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Wanyika
Mijikenda ("the Nine Tribes") are a group of nine related Bantu ethnic groups inhabiting the coast of Kenya, between the Sabaki and the Umba rivers, in an area stretching from the border with Tanzania in the south to the border near Somalia in the north. Archaeologist Chapuruka Kusimba contends that the Mijikenda formerly resided in coastal cities, but later settled in Kenya's hinterlands to avoid submission to dominant Portuguese forces that were then in control. Historically, these Mijikenda ethnic groups have been called the Nyika or Nika by outsiders. It is a derogatory term meaning "bush people." The nine ethnic groups that make up the Mijikenda peoples are the Chonyi, Kambe, Duruma, Kauma, Ribe, Rabai, Jibana, Giriama, and Digo. The Digo are southern Mijikenda while the others are northern Mijikenda. The Digo are also found in Tanzania due to their proximity to the common border. Culture Each of the Mijikenda groups has a sacred forest, a ''kaya'', which is a plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mijikenda Language
Mijikenda is a Bantu dialect cluster spoken along the coast of East Africa, mostly in Kenya, where there are 2.6 million speakers (2019 census) but also in Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ..., where there are 166,000 speakers. The name ''Mijikenda'' means "the nine settlements" or "the nine communities" and refers to the multiple language communities that make up the group. An older, derogatory term for the group is ''Nyika'' which refers to the "dry and bushy country" along the coast. Varieties The New Updated Guthrie List from 2009 lists the following varieties and Guthrie codes as part of the Mijikenda cluster: * E72 – North Mijikenda (Nyika) ** E72a – Giryama yf** E72b – Kauma ** E73c – Chonyi oh** E73d – Duruma ug** E73e – Rabai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duruma
The Coast Province () was one of Kenya's eight provinces prior to 2010. It covered the entire country's coastline on the Indian Ocean. Its capital city was Mombasa. It was inhabited by the Mijikenda and Swahili peoples, among others. The province covered an area of 79,686.1 km2. Tourist attraction Some of the province's important towns included Kilifi, Malindi, Watamu and Lamu in the north, and Mwandimu and Magunda in the south. Some of the coastal population was located in resort and beach settlements such as Kiongwe and Kipini. Diani Beach was one of the province's major tourist centres, with palm trees and white sandy beaches like Mombasa. Malindi is where Vasco da Gama picked up his pilot to navigate with the monsoon winds to India; Mambrui appears to be the site where contact occurred with the Chinese during the era of the Yongle Emperor and the expeditions of Zheng He. Watamu is a small fishing community and contains East Africa's first marine national par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oromo People
The Oromo people (, pron. ) are a Cushitic peoples, Cushitic ethnic group native to the Oromia region of Ethiopia and parts of Northern Kenya. They speak the Oromo language (also called ''Afaan Oromoo''), which is part of the Cushitic languages, Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are one of the largest List of ethnic groups in Ethiopia, ethnic groups in Ethiopia. According to the last Ethiopian census of 2007, the Oromo numbered 25,488,344 people or 34.5% of the Ethiopian population. Recent estimates have the Oromo comprising 45,000,000 people, or 35.8% of the total Ethiopian population estimated at 116,000,000. The Oromo were originally Nomadic pastoralism, nomadic, semi-pastoralist people who later would Oromo expansion, conquer large swaths of land during their expansions. After the settlement, they would establish kingdoms in the Gibe regionsPaul Trevor William Baxter, Jan Hultin, Alessandro Triulzi"Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropologi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shungwaya
Shungwaya (also Shingwaya) is an origin myth of the Mijikenda peoples. Traditions known collectively as the "Shungwaya myth" describe a series of migrations of Bantu peoples dating to the 12th–17th centuries from a region to the north of the Tana River. However according to Rodger F. Morton, coastal traditions recorded prior to 1897 indicate that the Shungwaya tradition entered Mijikenda oral literature only after this date and is therefore of doubtful veracity. These Bantu migrants were held to have been speakers of Sabaki Bantu languages. Other Bantu ethnic groups, smaller in number, are also suggested to have been part of the migration. From Shungwaya, the Mount Kenya Bantu (Kamba, Kikuyu, Meru, Embu, and Mbeere) are then proposed to have broke away and migrated from there some time before the Oromo onslaught. Shungwaya appears to have been, in its heyday, a multi-ethnic settlement with extensive trade networks. In the 13th century perhaps this settlement was subjected to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or isolated areas. The non-standard dialects of a language with a writing system will operate at different degrees of distance from the standardized written form. Standard and nonstandard dialects A ''standard dialect'', also known as a "standardized language", is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include any or all of the following: government recognition or designation; formal presentation in schooling as the "correct" form of a language; informal monitoring of everyday Usage (language), usage; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks that set forth a normative spoken and written form; and an extensive formal literature (be it prose, poetry, non-ficti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convention (norm)
A convention influences a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, social norms, or other criteria, often taking the form of a custom. In outline of physical science, physical sciences, numerical values (such as constants, quantities, or scales of measurement) are called conventional if they do not represent a measured property of nature, but originate in a convention, for example an average of many measurements, agreed between the scientists working with these values. General A convention is a selection from among two or more alternatives, where the rule or alternative is agreed upon among participants. Often the word refers to unwritten customs shared throughout a community. For instance, it is conventional in many societies that strangers being introduced shake hands. Some conventions are explicitly legislated; for example, it is conventional in the United States and in Germany that motorists Left- and right-hand traffic, drive on the right side of the roa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kigango
''Kigango'' (''plural'': ''vigango'') is a Wood carving, carved wooden memorial statue erected by the Mijikenda peoples, Mijikenda peoples of the southeastern Kenya coast. The ''vigango'', which can be stylized, abstracted human-form Effigy, effigies and are placed vertically rising out of the earth, honor a dead member of the secret Gohu society, or the "Society of the Blessed". They were traditionally allowed to stand until they naturally decomposed, or they were abandoned and replaced at subsequent village locations by a second generation figure known as a ''kibao'' (''plural: vibao''), thereby transferring away whatever spiritual power was thought to remain from the original ''kigango''. This was a natural result of the Mijikenda's centuries old practice of slash and burn agriculture and, subsequently, the periodic changing of village locations. The hard-wood ''kigango'' is approximately life-size and may have been painted. ''Vigango'' have been celebrated and collected by art ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity". To be selected, a World Heritage Site is nominated by its host country and determined by the UNESCO's World Heritage Committee to be a unique landmark which is geographically and historically identifiable, having a special cultural or physical significance, and to be under a sufficient system of legal protection. World Heritage Sites might be ancient ruins or historical structures, buildings, cities, deserts, forests, islands, lakes, monuments, mountains or wilderness areas, and others. A World Heritage Site may signify a remarkable accomplishment of humankind and serve as evidence of humanity's intellectual history on the planet, or it might be a place of grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International security, security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 194 Member states of UNESCO, member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in the Non-governmental organization, non-governmental, Intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental and private sector. Headquartered in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 National Commissions for UNESCO, national commissions. UNESCO was founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.English summary). UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the events of World War II, is to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights by facilitating collaboratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaya (Mijikenda)
A ''kaya'' (plural ''makaya'' or ''kayas'') is a sacred site of the Mijikenda peoples, Mijikenda people in the former Coast Province of Kenya. Often located within Sacred grove, sacred forests, a ''kaya'' is considered to be an intrinsic source of ritual power and the origin of cultural identity; it is also a place of prayer for members of the Mijikenda ethnic group. The settlement, ritual centre, and fortified enclosure associated with the forest are also part of the ''kaya''. This ecozone is thought to be the only living example of what the ecosystem was like during the early settlement period of the Swahili coast, East African coast. In the present day, the ''kaya'' is also referred to as a traditional organizational unit of the Mijikenda. Eleven of the approximately 60 separate ''makaya'' have been grouped together and inscribed as the Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Geography More than 50 ''makaya'' have been identified within the Kwale County, Kw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
