate with the Southern Cushitic ethnonym Alagwa. The occurrence of the form ‘Lawa’ in a Rabai tradition (Harries 1960) adds some weight to this suggestion, though again it requires further corroboration. Certainly the name Laa has a much wider currency among the northern Mijikenda than the name Maumba, which seems to be almost entirely restricted in use to the Chonyi-Jibana area. It may be significant that both the Laa and the Segeju figure especially prominently in Chonyi traditions, more so than in the traditions of other Mijikenda sub-groups. In his brief statement about the aboriginal peoples of the Kenya coast, Hollis implied that the three smaller groups he named were all related. This may have been no more than wishful thinking. The precise status of the Dahalo and their language (Southern or Eastern Cushitic?) is disputed (Tosco 1991), and at present there is no good evidence for their presence further south on the coast. Our best information on the Degere and Vuna suggests that they were formerly groups of Oromo-speaking (and therefore Eastern Cushitic) Waata, now assimilated to the Digo and Duruma; though the possibility remains that they once contained Southern Cushitic substrata (Walsh 1990, 1992/93). As for the Maumba, we simply do not know, unless the possibility of a Laa–Alagwa (Southern Cushitic) connection is taken seriously. More research in the field is definitely needed to answer these questions. Two avenues in particular need to explored. One of these is focused investigation of the Maumba (and other former hunter-gatherer groups) and the traditions relating to them. The second is the systematic collection and analysis of linguistic data from different Mijikenda sub-groups — as well as surviving hunter-gatherer groups in the hinterland of the coast — in order to determine the history of linguistic contacts and influences between them. Only then will we stand a chance of knowing who the Maumba and other named groups really were, and be able to provide future coastal archaeologists with the background information on hunter-gatherers which they will undoubtedly require. 11 The pre-farming presence of hunter-gatherers is also well attested archaeologically, although this evidence cannot tell us the ethnic identity of these groups (see Helm 2000). 12 Personal communication, November 1987. #" Notes Acknowledgements My first thanks go to all of the people in Kenya’s Coast Province who contributed, in one way or another, to the research on which this article is based. I am especially grateful to the informants whose names appear in the text. I would also like to acknowledge my considerable debt to earlier research by Tom Spear and Justin Willis; to Derek Nurse for our long-running correspondence on matters coastal; and to David Parkin for discussing Maumba traditions and their interpretation with me during his visit to Pemba in 1995. Needless to say, none of the above is to be held responsible for the interpretations advanced in this paper. References Gray, J. M. 1950. ‘Portugese Records Relating to the Wasegeju’, Tanganyika Notes and Records 29: 85-97. Harries, L. (ed.) 1960. ‘The Founding of Rabai: A Swahili Chronicle by Midani bin Mwidad’, Swahili 1 (2): 140-149. Helm, Richard Michael. 2000. Conflicting Histories: The archaeology of the iron-working, farming communities in the central and southern coast region of Kenya. Ph.D. thesis, Bristol University. Hollis, A. C. 1900. ‘Notes on the History of Vumba, East Africa’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute 30: 275-297. Knappert, J. (ed.) 1964. ‘The Chronicle of Mombasa’, Swahili 34 (2): 21-27. Mwangudza, J. A. 1983. Mijikenda. London: Evans Brothers Limited. Nurse, D. 1982. ‘Segeju and Daisu: A Case Study of Evidence from Oral Tradition and Comparative Linguistics’, History in Africa 9: 175-208. Nurse, D. 1986. ‘Reconstruction of Dahalo History Through Evidence from Loanwords’, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7 (2): 267-305. Spear, T. T. 1982. Traditions of Origin and their Interpretation: The Mijikenda of Kenya. Athens, Ohio: Center for International Studies, Ohio University. Stiles, D. 1981. ‘Hunters of the Northern East African Coast: Origins and Historical Processes’, Africa 51 (4): 848-862. Stiles, D. 1993. ‘The Past and Present of Hunter-gatherers in Kenya’, Kenya Past and Present 25: 39-45. Tosco, M. 1991. A Grammatical Sketch of Dahalo: Including Texts and a Glossary. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. Ville, J-L. 1995. ‘The Waata of Tsavo-Galana: Hunting and trading in their semi-arid coastal hinterland’, Kenya Past and Present 27: 21-27. Walsh, M. T. 1990. ‘The Degere: Forgotten Hunter-gatherers of the East African Coast’, Cambridge Anthropology 14 (3): 68-81. Walsh, M. T. 1992. ‘Mijikenda Origins: A Review of the Evidence’, Transafrican Journal of History 21: 1-18. Walsh, M. T. 1992/93. ‘The Vuna and the Degere: Remnants and Outcasts among the Duruma and Digo of Kenya and Tanzania’, Bulletin of the International Committee on Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research 34/35: 133-147. Willis, J. 1993. Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Willis, J. 1996. ‘The Northern Kayas of the Mijikenda: A Gazetteer, and an Historical Reassessment’, Azania 31: 75-98.
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