139 The Swahili Culture
Learning Objective
- Explain how the Bantu migration impacted the Swahili culture
Key Points
- Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili Coast. They speak Swahili as their native language, which belongs to the Niger-Congo family. Swahili culture is the product of the history of the coastal part of the African Great Lakes region.
- As with the Swahili language, Swahili culture has a Bantu core and has also borrowed from foreign influences. Around 3,000 years ago, speakers of the proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations; the Swahili people originate from Bantu inhabitants of the coast of Southeast Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. They are mainly united under the mother tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language.
- Around the 8th century, the Swahili people engaged in the Indian Ocean trade. As a consequence, they were influenced by Arabic, Persian, Indian, and Chinese cultures. During the 10th century, several city-states flourished along the Swahili Coast and adjacent island. They were Muslim, cosmopolitan, and politically independent of one another.
- The Kilwa Sultanate was a medieval sultanate, centered at Kilwa, whose authority, at its height, stretched over the entire length of the Swahili Coast. It was founded in the 10th century, and the last native dynasty was overthrown by a Portuguese invasion in 1505. By 1513, the sultanate was already fragmented into smaller states.
- Despite its origin as a Persian colony, extensive inter-marriage and conversion of local Bantu inhabitants and later Arab immigration turned the Kilwa Sultanate into a very diverse state. It is the mixture of Perso-Arab and Bantu cultures in Kilwa that is credited for creating Swahili as a distinctive East African culture and language.
- The diverse history of the Swahili Coast has also resulted in multicultural influences on Swahili arts, including furniture and architecture.
Terms
Bantu expansion
A postulated millennia-long series of migrations of speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group. Attempts to trace the exact route of the migrations, to correlate it with archaeological evidence and genetic evidence, have not been conclusive. The Bantu traveled in two waves, and it is likely that the migration of the Bantu-speaking people from their core region in West Africa began around 1000 BCE.
Kilwa Sultanate
A Medieval sultanate, centered at Kilwa (an island off modern-day Tanzania), whose authority, at its height, stretched over the entire length of the Swahili Coast. It was founded in the 10th century by Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi, a Persian prince of Shiraz. His family ruled the Sultanate until 1277, when it was replaced by the Arab family of Abu Moaheb. The latter was overthrown by a Portuguese invasion in 1505.
Bantu and Swahili Culture
Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili Coast, encompassing today’s Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and