Culture of Tanzania

FollowingTanganyika's independence (1961) and unification withZanzibar(1964), leading to the formation of the state ofTanzania, PresidentJulius Nyerereemphasised a need to construct anational identityfor the citizens of the new country. To achieve this, Nyerere provided what has been regarded by some commentators as one of the most successful cases of ethnic repression and identity transformation in Africa.
With over 130ethnic groupsandlocal languagesspoken, Tanzania is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Africa. Despite this, ethnic divisions have remained rare in Tanzania, especially when compared to the rest of the continent.
The territory of Tanzania is home to some of the world's important archaeological excavations and their scientific interpretation:
TheOlduvai Gorgeis one of the most importantpaleoanthropologicallocalities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of earlyhuman evolution. A steep-sided ravine in theGreat Rift Valleythat stretches acrossEast Africa, it is about 48 km (30 mi) long, and is located in the easternSerengeti Plainswithin theNgorongoro Conservation Areain theOlbalbalward located inNgorongoro DistrictofArusha Region, about 45 kilometres (28 miles) fromLaetoli, another important archaeological locality of early human occupation. The British/Kenyan paleoanthropologist-archeologist team ofMaryandLouis Leakeyestablished excavation and research programs at Olduvai Gorge that achieved great advances in human knowledge and are world-renowned.
In July 2019, the Olduvai Gorge Monument was erected at the turnoff to Olduvai Gorge from the road which connects Ngorongoro Conservation Area andSerengeti National Park(a route traveled by safari-goers). Eng. Joshua Mwankunda conceived the idea of erecting a monument to commemorate this significant site while also serving as a signpost and attracting visitors to the Olduvai Gorge and museum; paleoanthropologistsNicholas Toth,Kathy Schick, and Jackson Njau planned and provided life-size fossil casts at the request of the Tanzanian government, which were used by the Tanzanian artist Festo Kijo to create the two large concrete skulls. The monument consists of two large-scale models of fossil skulls which sit atop a large pedestal with an informative plaque mounted on the side of the pedestal. The fossil skulls depicted areParanthropus boiseiandHomo habilis, two contemporary species which were first discovered at Olduvai Gorge. The large-scale models created by Kijo are each 6 feet tall and weigh 5,000 pounds. The monument project was funded by theStone Age Instituteand theJohn Templeton Foundation, in partnership with the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA).
TheOlduvai Gorge Museum, located 5 km beyond the monument, is situated on the rim of the gorge at the junction of the main gorge and the side gorge. As one of the largest onsite museums in Africa, the museum provides educational exhibits related to the gorge and its long history.
TheTendaguru Formationnorthwest ofLindiis considered the richestLate JurassicstratainAfrica. The formation has provided a wealth of fossils of different groups; earlymammaliaforms, severalgeneraofdinosaurs,crocodyliforms,amphibians,fish,invertebratesandflora. More than 250 tonnes (250 long tons; 280 short tons) of material was shipped to theMuseum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany, during excavations in the early twentieth century.
The Tendaguru Beds as a fossil deposit were first discovered in 1906, whenGermanpharmacist, chemical analyst and mining engineer Bernhard Wilhelm Sattler, on his way to a mine south of the Mbemkure River in formerGerman East Africa, was shown by his local staff enormous bones weathering out of the path near the base of Tendaguru Hill, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Mtapaia (close to Nambiranji village, Mipingo ward, 60 kilometres (37 mi) northwest of Lindi town).
In 1998, an illustrated book in Swahili, whose title translates asDinosaurs of Tendaguru, was published for young readers in East Africa. It presents a slightly different, fictitious story of the first discovery, which is attributed to a Tanzanian farmer, rather than to the German engineer Sattler.
In February 2021, Polish archaeologists fromJagiellonian Universityannounced the discovery of ancient rock art with anthropomorphic figures in a good condition at the Amak'hee 4 rockshelter site inSwaga Swaga Game Reservein northwestDodoma Region. Paintings made with a reddish dye also contained buffalo heads, giraffe's head and neck, domesticated cattle dated back to about several hundred years ago. Archaeologists estimated that these paintings can describe a ritual of theSandawe people, although their present religion does not contain elements ofanthropomorphizationof buffaloes.
A total of 130 languages are spoken in Tanzania; most of them are from theBantufamily.SwahiliandEnglishare the two official languages of Tanzania. However, Swahili is the national language.
Given the conditions of the period, it was not possible to introduce Swahili in the entire educational system, because the scale of the task of writing or translatingtextbooksfor primary schools was already considerable.As a result,English, the colonial language since the end ofWorld War I, is still the language ofhigh schoolsanduniversities. Many students leave school after finishing primary education.
Although the many non-official languages in Tanzania are not actively suppressed, they do not enjoy the samelinguistic rightsas Swahili and English. Some also facelanguage extinction, such as theKw'adza languagethat is not spoken any longer.
Tanzania's literary culture is primarily oral. Major oral literary forms include folktales, poems, riddles, proverbs, and songs.The greatest part of Tanzania's recorded oral literature is in Swahili, even though each of the country's languages has its own oral tradition. The country's oral literature has been declining because of the breakdown of the multigenerational social structure, making transmission of oral literature more difficult, and because increasing modernization has been accompanied by the devaluation of oral literature.
Books in Tanzania are often expensive and hard to come by. Most Tanzanian literature is in Swahili or, less often, in English. Major figures in Tanzanian written literature includeShaaban Robert(considered the father of Swahili literature),Aniceti Kitereza, Muhammed Saley Farsy, Faraji Katalambulla,Adam Shafi Adam,Muhammed Said Abdalla, Said Ahmed Mohammed Khamis, Mohamed Suleiman Mohamed,Euphrase Kezilahabi,Gabriel Ruhumbika,Ebrahim Hussein,May Materru Balisidya,Fadhy Mtanga,Amandina LihambaandPenina O. Mlamaand British nobel laureate of Zanzibari originAbdulrazak Gurnah.
From independence until 1993, all recording and distribution of music was strictly managed by BASATA, primarily throughRadio Tanzania Dar es Salaam(RTD).Only the 4 Tanzanian genres were permitted to be recorded or broadcast, which at the time was ngoma, taarab, kwaya and dansi. The Broadcasting Services Act of 1993 allows private broadcast networks and recording studios.
As in other countries, music inTanzaniais constantly undergoing changes, and varies by location, people, settings and occasion. The five music genres in Tanzania, as defined byBASATAare,ngoma,dansi,kwaya, andtaarab, withbongo flavaadded in 2001.Singeli has since the mid-2000's been an unofficial music ofuswahilini, unplanned communities inDar es Salaam, and is the newest mainstream genre since 2020.
Ngoma, aBantuword, meaning  dance, drum and eventis a traditional dance music that has been the most widespread music in Tanzania.Dansi is urban jazz or band music.Taarab is sungKiswahilipoetry accompanied by a band, typically with strings and percussion, in which the audience is often, but not always, encouraged to dance and clap.Kwaya is choir music originally limited to church services during colonization, but now a secular part of education, social, and political events.
Bongo flava is Tanzanian pop music originating in the early 2000s frommuziki wa kizazi kipya, meaning "Music of the new generation", which originated in the late 1980s. Kizazi kipya's dominant influences werereggae,RnB, andhip hop, whereas the later bongo flava's dominant influences are taarab and dansi.Three recent influences on bongo flava areAfropopin the 2010s, as well asamapianofromSouth Africaand singeli from Tanzania, both since 2020.Singeli is a ngoma music style that originated in Manzese, a uswahilini in north-west Dar es Salaam. An MC performs over fast tempo taarab music, often at between 200 and 300beats per minute (BPM)while females dance. Styles differ significantly between MC genders. Male MCs usually perform in fast-paced rap, while female MCs usually perform kwaya.
In the few years prior to 1993, hip hop had been established in Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Mwanza. It was transitioning from English performances of hip hop originating in uzunguni, rich areas like Oysterbay and Msasaki with international schools, to Kiswahili performances of kizazi kipya, originating in uswahiliniFollowing airtime on radio waves, bongo flava spread throughout the country, and the rest of the Great Lakes.
The Tanzanian national anthem isMungu Ibariki Africa(God Bless Africa), composed by South African composerEnoch Sontongain 1897.The tune is theANC's official song and later became the national anthem ofSouth Africa. The melody is also the national anthem ofZambia.In Tanzania,Swahililyrics were written for this anthem. – Another patriotic song, going back to colonial times, isTanzania, Tanzania.
The music industry in Tanzania has seen many changes in the past ten years. With a fusion of local and foreign music traditions, Tanzanian musicians have grown in prominence within theAfrican Great Lakesregion. It includes artists from traditional music, such as Dionys Mbilinyi, Sabinus Komba, and many others, to new artists inR&B,pop,Zouk,Taarab, anddance.
Imani Sangais a composer, ethnomusicologist, church organist, and choral conductor.
Mwakisinini Felix is a music artist who contributed a lot to church music as a composer, trainer, and choral conductor.
In the course of their long history, the more than 130 ethnic groups living inmainland Tanzaniaand on the islands of Zanzibar have created numerous cultural objects, used either for practical purposes of everyday life or for use in rituals and as indicators of social status. Such cultural objects have been collected since mainly the late 19th century by private individuals andethnographicmuseums in Europe, later followed by museums in various other countries, including theDar es Salaam National Museum. Following the appreciation of African traditionalapplied artsby Western artists, collectors and art exhibitions since the 1920s, such objects have been seen ascultural artifacts.
From the 1930s to 1950s, anthropologistHans Corycollected about 1000 clayfigurinesused forinitiation ritesin different ethnic groups. He published these in his works, most notably inAfrican figurines: their ceremonial use in puberty rites in Tanganyika.According to German ethnologist Elisabeth Grohs, who studiedpubertyceremonies and the use offigurinesin Tanzania in the 1960s, Cory donated a large number of these figurines at the end of his life to theDar es Salaam National Museum.
Tanzania. Masterworks of African Sculpturewas a 1994art exhibitionof traditionalAfrican sculpturesoriginating from themainland regionof modernTanzania. Shown in Berlin and Munich, Germany, more than 400 historical sculptures and masks had been selected for this exhibition. Some of the cultural objects on display came from German museums, while others were provided by private collectors from Europe, the USA and Africa. The 528-page, large-formatexhibition cataloguecontains contributions by European and American ethnologists, art historians and collectors on aspects of traditional sculptural art from Tanganyika. More than 500black-and-white photographsof sculptures and masks from public and private collections as well as maps, illustrations and abibliographycomplement the individual chapters.
In 2013, QCC Art Gallery of theCity University of New York (CUNY)andPortland Museum of Art, USA, presentedShangaa: Art of Tanzania, the first major show of traditional art from Tanzania outside of Germany and Tanzania.The exhibition curator, art historian Gary van Wyck, edited a catalogue with numerous illustrations and contributions by Tanzanian and international scholars.
Tanzanian craftsmen and artists of different ethnic groups have created a rich legacy of sculptures, representing people, animals or practical items of everyday use. Best known of these different ethnic traditions are the modern Makonde carvings ofsurrealistshetani figures, made out of extremely hardebony(mapingo) wood.Apart from being a painter,George Lilanga, who died in 2005, is one of the most well-known African modern Makonde  sculptors.
In 2021, Tanzanian painter and associate professor in Fine Art at the Department of Creative Arts,University of Dar es Salaam,Elias Jengopublished an overview on "The Making of Contemporary Art in Tanzania." Referring to the early years after independence, Jengo described the absence of an official political orientation for the arts by the Nyerere government. With regard to the development of visual and applied arts, he discussed organizations including the National Handicraft Marketing Development Corporation (HANDICO) and its subsidiaries, the National Arts Council, the Tanzania Culture Trust Fund, the Copyright Society of Tanzania (COSOTA), the role of art galleries, foundations and associations. Further, he described modern Makonde sculpture, the so-calledTingatinga schoolas well as fine-art paintings by Sam Ntiro and other contemporary painters.
Tingatinga is the name applied to a populargenreof Tanzanian paintings, which are painted with enamel paints onhardboardor canvas. Usually, the motifs are animals and flowers in colorful and repetitive design. The style was started byEdward Saidi TingatingainDar es Salaam. Since his death in 1972, the Tingatinga style expanded both in Tanzania and abroad.
Contemporary Tanzanian artists include David Mzuguno, Haji Chilonga, Salum Kambi, Max Kamundi, Thobias Minzi, Robino Ntila,John Kilaka, Godfrey Semwaiko, Evarist Chikawe, and others.
Tanzania's cartoons have a history that can be traced back to the work of pioneering artists, such as Christian Gregory with hisChakubanga cartoonsin the Uhuru newspaper back in the 1970s and 1980s, and Philip Ndunguru in the early 1980s. Outspokenlypolitical cartoonswere created on a more recent date.
In the past decade, the art ofcartoonsandcomicshas really taken off in Tanzania. At the present date, there are dozens ofcartoonists, some of whom are well known throughout the country. From the 1960s and so on, a number of artists prepared the way, and their names are cited by today's artists as essential influences. Some of these known cartoonists in Tanzania include Ally Masoud 'kipanya', Sammi Mwamkinga, Nathan Mpangala 'Kijasti', King kinya, Adam Lutta, Fred Halla, James Gayo, Robert Mwampembwa, Francis Bonda, Popa Matumula, Noah Yongolo, Oscar Makoye, Fadhili Mohamed, and many others (see the history of cartoons in Tanzania at the Worldcomics website:http://www.worldcomics.fi)
Footballis very popular throughout the country.The most popularprofessional football clubsin Dar es Salaam are theYoung Africans F.C.andSimba S.C.TheTanzania Football Federationis the governing body for football in the country.
Other popular sports includebasketball,netball, boxing,volleyball,athletics, andrugby.The National Sports Council also known as Baraza la Michezo la Taifa is the governing body for sports in the country under the Ministry of Information, Youth, Sports and Culture.
Tanzanian cuisine varies by geographical region. Along the coastal regions (Dar es Salaam,Tanga,Bagamoyo,Zanzibar, andPemba), spicy foods are common, and there is also much use ofcoconut milk.
Regions in Tanzania's mainland consume different foods. Some typical mainland Tanzanian foods includewali(rice),ugali(maizeporridge),nyama choma(grilledmeat),mishkaki(skewers of marinated grilledbeef),samaki(fish, usuallytilapia),pilau(rice mixed with a variety of spices),biriyani, andndizi-nyama(plantainswith meat).
Vegetables commonly used in Tanzania includebamia(okra) which is mostly eaten as a stew or prepared into traditional stew calledmlenda,mchicha(amaranthus tricolor),njegere(green peas),maharage(beans), andkisamvu(cassavaleaves). Tanzania grows at least 17 different types of bananas which are used for soup, stew, and chips.
Some breakfast foods typically seen in Tanzania aremaandazi(fried doughnut), chai (tea),chapati(a kind offlat bread), porridge, and especially in rural areaschipsi mayai.
Tanzanian snack foods include visheti,kashata(coconut bars),kabaab(kebab),sambusa(samosa),mkate wa kumimina(Zanzibari rice bread),vileja,vitumbua(rice patties), andbagia.
Since a large community of Indians have migrated into Tanzania, a considerable proportion of the cuisine has been influenced byIndian cuisine.