THE GOSHA OF THE MIDDLE JUBA REGION IN SOUTHERN SOMALIA.
AN ETHNIC GROUP OF BANTU ORIGIN
by Francesca Declich (*)
Introduction
This text is an attempt to reconstruct the history of the formation of a population of which up to now there is only scattered and conflicting information. It concerns that fringe of Bantu, the northernmost of Eastern Africa, who live on the border with the Cushitic populations of Somalia (**).
Interest in these Bantu dates back to ancient traditions that refer to black people living in Azania (a region that also included the southern coast of Somalia). Furthermore, several ethnic groups that currently live further south, in Kenya and Tanzania (1), report in their traditions on their origins the site of Shungwaya. This name identifies a kind of state organization and/or a number of small statelets that flourished at different historical moments in the region between the She-beli River in Somalia and the Umba River in Kenya and lasted in some cases until the 19th century (2) (Allen, 1983: 36). The main state known as Shungwaya must have been in a position to control much of southern Somalia and eastern Kenya in a period between the 9th and the 13th or 14th centuries (Allen, 1983: 35). Several countries in that large region were remembered with this same name, some of them located right in the vicinity of the Juba River. According to Grottanelli (1955: 74), Shungwaya - to be identified here with Bur Kavo, on the Somali coast two thirds of the way between Kismayo and the Kenyan border, south of the Juba - was still, between the 15th and 16th centuries, the coastal emporium to which the Bantu of the interior belonged and to which they were probably in some way tributaries.
(*) Graduated in Ethnology at the Department of Glotto-Anthropological Studies of the University of Rome La Sapienza.
(**) The text is based on data collected in the field in Somalia between July 1985 and June 1986 in an area including the districts of Gelib and Giamame. It is my duty to express my thanks to the following associations and people: the C.I.S.P. (International Committee for the Development of Peoples) which offered me its support in a Primary Health Care project that it carries out in the district of Gelib, thus facilitating my long stay in the field; Prof. Bernardo Bernardi for the help and valuable advice given both in the planning and during the course of my work; the managers and staff of the Historical Archives of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their kind collaboration, the inhabitants of the villages in the area for their great willingness to collaborate in the research when I was in the field.
(1) Among these are the Pokomo, the Mijikenda (collective name for: Digo, Duruma, Ra- bai, Ribe, Chonyi, Jibana, Kamba, Kauma and Giriama), the Segeju and the Swahili, including the Bajuni. Until very recently these four groups relied on the idea of one or more sacred settlements to ensure their coherence as social units. Belief in the magical role of certain cities was an important part of the Shungwaya cultural system. There are also groups who, while not using the name Shungwaya, have traditions that trace their origins back to that area. The Meru of Kenya, for example, they claim to come from Mbua, a site that, given its geographical location, appears to be in Shungwaya territory. The Pokomo use the term bus to indicate the diaspora from that place. It is therefore conceivable that it was not the Shungwaya capital that legitimized the political institutions created after the migration among the Meru, but rather the journey undertaken from there, and that the term bna was converted by them into Mona, becoming in itself a place name (Allen, 1983: 37-38; Fadiman, 1973; Townsend, 1977: 136).
(2) Con Shungwaya si intendono anche: the traditional belief-system wich prevailed in Great Shungwaya before its court was converted to Islam and among non-Muslims in it and its successor-states thereafter.... the main ritual centre or sacred settlement (usually the capital) of Great Shungwaya or one of its successors. A belief in the magical role of this centre or capital constitu-ted a large part of the Shungwaya belief-system, and control of it was indispensable to the rulers of the respective states (Allen, 1983: 36).
(3) In this text the term Goscia is used, without the prefixes Wa», «M«Ba», singular or plural determinatives, with which ethnonyms are presented in Kiswahili.
(4) This is the translation indicated by Pesenti. To be more precise we will say that satu in Kiswahili is the plural form of sta and means men, the people; sometimes it is used in an extensive sense such as humanity».
(5) Galla is the derogatory term used by some neighbouring peoples to call the Oromo. One of the etymologies suggested for the term is that it comes from gaal, in Somali pagan or infidel, and refers to the fact that the Somalis adopted Islam before the Galla (Lewis, 1983: 31). Among the common people the term gaal is often applied to whites and Christians.
(6) The Tunni, says Colucci (1924: 180-181), presented themselves as a confederation of five groups or gamas, having the same rights in decisions on territorial allocation and their original settlements were distributed between the river Scebeli and the coast and between Mungiya, south of Merca, and Giumbo. According to Piazza (1913: 70), the Tunni had been confined to that area by the arrival of other Somalis from the north and were, if not slaves, at least in a state of absolute subjection and political inferiority compared to the others. Allen (1983: 63-54) supposes that the Tunni, like the Segeju of the Umba River, the Pokomo of the Tana River and various other groups, were in origin clan clusters... or confederations of people from widely separated areas speaking quite different languages but linked by common commercial and political interests. Such clan clusters, however, did not (or not only) exist along a single trade route from the coast to the interior. They, in his opinion, often included people living at the edges or along the major trade routes that ran between the interior and the coast and this gave rise to a single unit whose members, at the beginning, spoke different languages.
1 Tunni would have initially welcomed the fugitive Swahili with some suspicion, but then they would have lived with them for a while as good neighbors.
(7) In documents from the end of the century there is some confusion between the names Watoro and Wabo w, as the meaning of Watoro is indicated as escaped slave men, but is equated with the term Waboni, that is Bon, which instead refers to a well-defined population. The Bon, like other groups once considered low castes in Somalia, according to Cerulli (1957) are the remains of peoples conquered during successive waves of migration, peoples who were not destroyed by the victors, but sometimes integrated into the previous populations. They, described by all the texts as a population not very socially evolved, since they practiced hunting and gathering, have often been considered the true natives of the Goscia area, although Ferrari (1910: 75) claims to have learned from a minstrel of this ethnic group that in ancient times the Bon came from the African region of the central lakes and Colucci (1924: 66) interviewed some of them coming from different areas, such as the Tana river and the locality of Port Dunford.
One might think that the escaped slaves were mixed with the Bon to the point that the two ethnic groups could not be distinguished, or rather that the authors were inaccurate in their documentation. This latter factor is certainly detectable, since von der Decken in 1865 is very precise in identifying different groups of Zegua, Bon, and escaped slaves in Goscia. It must also be said that the number of escaped slaves at the end of the century must have been far lower than that of the following period, and that the two ethnic groups, escaped slaves and Bon, may not have yet been so rivalrous as to differentiate themselves as they later did.
It is also well known that most Somali speakers call many hunter-gatherers Boon, while Oromo speakers refer to the same type of people (often the same ones) as Waat or Waata, unlike the northern Swahili who call them wa-Sanye or wa-Sanya (Allen, 1983: 53). One might perhaps suggest that the etymology of Watoro is the Oromo-speaking term for hunter-gatherers.
(8) This is the translation given in the diplomatic documents of 1895. Literally in kiswa-hili toroku is a verbal form which means to desert, to flee (from the master, from home, from work etc.).
(9) «Mozguéla, taking into account the... singular prefix in 'm', is certainly equivalent to Zegua; Ze-gua or Zigula (Sigula, Segura, etc.) are known forms of this ethnonym (Grottanelli, 1953: 258).
(10) The terms referring to ethnic groups have received different spellings from English, Italian, German, French and Portuguese transcribers. They will be indicated here in the form and with the accentuation with which they were pronounced by the informants.
(11) These are the Shambala of north-eastern Tanganyika, western neighbours of the Digo.
(12) The proper name Nassib Bunto has been transcribed by different authors with different orthographic forms. In the text, the one that occurred most frequently in the oral traditions heard in the field is used.
(13) Desceck is the term used for the conformation of the soil found along the banks of the Juba. These are areas surrounding the banks of the river, generally depressed to a level considerably lower than the upper edge of the banks, where the river drains during floods. The desceck are highly sought-after lands because they are black alluvial deposits, excellent for any type of cultivation (Zoli, 1927: 85-86). According to Zoli, the real reason for the demographic distribution around the Juba is given by this characteristic of the soil, which creates favourable conditions for agriculture.
(14) The lighting of the town of Gelib currently depends on the dam.
(15) These occupations are legitimate because according to Somali laws all the territory is state property usable by state recognition or concession. Local farmers usually do not have land concessions, even if they have been cultivating it for a long time.
(16) Measurements from the Alessandra meteorological station (Tozzi, 1941: 7).
(17) The fifth article of the first charter of the revolution of October 12, 1969 reads as follows: The Supreme Revolutionary Council... declares... to liquidate every form of corruption, every manifestation of anarchy, the evil system of tribalism in any form and every other phenomenon of immorality in the activities of the State».
The revolutionary government adopted various forms of struggle against tribalism because it was considered the system that, by traditionally maintaining the established order and leaving the low castes and peasants of poor ethnic groups or lineages in their exploited condition, had permitted colonial domination and exploitation. Along these lines was the anti-tribal campaign between March and April 1971, at the beginning of which President Siyaad argued that tribalism can no longer have any place in the most united and best organized societies, which aspire to become a nation» («October Star, 30 March 1971). A concrete action was the decision to deprive tribal leaders, clan leaders and Kabila chiefs of all power with the introduction of the nabudon, a new intermediary figure with the authorities (Pestalozza, 1973: 136).
(18) In 1975, following the drought, the nomads were transported to Dujuma and from there transferred again in 1980 to finally arrive in the Gelib district.
(19) Source: census carried out by the Statistical Officer of the S.D.A., updated to 26/6/1983.
(20) Source: census carried out by the district authorities, updated to 14/2/1983.
(21) Source: data updated to 1983 provided by the district authorities.
(22) Often even villages considered important by the locals for ritual or historical reasons follow this rule.
(23) By agriculture in transition >> we mean an intermediate form» between traditional and industrial agriculture «carried out in individual or collective companies, where increasing recourse is made to production means and methodologies recommended by modern technology and which allocate an equally increasing part of their production to commercialisation» (Bigi 1971: 515).
(24) Bigi claims that some agricultural cooperatives had been created along the Giuba and Sce beli rivers in 1952, during the period of A.F.I.S. (Italian Trusteeship Administration in Somalia) (Bigi, 1962: 139). A serious impulse to cooperativism was given by the revolutionary government in 1971 with the three-year development plan 1971-1973 which, in giving priority to production choices, aimed, among other things, at self-sufficiency and the growth of cooperatives and envisaged the formation of 488 cooperatives in the agricultural sector.
such associations (Pestalozza, 1973: 200). In 1973, Law No. 40 on the Cooperative Movement definitively formalized the government's strategy in this regard.
In the study area, various types of cooperatives, known in Somali as iskaashato, were favored for the production and marketing of corn, meat, mangoes, and salt. The iskaashato for corn production enjoyed credit with the Gelib bank, the use of large plots of land, and the loan of modern equipment, tractors and bulldozers, for which they only covered the fuel costs. Field labor was divided among the cooperative members. The history of some cooperatives in the area was also short-lived due to land occupations for sugarcane and rice plantations.
(25) Uncertainty is also given by the irregularity of rainfall. This may not be adequate for the species sown in the year.
(26) The yambo is a small hoe traditionally used in agricultural work. It consists of a wooden handle at the top of which a flat blade is fixed transversely to the handle.
(27) These are considered by Perducchi to be more or less the total of the villages of the then Italian Goscia proceeding along the river, towards the north, starting from the small island of Mombasa.
(28) From some diplomatic documents from 1892 it appears that the number of 30,000 for those years could be overestimated. Perducchi claims to have collected his data village by village and in a document from 1904 he even states that the population of Goscia would have reached an approximate total of 40,000 units.
(31) On the Musciunguli and their relationship with the Zegua see Grottanelli's article from 1953, one of the most exhaustive texts on the subject.
Grottanelli maintains that, at least initially, the Musciunguli and the Zegua were separate ethnic entities, existing contemporaneously in Goscia. The two groups are currently being identified. Chief Ci-bango, whom Grottanelli claimed was the most recognized leader among the Zegua during the period of his research, has often been cited by current informants as a prominent Musciunguli leader. The village of Mugambo, which Grottanelli believed to be inhabited by Zegua, is now considered by others in Goscia to be a Musciunguli village. Therefore, if a difference between the two ethnic groups existed at the beginning of the century, now, at least in the perception of non-Musciunguli, it no longer seems to exist. In some diplomatic documents of Sim-mons reported in a report by Lovatelli (1893) it appears that in 1891 the chief Mkoma Maligo, remembered in the traditions as Zegua according to Grottanelli (1953: 257) and indicated by Caniglia (1916: 10) as Msugula, was considered by the English to belong to the Musagoor or Musagur ethnic group. These terms could be forms of both ethnonyms, Musciunguli and Zegua.
(32) See note no. 9.
(33) 'Runaway Slave'
(34) The Warday (Warde, Waredey, Wurrda, Uardà, Wardeh, etc.) are a «Galla tribe which, according to the traditions collected by Wakefield, Bottego and Maud, must have been settled in the Dawa basin in the second half of the 17th century. From here they were driven out by another Oromo tribe, the Bora-na, and forced to migrate southwards, into the Juba valley... From the territories on the left of the Juba the W. were once again pushed back, this time by the Somalis, up to the ocean coast and then definitively beyond the river, and up to the Tana valley (Grottanelli, 1953: 255).
(35) The Waboni who live in the Goscia villages... are hardly distinguishable from the ordinary negroes of the Wanyika tribes.
(36) Zoli uses the word gamas to indicate a group of individuals of the same origin living in a village. He maintains that the gamas functioned as organizational structures and still had, during his studies, a notable importance for the payment of blood money, for collective contributions and so on (Zoli, 1927: 181).
(37) In this case, Kabyle has the meaning of a confederation of ethnic groups. Here Zoli speaks of Kabyle by analogy with the Somali ethnic structure. The Somalis would be grouped in Kabyle, subdivided internally into rer or lineages. For a discussion of the different uses of the specific Somali term rer and of the gentile organization linked to it, typical of the Somali nomads, see Colucci (1924) and Lewis (1983).
(38) The Goscia, according to Zoli (1927: 188), were Islamized in the last years of the 19th century, that is, thirty years before his collection of information. The oral traditions collected by Grottanelli report that the first Zegua chief converted to Islam was Mazali, born around 1885 (Grottanelli, 1953: 256).
(39) Once again we find the misunderstanding caused by the use of the term cabila for the Goscia. If in fact previously << capocabila Uagoscia» could be identified with the head of the confederation of Ua-goscia ethnic groups, cabila, in the second sentence, means «ethnic groups forming part of the confederation», while with altre cabile in the rest of the sentence it means « those Somali or Bantu cabila not forming part of the confederation ».
(40) The ministers met in council to coordinate with the sultan on decisions of common interest. As far as we know, in these meetings decisions on agricultural activities could be taken.
cole, on the start of some work in the fields due to the arrival of the rains or on the war actions of defense and attack against neighbors. Confirming this are the justifications given, during the investigations carried out by the authorities, by the village leaders who came to a conference in 1904 with Nassib Bunto for the purpose of organizing an attack on the village of Camsuma. Having sworn silence, their justifications for having gathered together, which had to be made plausible in the eyes of the authorities, are an indication to us of the existence of some rules relating to the councils of the leaders.
(41) Zoli (1927: 181) suggests the following as original rers: Miau, Muniasa, Macua, Magindo, Macalè, Musciangolo, Mugnica, Molema, Muniamesi». He uses the term rer by analogy with the Somali gentry structure. Among the Goscia, the rer could not be considered simple lineages, but real ethnic groups in their own right, coming from different areas of East Africa. It may be that over time small ethnic groups have taken on the characteristic of lineages.
The choice of leaders almost certainly took place, as well as according to genealogical criteria, for charismatic reasons, seniority and real ability. Nassib himself is described as an extremely cunning and intelligent man, who became a leader for this reason, and one might think that he was, if, as is said, it was he who procured if not the first ones (the first ones arrived in another way, if Kersten, 1871: 303-304 is to be believed), at least a good part of the firearms in the Goscia region.
(42) During the government of Nassib Bunto the gamas had leaders; the Magiorios, on the other hand, are simple sagales. After his death, the Magiorios also had the right to appoint their own leaders who arranged new admissions into the villages. Following this, the villages were increasingly made up of various people, not divided by ethnic group, whose members qualified themselves with the proper name of the village first and with the ethnic one second (Zoli, 1927: 182). The main principle of aggregation, therefore, following the ever-wider migrations of freedmen, was no longer only ethnicity, but also the territorial unity of the village.
