Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:43:18.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hunters of the northern East African coast: origins and historical processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Daniel Stiles
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper has three related themes. First, the hunting peoples of the northern East African coast are defined; second, a period of origin of each group is proposed; and, third, the processes which resulted in their creation and persistence to the present are hypothesised and discussed.

Résumé

Les chasseurs de la côte nord-est de l'Afrique: origines et processus historiques.

Les données bibliographiques relatives aux populations côtières d'Afrique orientale sont difficiles à démêler parce qu'elles ne présentent aucune uniformité dans leurs critères d'identification et de description des peuplades en question. Grâce à la linguistique et aux éléments recueillis auprès des populations mêmes, on tente ici de décrire ces divers groupes, chasseurs par tradition, occupant la côte nord-est de l'Afrique et de les répartir en ensembles cohérents. On propose également un arrière-plan à la fois historique et théorique définissant l'époque et le mode de formation de ces communautés ainsi que les raisons qui expliquent qu'elles aient persisté jusqu'à nos jours.

On distingue trois groupes principaux, nommés Boni, Dahalo et Wata, occupant chacun des territoires diffèrents. Les Dahalo furent les premiers à s'installer sur la côte; vinrent ensuite les Boni et, en dernier, les Wata tels que nous les connaissons aujourd'hui: il est toutefois possible que ces derniers aient occupé la côte a une époque antérieure et sous une forme différente. Les données linguistiques confirment que tous ces groupes furent précédés par les chasseurs de langue Khoisan mais il n'existe à notre époque aucune survivance identifiable de ces peuplades. L'implantation des ancêtres des Dahalo eut lieu il y a 4000 ans, celle des Boni il y a environ 2000 ans. Les Wata, quant à eux, constituaient peut-être des populations autotochtones qui adoptèrent la culture Orma ou bien ils arrivèrent avec les groupes de langue Oromo lors de leur installation sur la côte au début du dix-septième siècle ou peut-être sont-ils issus à la fois de l'un et de l'autre de ces processus.

Ces communautés se formèrent et subsistèrent en groupes chasseurs-cueilleurs grâce à la richesse du milieu forestier de la côte, propice à ce mode de subsistance et lucratif sur le plan économique. L'ivoire et autres produits dérivés d'animaux sauvages étaient demandés depuis l'époque romaine; les chasseurs constituaient donc un élément important et nécessaire au réseau commercial de l'Océan Indien. Ils faisaient aussi partie intégrante de l'organisation socio-économique de la communauté côtière et, à une certaine époque, s'étaient liés de très près aux peuplades pastorales.

Type
Hunter-Gatherer Peoples
Information
Africa , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 848 - 862
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrett, W. H. E. 1911 ‘Notes on the customs and beliefs of the Wa-Giriama etc., British East Africa,’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 41: 20–39.Google Scholar
Battaglia, R. 1957 ‘I Bon di Hola Wager nell'Oltregiuba,’ Annali Laterenensi 21: 32–38.Google Scholar
Beachey, R. W. 1967 ‘The East Africa ivory trade in the nineteenth century,’ Journal of African History 8: 269–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernsten, J. 1976 ‘The Maasai and their neighbours: variables of interaction,’ African Economic History 2: 1–11.Google Scholar
Carolis, A. P. de 1980 ‘II quadro etnico traditzionale nelle prospettive di sviluppe nella valle de Giubz,’ Africa 35: 17–42.Google Scholar
Cerulli, E. 1922 ‘Folk literature of the Galla of southern Abyssinia,’ Harvard African Studies 3: 9–228.Google Scholar
Chittick, H. N. 1975 ‘The peopling of the East African coast,’ in Chittick, H. N. and Rotberg, R. I. (eds.), East Africa and the Orient. New York: Africana, 16–43.Google Scholar
Cole, S. 1963 The Prehistory of East Africa. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Damman, E. 1950 ‘Einege Notizen über die Sprache der Sanye (Kenia),’ Zeitschrift für Eingeborenensprachen 35: 227–234.Google Scholar
Ehret, C. 1974 Ethiopians and East Africans. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Ehret, C. 1980 The Historical Reconstruction of Southern Cushitic Phonology and Vocabulary. Kohlner Beitrage zür Afrikanistik, Volume 5. Berlin: Dietrich Reiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Elderkin, D. 1976 ‘Southern Cushitic,’ in Bender, M. L. (ed.) The Non-Semitic Languages of Ethiopia. East Lansing: Committee on Ethiopian Studies, Monograph No. 5, 278–97.Google Scholar
Fitzgerald, W. W. A. 1898 Travels in the Coastlands of British East Africa and the Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. London: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Fleming, H. C. 1969 ‘Asa and Aramanik: Cushitic hunters in Masailand,’ Ethnology 8: 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, H. C. 1978 ‘Microtaxonomy: language and blood groups in the African Horn’ in Hess, R. L. (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Ethiopian Studies. Chicago Circle: University of Illinois, 25–50.Google Scholar
Foy, H., Kondi, A., Timms, G. L., Brass, W. and Bushra, F. 1954 ‘The variability of sickle-cell rates in the tribes of Kenya and southern Sudan,’ British Medical Journal 6: 294–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldsmith, K., and Lewis, I. M. 1958 ‘A preliminary investigation of the blood-groups of the ‘Sab’ bondsmen of Northern Somaliland,’ Man 58: 188–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grottanelli, V. L. 1957 ‘Note sui Bon, cacciatori di bassa casta dell ‘Oltregiuba,’ Annali Lateranensi 21: 191–212.Google Scholar
Harvey, S. 1978 Hunting and Gathering as a Strategic Adaptation: the Case of the Boni of Lamu District, Kenya. Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University. Ann Arbour: University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Heine, B. 1977 ‘Bemerkungen zur Boni-Sprache (Kenia),’ Afrika und Ubersee 60: 242–95.Google Scholar
Heine, B. 1978 ‘The Sam languages. A history of Rendille, Boni and Somali,’ Afroasiatic Linguistics 6: 25–115.Google Scholar
Heine, B. 1979 ‘Some linguistic observations on the early history of Africa,’ Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 1: 37–54.Google Scholar
Heine, B. in press ‘The Waata Dialect of Oromo,’ in Heine, B. and Mohlig, W. (eds.), Languages and Dialect Atlas of Kenya, Volume 4. Berlin: Dietrich Reiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Heine, B., and Vossen, R. 1980. ‘The Kore of Lamu: a contribution to Maa dialectology,’ Afrika und Ubersee 62: 272–88.Google Scholar
Hobley, C. W. 1912 ‘The Wa-Langulo or Ariangulo of the Taru Desert,’ Man 12: 18–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holman, D. 1967 The Elephant People. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Huntingford, G. W. B. 1955 The Galla of Ethiopia. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Jacobs, A. H. 1965 The Traditional Political Organization of the Pastoral Maasai. Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University.Google Scholar
Jensen, A. E. 1960 ‘Prä-kuschitische und prā-nilotische Survivals in Süd Äthiopien,’ Ethnologica 2: 384–97.Google Scholar
Köhler., O. 1975 ‘Geschichte und Probleme der Gliederung der Sprachen Afrikas,’ in Baumann, H. (ed.), Die Völker Afrikas und ihre traditionellen Kulturen. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Lamphear, J. L. 1970 ‘The Kamba and the Northern Mrima coast,’ in Gray, R. and Birmingham, D. (eds.), Precolonial African Trade. London: Oxford University Press, 75–101.Google Scholar
Levine, D. 1974 Greater Ethiopia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Louw, J. T. 1960 ‘Prehistory of the Matjes River Rockshelter,’ Memoirs of the National Museum of Bloemfontein, No. 1.Google Scholar
Morton, R. F. in press ‘A brief history of the hunters of the Kenya coast in pre-colonial times,’ Kenya Historical Review.Google Scholar
Nelson, C. M. 1976 ‘Flaked stone tool variations in the Later Stone Age of eastern and southern Africa,’ in Abebe, B., Chavaillon, J., and Sutton, J. E. G. (eds.), VIIth Panafrican Congress of Prehistory and Quaternary Studies. Addis Ababa, 131–52.Google Scholar
Nurse, D. 1980 ‘Bajuni historical linguistics,’ Kenya Past and Present 12: 34–43.Google Scholar
Parenti, R. 1949 ‘Gli Uaboni,’ Rivista deBiologica Coloniale 9: 15–20.Google Scholar
Peringuey, L. 1911 ‘The Stone Ages of South Africa,’ Annals of the South African Museum 8.Google Scholar
Phillipson, D. W. 1977 The Later Prehistory of Eastern and Southern Africa. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Puccioni, N. 1936 ‘Osservazioni sugli Uaboni,’ L’Universo 17: 431–38.Google Scholar
Rightmire, G. P. 1975 ‘New studies of Post-Pleistocene human skeletal remains from the Rift Valley, Kenya,’ American Journal of Physical Anthropology 42: 351–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rightmire, G. P. in press ‘Human skeletal remains from eastern Africa,’ in Clark, J. D. and Brandt, S. (eds.), Causes and Consequences of Food Production in East Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, P. 1980 ‘Disaster and response among the Gabbra of northern Kenya: an historical perspective,’ Paper presented at the Conference on Ecological Stress in Eastern Africa, 15-17 June, Nairobi.Google Scholar
Salkeld, R. E. 1905 ‘Notes on the Boni hunters of Jubaland,’ Man 5: 168–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobania, N. 1978 ‘Disaster and recovery: an example from northern Kenya,’ Annual Meeting of the Historical Association of Kenya, Nairobi.Google Scholar
Sobania, N. 1979 Background History of the Mt. Kulal Region of Kenya. Report to the Unesco/Unep Integrated Project in Arid Lands, Nairobi.Google Scholar
Spencer, P. 1973 Nomads in Alliance: Symbiosis and Growth among the Rendille and Samburu of Kenya. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stiles, D. N. 1980a ‘An historical outline of the hunting peoples of the northern East African coast,’ Department of History Seminar Paper No. 15,1979/1980, University of Nairobi.Google Scholar
Stiles, D. N. 1980b ‘Historical interrelationships of the Boni with pastoral peoples of Somalia and Kenya,’ Paper presented at the First International Congress of Somali Studies, 6-13 July, Mogadishu.Google Scholar
Stiles, D. N. 1981 ‘The Boni: problems of a hunting-gathering people’, Africana 8 (2): 23–5.Google Scholar
Stiles, D. N. n.d. The Boni: Hunters of the Juba-Tana Coastal Forest. In preparation. New Haven: Hraf, Ethnographic Series.Google Scholar
Stringer, C. B. 1979 ‘A re-evaluation of the fossil human calvaria from Singa, Sudan,’ Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History 32: 77–83.Google Scholar
Sutton, J. E. G. 1974 ‘The settlement of East Africa,’ in Ogot, B. A. (ed.), Zamani. London: Longman, 70–97.Google Scholar
Thorbahn, P. F. n.d. ‘The ivory trade in pre-colonial East Africa,’ unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Todd, D. 1978 ‘The origins of outcasts in Ethiopia: reflections on an evolutionary theory,’ Abbay 9: 145–58.Google Scholar
Tucker, A. N. 1969 ‘Sanye and Boni,’ in H.-J. and Jungraithmayr, H. (eds.) Wort und Religion. Kalima na Dini. Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Tunon, E. R. 1975 ‘Bantu, Galla and Somali migrations in the Horn of Africa: a reassessment of the Juba/Tana area,’ Journal ofAfrican History 16(4): 519–37.Google Scholar
Wells, L. H. 1951 ‘The fossil human skull from Singa,’ FossilMammals of Africa 2: 29–42.Google Scholar
Wilson, T. H. 1980 ‘Settlement patterns of the coast of southern Somalia and Kenya,’ Paper presented at the First International Congress of Somali Studies, 6-13 July, Mogadishu.Google Scholar
Winter, J. C. 1979 ‘Language shift among the Aasāx, a hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania,’ Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 1: 175–204.Google Scholar
Zwanenberg, R. M. van 1976 ‘Dorobo hunting and gathering: a way of life or a mode of production?’ African Economic History 2: 12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar