EAST AFRICA The geographical area which is included under this desig nation extends roughly from the north frontier of Kenya Colony as far south as the Zambezi, and includes Kenya Colony, the Uganda Protectorate, Tanganyika Territory, Nyasaland and Por tuguese East Africa.
We cannot say for certain who were the original inhabitants of this vast territory, for as yet our archaeological data are too scanty, but a number of tribes preserve in their mythology and legends recollections of what may have been a bygone autochthonous race. Thus the Akikuyu tell of cannibal dwarfs known as Maitoachiana, and both the Nandi and Masai have tra ditions of fantastically shaped ogres with cannibalistic instincts. Probably the nomads, who still exist under a variety of names wherever the natural conditions permit, represent the earliest in habitants of whom we can have any knowledge. In this area they occupy a subordinate, almost a servile position, live by trapping and hunting, or by collecting roots and berries, are often shy, elusive creatures of the forest, rarely seen, and at other times are engaged in what their neighbours consider the menial task of blacksmiths, and always dreaded for their knowledge of poisons and witchcraft. Excluding these nomads, the races of East Af rica fall into the following groups: (I) Bantu; (2) Nilotic; (3) Nilo-Hamitic. The Bantu are subdivided into Lacustrians and eastern Bantu. The classification is really linguistic, but happens to be sufficiently valid in this case as a cultural criterion. Thus by Bantu are meant all those peoples of Africa who use the root ntu or some similar word to express human being. Ba- is the plural personal prefix of which mu- or omu- is the singular. Thus we speak of Muganda, a Ganda person and Baganda, Ganda people. As the prefix is really redundant we shall refer to the Bantu tribes without the prefix and speak of Ganda, Nyoro, Swahili and so on.
The history of East Africa is the history of the Hamites, for the various groups are differentiated by the degree and nature of their Hamitization. The Bantu-speaking peoples are an early mix ture of negroes and Hamites, and a series of later waves from the north-east, culminating in the great upheaval of the 16th century, of which the Galla expansion under Mohammed Granye and his invasion of Abyssinia in 1537 was a symptom, profoundly affected East African cultural relations. The Lacustrians were further Hamitized and a Hamitic autocracy imposed itself on many of the conquered Bantu peoples to the north and west of Lake Victoria. The Nilotics or inhabitants of the Nile valley, a parallel fusion of negroes and Hamites, with possibly a Semitic element added as well, were dispossessed of their tribal terri tories in what is now the south-eastern Sudan and were dispersed by invaders from the east. The bulk of them moved northwards and became the modern Shilluk, Dinka and allied tribes, but a few followed natural lines southwards, and to-day are known as the Acholi, Lango, Alur, Jopaluo and Jaluo. The invaders themselves were what are often known as "Half-Hamites," a rather meaning less term to which Nilo-Hamitic is preferable, as they are in fact increasingly Hamitized Nilotics. Southern Abyssinia and regions round Lake Rudolf have during the last 40o years witnessed a perpetual ebb and flow of immigrant peoples, more and more Hamitized, who were deflected by the Nile valley and moved southwards to populate the highlands of Kenya Colony and Tan ganyika, until gradually the whole area from these highlands to the Horn of Africa was filled up with mainly pastoral peoples of Hamitic ancestry. This centrifugal movement southwards was only checked by the intervention of western Powers in whose ab sence the process would undoubtedly have continued despite tem porary checks such as the defeat of the Masai at the hands of the Bantu Hehe. This wedge of Nilo-Hamitics thrust southwards into Bantu areas appropriated the highlands to their pastoral require ments and separated the eastern Bantu from the Lacustrians. The eastern Bantu were agriculturalists and content with the lower highlands and the coastal regions, but under the stress of isola tion came very much under the influence of their Hamitic neigh bours, and though linguistically they remain Bantu they have as similated many of the characteristic features of Hamitic culture.
The coastal belt and the adjacent islands, including Zanzibar and Pemba, are inhabited by the Swahili, whose language is morphologically Bantu and who are therefore generally classed as such. Culturally, however, they are not homogeneous and have few Bantu affinities. Since Abdul Malik bin Muriani brought his Syrian builders in A.D. 659 to found his African kingdom, a suc cession of colonizing waves from Persia and from the Oman es tablished a Mohammedan empire over the whole coastal region from the Lamu archipelago to the Zambezi. These immigrants brought their own culture, interbred with and assimilated the local Bantu at each of their administrative and trading centres. Thus was gradually formed the Swahili language, largely Arabic in origin, though structurally Bantu; and this was the genesis of what are now known as the Swahili people, or more properly the Swahili-speaking peoples, a heterogeneous conglomerate of local ized dialects and customs, based on the original Bantu tribes who both assimilated the alien Mohammedan culture and incorporated in it no inconsiderable portion of their own. There were early Chinese voyages to the east coast of Africa, relics of which in pottery and coins, have survived on the coast from Lamu south wards. The Mongoloid eye found sporadically throughout this area, may also be a survival of Chinese infiltration, though other explanations are possible.
The Lacustrian and eastern Bantu meet in Tanganyika Terri tory and gradually the typical Bantu characteristics reassert themselves, though now we find a social organization with a more pronounced military bias than we encounter farther north. Typ ical of such tribal polities are the Hehe of Tanganyika Territory and the Yao of Nyasaland, whose organization, though much the same as that of their neighbours the Anyanja, is more closely knit and adapted to the exigencies of war. This may in part be due to the influence of the Angoni, an offshoot of the Zulu who fought their way north and penetrated as far as the southern shores of Lake Victoria. They were finally conquered by the Nyamwezi, a tribe also Zuluized and organized for military pur poses, and were permitted to settle in their present homes. The Simba appeared on the lower Zambezi in 1540 and triumphing over the Portuguese and their African allies pushed north-east and succeeded in capturing Mombasa, before they were finally de feated and apparently annihilated near Malindi. The whole of this southern area has for centuries been the battle-ground of warring tribes, marching and counter-marching in almost inex tricable confusion, achieving an evanescent eminence and as rap fading to comparative insignificance. Consequently there are fewer individual characteristics, the distinctions are lesi clearly cut, and their affinities are southern and western rather than northern. They belong to the southern Bantu more than to the Lacustrians despite the common characteristics which are part of the Bantu inheritance as a whole. The Thonga of Portuguese East Africa, for instance, very definitely merge into the southern complex and in Nyasaland the Anyanja extend into Rhodesia and come into contact with distinct Zambezi affinities.
In an area so complex and so full of cultural conflict it would be difficult to summarize the salient characteristics both briefly and adequately. Overlapping between the different groups is in evitable owing to the diffusion of cultural elements from one to the other and emphasizes the impossibility of a rigid classifica tion. A fair picture, however, may be obtained of tribal cultures (social organization, mode of life and religious beliefs) by a con cise examination of representative tribes in each group, with allow ance for individual variation from the norm. The nomads require separate mention, and the Ganda and Ankole represent the Lacus. trians. The Nyika group represent the eastern Bantu. The Hehe and Angoni represent the fusion of the Lacustrians and the east ern Bantu with their southern influences. Lango represent the Nilotics and Masai the Nilo-Hamitics.