Peopling of the Kilimanjaro Corridor

The boundaries of this corridor can be defined within the Maasai territory (Map 1; Map 2). The corridor stretches from the Arusha Region, through the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania to the Taita-Taveta County of Kenya. To varying degrees, the people in this corridor are essentially a mixture of similar Bantu (vandu, as the people), Nilotic (Maa speakers) and Cushitic (Muu, as the people) branches of the African people. The groups were dynamic, fluid and flexible. They shared a common history characterised by constant movement between the different areas for trade, battles, migration as well as social reasons. They were categorised arbitrarily by Europeans into the following culturally, linguistically and/or genetically related groups:

As it occurred throughout East Africa, the people in this corridor have been poorly characterised by early European visitors, resulting in incorrect categorisation of ethnicity, language and groups. The assumption of static tribes is foreign to the region; the indigenous population often better identify with lineages/clans. Although those early classification persists, they are acknowledged as trivial divisions by the indigenous population, as evident in the shared history and occurrence of the same lineages/clans amongst the different groups.

The Nilotic influence can be attributed to groups such as the Ngasa that introduced practices of female circumcision in this population. With the Maasai settled in the open plains around much of the area, inevitably a part of the population adopted and assimilated into the Maasai culture to form groups such as the Arusha. This interaction has also resulted in a number of Nilotic lineages in this population, often holding prominent roles due to their warrior status; as evidenced in the names, practices and oral history.