Annotated Bibliography on the Chagga -- Part II: The Meru of Northeastern Tanzania -- Nomenclature and Groupings -- History -- Demography -- Population -- Nature of local settlements -- House types -- Linguistic Data -- Vernaculars -- Extent of Swahili -- Physical Environment -- Economy -- Means of livelihood -- Division of labour -- Land usage and system of tenure -- Crafts -- Trade -- Labour migration -- Social Organisation and Political Structure -- Kinship and social groupings -- Alliances: vashili va rika (age-set leaders) -- Slavery -- Law -- Warfare -- Governmental changes -- Religion -- Beliefs -- Rituals -- Witchcraft-sorcery -- Life Cycle -- Birth -- Initiation -- Marriage -- Burial rites -- Other Distinctive Cultural Features -- Art -- Music -- Dance -- Calendar -- Material culture -- Major Changes since the beginning of the colonial period -- Annotated Bibliography on the Meru -- Index to Whole Volume

The Nature of Christianity in Northern Tanzania explores the relationship between the region’s environment and social change during the pivotal, often over-looked German colonial period (1890-1916). The work connects changes in the landscape order and biogeography closely with the beginning Christianization of the three groups on the mountains – the Chagga on Mt Kilimanjaro and the Meru and Arusha peoples of Mt Meru. The work tells a story which is ordered, green and Christian. It looks at both new ideas and plants brought by the Germans to their colony in East Africa. The introduced German-like order and the exotic plants changed the landscape during the short period of German rule. However, the changes taking root in the African societies, driven primarily by the introduction of Christianity, led to an acceptance and adaptation of these imports. Religious change is one of the most profound elements of social change and it deeply impacted the world view of the Chagga, Meru and Arusha peoples. Within all three groups, their worldview was closely tied to religion – there is no difference between the natural and social spheres nor the religious and secular worlds. In the interaction between the German and Africans, the ideas, use of plants and even Christianity became altered, Africanized, and finally propagated by the African groups, helping to create the new African/European landscape. This heritage lives on up till today, growing on the landscape, nurtured by the changes in the societies of the Chagga, Meru and Arusha peoples on Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru.

"This is a rich, stimulating work, written in clear and compelling prose, that will appeal to scholars in a variety of disciplines."--Angelique Haugerud, author of The Culture of Politics in Modern Kenya "Among the numerous contributions made by this book are its discussion of the politics of pseudo-traditionalism, its tracing of the emergence of a Christian leadership, and indeed its whole reconsideration of the significance of missions and Christianity."--James L. Giblin, author of Environmental Control in Northeastern Tanzania, 1840-1940

This new guide is written in the proven Trailblazer style--with detailed walking maps showing hiking times, points of interest, and gradients.

The Governance Agenda is the framework that currently organizes the West’s relations with Africa. The present work is an attempt to see Governance through the lens of a contemporary, local history. The report analyzes three periods of contentious politics at local level in Tanzania and two multi-party elections. It provides a window on mismanagement in local government, it examines the intervention by national and local elites in district conflicts, and it points to the difficulties ordinary people face in holding their leaders to account. The argument of the report is that current approaches to the study of Governance overlook an essential ingredient for its potential success: namely, the sociological conditions in which forms of collective action conducive to improved political accountability become possible at a grassroots level. The analysis aims to show that economic diversification and multiple livelihoods have given rise to a reticular social structure in which individuals find it difficult to combine to hold their leaders to account. People have fragmented identities formed in networks of social relations, which impedes the emergence of strong collective identities appropriate to effective social movements.

Farming and pastoral societies inhabit ever-changing environments. This relationship between environment and rural culture, politics and economy in Tanzania is the subject of this volume which will be valuable in reopening debates on Tanzanian history. In his conclusion, Isaria N. Kimambo, a founding father of Tanzanian history, reflects on the efforts of successive historians to strike a balance between external causes of change and local initiative in their interpretations of Tanzanian history. He shows that nationalist and Marxist historians of Tanzanian history, understandably preoccupied through the first quarter-century of the country’s post-colonial history with the impact of imperialism and capitalism on East Africa, tended to overlook the initiatives taken by rural societies to transform themselves. Yet there is good reason for historians to think about the causes of change and innovation in the rural communities of Tanzania, because farming and pastoral people have constantly changed as they adjusted to shifting environmental conditions.

German colonial history in today Tanzania Mainlad is extensively documented, but it has not been studied from its memory perspective despite it being widely remembered among the Tanzanians. This book documents German colonial memories as shared cultural legacy that exists in forms of monuments, archives and historical sites. It also presents them as trans-generational memory narratives that live in people's memories that are also commemorated in different ways like erection of war monuments. The book analyzes memories of colonialism from the historical perspective, showing how the collective memories like monuments and commemorations have undergone structural and institutional changes over time. The study uses Michael Rothberg's multi-directional theory, together with other theoretical approaches to analyze various forms of German colonial memories in Tanzanian context. The findings, which are analyzed historically, indicate that the collective memories of the Germans are cultural, communicative, commemorative, functional and topographical. They are also traumatic as well as nostalgic.