Peoples and Cultures

Question:
I am teaching ESL to a group of refugees called the Somali Bantu.  Could tell me something of their history?  I wonder if there are written resources in their language, Mai Mai.

Answer:
Your seemingly simple question actually addresses a complex of factors.  I will try to give some general perspectives that might be helpful on this question.  The ethnic history of Somalia is involved here.

The term "Somali Bantu" is a recent term referring to a grouping of small ethnic groups in Central Somalia.  The commonality of these small peoples was their origins from diverse Bantu-speaking peoples, though some now speak Somali-related languages.

Some are indigenous to the area, from before the entry of the Cushitic peoples now known as the Somali centuries ago.

Some are descendants of slaves brought from African territories further south.  In the last decade or so these small ethnic groups have formed an alliance to represent their common interests.  The term Somali Bantu refers to this grouping of peoples speaking several languages and of varying origins from Bantu-speaking peoples.

Bantu
First the term "Bantu."  This is a linguistic term, and refers to a complex family of languages all over Africa.  It is also generally used in a loose way to refer to the culture groups or tribes of peoples speaking one of the languages classified as Bantu.

Thus the term "Bantu" refers to about 1500 or more languages.  The Bantu languages and peoples are the majority of people living south of the Sahara and cover about 2/3 of the land area in the African continent south of the Sahara.

The Somali people are not among these Bantu peoples, and their language is classified as Cushitic, not Bantu.  More on that in a bit.  The term Bantu distinguishes these people from the dominant Somali cluster of peoples.

A Technical Term
The term "Bantu" is a technical term used by Western scholars as a reference term for these languages.  ("Bantu" is a common form of the word for "person" in many of these languages, in various phonetic variations.)

Many Africans, now aware of these Western, technical academic terms and categories – scholars as well as educated common people – may nowadays also use these terms to classify their own tribe, if they are referring to the broad different ethnic or language groupings of people in Africa, especially if talking to a European.

The designation "Somali Bantu" is more of a sociological designation. "Somali," of course, refers to the general ethnic and geographical context. "Bantu" is a reference to their ethnic origin, whether or not they would still speak a Bantu language.

No particular tribe is named Bantu by scholars or would actually call themselves by that name.  They call themselves by more specific names for their ethnic group.  "Bantu" is a general classification term, which while still primarily referring to languages, has now come to be used as an ethnic name in their identity in the west.  The term "Somali Bantu" has arisen in recent years to refer to this alliance of tribes in Somalia of Bantu-language origin.

Dan Van Lehman, working with the Somali Bantu Project, comments:

The term Somali Bantu gained popular use in Somalia in 1993 when indigenous Somali people with Bantu-speaking ancestry (mostly living along the middle and lower Shabelle River Valley) and those people from Bantu speaking ethnic groups who were brought to Somalia as slaves (primarily living along the banks of the middle and lower Juba River Valley) decided that their security depended on their mutual cooperation. With many different names describing both groups, the name Somali Bantu emerged as the term to describe all people in Somalia with Bantu-speaking ancestry.

The Maay Language
The language you refer to is Maay, also called MaayMaay and other phonetic variations.  This is a catalogued language, but there are few written resources available in this language's many dialects. The language is in the Eastern Cushite group, closely related to Somali, and shown in some listings as a dialect of Somali.  See The Maay-Speaking Peoples.  See also this good discussion of the relationship of the Maay ("Mai") language to Somali (Maxaa).

Multiple Tribes
Several different tribes of people living in the Jubba and Shabelle areas of Somalia speak forms of Maay.  The people are largely illiterate, being mostly rural. They live in an area of Somali wracked with civil war and famine for aboiut two decades, so they have suffered in many ways.  They have attempted to defend themselves culturally and politically by recent alliances across the various Central Somalia groups of Bantu origin, either indigenous or slave-based.

Bantu Alliances
The ethnic mosaic of most of Africa is complex, with its history of migrations, settlement, famine, war, merging ethnicities.  A multiplicity of factors is involved in the developing ethnicities, changing ethnicities and loss of ethnic identities that makes up the swirl of human history.  The Horn of African is a fascinating complex of layered identities and conflicted ethnic identity.

The traditional identity in Bantu societies has been focused at the family and village level.  Thus the broader groupings we tend to prefer and look for from a western analytical or academic point of view are often not the primary identity of the peoples involved.  Most Bantu peoples have traditionally been organized around extended family villages and clans.

What are known as "tribes" among the broader Bantu groupings of Africa have arisen out of this context and tend to primarily identify and organize themselves this way.  A change to a larger focus often, as in this case, arises out of the need for cultural or political self-preservation or self-assertion.

This is exactly the case with the large group in Kenya known as the Luhya, which began as a federation of neighbouring tribes needing to present a stronger front against the British colonial government.  This is one reason why many peoples often have more than one myth of origin, and a variety of names by which they call themselves.

Not Bantu
The Maay language is not a Bantu language, but is a Cushitic language related to Somali.  It is the language of the Somali clan federations Digil, Mirifle, Rahanween (Rawiin) and others.  Many also speak Somali, a term for several related speech forms, which some sources categorize as all dialects of one Somali speech, and others list separately with teach variety considered a language.

The Somali name for the common Somali language is Maxaad, written by some as Maxaa, (pronounced similarly to Mahaad or Mahaa).  Other people in Central Somalia also speak the language, and it appears the people you are teaching would be in this group.

Bantu in Somalia
In Central Somalia, in the Jubba and Shebelle River areas, originally, there were some Bantu-speaking tribes.  (A related name, Jubba Somali, comes from the Jubba River, and also refers to the Gosha or Mushungulu peoples.  This term also appears in some compilation resources in a confusion with the unrelated Juba, Southern Sudan.)

Some of these Bantu people appear to have been early settlers there, likely from before the period of settlement by the Cushite Somalis.  Others were brought to the area in more recent times, probably from Tanzania and Mozambique, as slaves.  These peoples originally spoke Bantu languages.

Even now, some still speak a Bantu language called Mushungulu.  Some sources also report that other Bantu languages are spoken there, such as Makua, from Mozambique.  But linguists reporting on the region do not mention these as still spoken, though some people definitely have origins from these tribes.

Mushungulu and Gosha
Most Mushungulu also speak Maay as second language.  Some of the people you know may actually have Mushungulu as a mother tongue.  A common name for people of Bantu origin in Somalia is Gosha.

They use other terms for themselves, also, by village, region, clan or other designations.  Some would consider themselves a tribe of Somali now, or a tribe of Digil-Mirifle (Maay).  A small number of Gosha live across the border in Kenya.  These do not speak Mushungulu, but Maay and Garreh.

There are about 20,000, or up to 80,000 by some estimates, of people of Bantu origin, who speak Mushungulu, Maay, Garre and Somali.  Most are bilingual in at least two of these.  Most people of Bantu origin no longer speak a Bantu language.  (On the coast you will find the Bantu Swahili peoples, who are unrelated to the Mushungulu or Gosha.)

These Bantu groups are animistic or superficially Muslim in religion.  There is no church or Christian influence in their home area.  There have been Christian foreigners working in aid and development periodically over recent years.  War has made life difficult for people in Somalia, and even more difficult for outside assistance to get in.

Refugees
Since the early 1980's Somalis and other ethnicities from Somalia have fled to Kenya or Ethiopia, and further away through formal or informal means.  The "Somali Bantu" are one of those groups migrating in large numbers to the United States and other Western countries.  Some have associated themselves with Christian missions or churches, and in the United States they have been settled and assisted primarily by churches.

New Designation for a Changing Identity
On the face of it, the term "Somali Bantu" is an anomaly. In common usage, no Somali is Bantu, and no Bantu would commonly claim to be Somali.  Some sources report that the term was developed by the Bantu groups in Somali themselves to serve as a new common designation for the allied group. The term designates a new unified grouping of small, formerly separate ethnicities of Bantu origin, speaking several languages.

The threat to their identity and survival as small ethnicities overwhelmed by the larger Somali groups, a civil war and longterm famine led the affected Bantu groups in Somalia to develop a new alliance to present a unified voice to represent their common interests.

It is often in such a context that new designations arise, often – as in this case – spurred by the need to relate to a broader community outside their traditional sphere or relationships.  These minority Bantu groups in Somalia made a united appeal to the international community under this name and identity.

 This is one way new ethnicities develop, and with them new terminology for a new sense of identity.  In this type of situation the focus of their primary identity may shift to this larger group and designation Somali Bantu, and replace the original smaller tribal identities.

I suspect there will be a difference between the "Somali Bantu" remaining in Somalia and those having migrated into western countries.  Likely those in the US will coalesce into one new tribe or ethnicity, if they do not totally assimilate by individuals or families as Americans.  Their new beginning in this new life in the west will likely be a new reference point for their identity as an ethnicity.

 Those in Somalia will retain for longer their original Bantu tribal identities.  This will be a phenomenon to watch.  (Related to this type of phenomenon are the discussions in my topics on Assimilation.)

Bantu Identity
The Somali-speaking people of Central Somalia who are of Bantu origin could use this term to assert their Bantu identity, even though they no longer speak their original Bantu language  It would seem, however, that this is an outward-looking term for use in a western context, though perhaps developed and used by the people themselves.

It seems to have arisen in the milieu of the United Nations presence in Somalia in the great famine and war devastation of the 1990s.  Thus it is understandable that the small groups of Bantu ethnic peoples would band together.

Use of a new term like this to represent themselves to the outside world has an advantage.  Both terms are known already and carry meaning.  Though I was working as a consultant to an international development and relief agency, and a consortium of agencies they work with, in Somalia, I never heard the term till the late 90s or early 2000s, in the US.  The term seemed to be initially a media term, not a technical scholarly term, to designate these people in Somalia of Bantu origin.

New Ethnicity
It has gradually become a general term used even in the academic context in the US, and seems to designate what we can consider a new ethnicity in the US where so many of these unfortunates have immigrated to survive.  This is one example of how a new ethnicity arises out of their previous distinct ethnicities.

In this case several smaller groups, of some common ancient identity and a new common interest, combined and established themselves as a new ethnic entity.  This is not uncommon. Many instances of this have occurred with Native Americans.

These refugees seem to generally use thie term now to identify themselves. The term arose out of the need to project an identity to the outside world and elicit advocates. David Redd, a caseworker at World Relief, who has assisted in Somali Bantu resettlement, indicates they have accepted this term as their common designation in the United States.

This sumamry might provide some reference points for eliciting further details about their previous life and family to get a more complete idea which grouping of peoples they associate themselves with.

Also related:
Assimilation: How Peoples Develop and Change
Colour, Race and Genetics in the Horn of Africa
Race and Ethnicity in the Horn of Africa
The Somali Peoples

Also view related PowerPoint Presentations:
Models of Assimilation

Read more about the name Somali Bantu:
Background and Resettlement Information, from David Redd
Mushungulu Language – Ethnologue
Somali Bantu – Their History and Culture - Center for Applied Linguistics
Somali Bantu - Wikipedia
The Somali Bantu Experience: from East Africa to Maine - Colby College
The Somali Bantu Project, Portland State University

OBJ

First concepts written 14 September 2004
Finalized and posted 21 November 2004
Rewritten in 2005
Last revised 19 May 2012

Orville Boyd Jenkins, EdD, PhD

Copyright © 2004, 2005 Orville Boyd Jenkins
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