Mafia District

Mafia Island District was created in 1959 and contains 136 suburbs, 23 villages, 8 wards, and 2 divisions, North and South.[6]

Wards of Mafia District map

The Mafia District is administratively divided into eight wards and twenty villages. Before 2010, Mafia District had seven wards, when Ndagoni Ward was created from the western part of Baleni Ward.

The wards listed with area and population:[7][8]

The district is surrounded by the districts of Mkuranga on the northwestern part across the Mafia Channel, Rufiji and Kilwa of Lindi Region on the southwestern part, and the Indian Ocean on the eastern and southern parts. Mafia District has a total area of 972 km2, of which 407 km2 is made up of land and 565 km2 is water. In addition to Mafia Island, there are eight islands within Mafia District: Juani Island, Chole Island, Jibondo Island (Kibondo), Bwejuu Island, Shungumbili Island (Thanda), Barakuni Island, Miewi Island, and Niororo Island (Nyororo).[11]

The eastern side of Mafia is exposed to the full power of the Indian Ocean, and a 33 km outer fringing reef runs the whole length of the eastern seaboard and comprises Mafia, Jibondo, and Juani islands, with Kitutia Reef located at the southernmost point.[12]

The earliest inhabitants of Mafia Island are Bantu communities from the Matumbi, Ndengereko and the Rufiji from across the Mafia strait on the mainland. On Mafia Island, those who claim to be of Bantu ancestry, yet occasionally identify as Washirazi make up the largest group. This indicates their longstanding Muslim status and they claim to be descended from Persian immigrants who arrived on the East Coast about the tenth century A.D. However, in Mafia, these individuals frequently refer to themselves as "Wambwera" rather than "Washirazi." Wapokomo, who is claimed to have arrived in the community from northern Kenya during the Portuguese era, belongs to a second, considerably smaller category. Since the Wambwera and the Wapokomo have intermarried, a significant section of the population now considers themselves to be either one depending on the circumstances.[16]

First written records for of the island begin with various conquests ; The Swahili Sultanate of Kilwa (11th–15th century AD), then the Portuguese (16th–17th century AD), Oman Arabs (18th century AD), Germany (AD 1890–1915), and British (AD 1915–1922).[17]

The coastal civilizations of Swahili city-states were at their height during the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Their kings and merchants constructed mosques, pillar tombs, and palaces, issued coins, and imported products from most of the known world, including Tang and Ming China. Africans and traders from other parts of the Indian Ocean, particularly the Persian Gulf region, coexisted in these settlements.[18]

Mafia Island had taken a leading role in the long-distance trade networks circling the Indian Ocean during the Swahili period. Following its absorption in the 11th century AD, the Mafia's connection to the sultanate of Kilwa expanded its role in commerce networks. The Kisimani Mafia was founded on the strength of Kilwa's power. Coins recovered at both Kisimani Mafia and Kua also demonstrate this. According to the discovery of Kilwa coins, Kisimani peaked during the 11th and 13th centuries AD. The Kilwa Chronicle also mentions that some of the first Kilwa sultan's sons made their way to Kisimani Mafia, a modern-day name for the island's southwest tip. The Mafia Island was taken over by the Portuguese when they came in the 16th century AD. To oversee and protect the trade connections with the far east of the island, they constructed a fort on the east coast.[19]

Since the Kilwa sultanate, colonial control has had a mixed impact on the history of the Mafia archipelago. The Islands' current sociopolitical situation has been mostly negatively affected by both German and British colonial rule.[20]

According to historian Revington, slaves of affluent people whose descendants now live in Kua and Kisimani Mafia were the main inhabitants of Mafia Island in the 17th century AD. The Madagascar-born Sakalava people "arrived with small canoes called 'laka' and captured many people" in the 18th century AD, raiding local treasuries of these small cities on Mafia Island. Despite the eventual release of the prisoners, Kua was never again conquered, and as a result of the attack, the sultan's capital was transferred to Chole Island.[21]

Coconut Plantation on Mafia Island during the British occupation

The Imams of Muscat took over control of Mafia in the beginning of the 18th century AD. This gained momentum when the Omani Sultan Seyyid Said moved his headquarters to Zanzibar and annexed the islands. Many of the settler Arabs moved to the southern region of Mafia during the Omani Arab colonial era, where they established extensive coconut plantations that were staffed by slave labor imported from the mainland. The original Mafia residents, who went by the names Wambwera or Washirazi, were driven into the northern region of the island, where the soil is better suited for sustaining crops than for coconuts.[22]

Mafia, which had been a part of the Sultan of Zanzibar's realm, joined German East Africa in 1890. The production of coconuts increased. To provide copra, which was widely used at the time in several procedures, and to have money with which to pay taxes, the Germans themselves developed sizable plantations and also mandated that all adult males grow at least fifty coconut trees.[23]

After the borders between Germany and the British Empire were established in 1890, Germans took control of the Mafia Island. The German government relocated from Chole to Kilindoni, the former Mafia capital, in 1912. British troops captured Mafia in 1915, and Tanganyika Territory received Mafia Island in 1922. More European-owned coconut plantations were created in the south of Mafia during the British era. After the enslaved were set free by the British colonizers in 1922, the Arab plantations went into decline.[24]

Swahili era Ruins on Chole island, Mafia District

Since ancient times, Mafia Island's economy was mixed but mostly agrarian, depending on both subsistence, fishing and commercial agricultural. Growing Coconuts, taro, dry and wet rice, cassava, beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, and other crops are more prevalent towards the north of the island, where there is more access to bushland. The majority of the southern side of the island is covered in coconut and cashew nut trees, the two longest-running cash crops for the Mafia. Direct exports to markets of Dar es Salaam are made for both the larger cashew nut crop and the smaller coconut crop. Both crops' prices have varied recently.[29] In 2012, unemployment in Mafia District was 1.5%.[30]

The District had 46,438 residents as of the 2012 Tanzania National Census. [37] Mafia District has an adult literacy rate of 77.3%, primarily only in Swahili.[38] Historically, six cognatic descent groups on the island, who hold authority over practically all of the land, include the Wapokomo and the Wambwera. Many people belong to many groups and identify with various groups at various times and in various circumstances as a result of out-group marriage. However, the number of groups to which an individual can belong is constrained by preference kin marriage, which is marriage to a person with a common ancestry group. The remaining people are mostly made up of a few Wabajuni immigrants, a single Hadhrami Arab family, and a small number of descendants of slaves and ex-slaves who very infrequently intermarry with the 'freeborn' Wapokomo and Wambwera. These persons do not belong to the descending group.[39]

The hierarchy in the village Minazini is a little more intricate. Because there are so few Arabs, who are Ibadhi Muslims rather than Sunni like most people in the Mafia Island, they hardly make up a significant group and have very little interaction with the other settlements. Instead, individuals deemed to be "most like Arabs muslims" i.e. with Islamic piety have the highest position in the social order. These include some Sharifs (descendants of the Prophet), immigrants known as the Wabajuni, who have long asserted their Arab origins, which are untrue, as well as the family of a Sheikh from Zanzibar who immigrated and intermarried with certain Wambwera.[40]

The 'pure' Wambwera, or those who tend not to intermarry with the Wapokomo, those of mixed Wambwera-Pokomo origin, and the 'pure' Wapokomo, in descending order, make up the intermediate ranks. The descendants of slaves are located at the bottom. The Wabajuni and the Sheikh's family members held practically all of the political power in the village, which I define as principally control over the Friday mosque and village council offices. These are the people who, as will be seen, have rejected the rituals that are the focus of this piece. I make an effort to link their rejection of the rituals to their attempts to stand out from the rest of the villagers and to maintain political power.[41]