Chagga

Africaintensive agriculturalists

Map
expand_more Description

The Chagga are a Bantu-speaking people living on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. In the nineteenth century, the Chagga were cultivators and cattle keepers. They underwent significant changes in the colonial and postcolonial periods with expanding coffee production, land shortage and the inflow of wages and salaries from migrants and employees. In traditional Chagga society, localized patrilineages formed the subunits within a district, and several districts formed autonomous chiefdoms. The chiefs often warred with each other for revenge, plunder and conquest. After Tanzania won its independence in 1961, the system of chiefdoms was abolished.

Identifier
Region
  • Africa
Subregion
  • Eastern Africa
Subsistence Type
  • intensive agriculturalists
Samples
Countries
  • Tanzania
External Links