Rufiji

Also, * - lala adj. "old" in Rufiji-Ruvuma subgroup. back

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

In addition to these three groups, a fourth proto-Ruvu daughter language, proto-South Ruvu, was likely spoken in the Rufiji River regions near the coast.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

By the close of the first millennium CE, these ethnolinguistic communities covered a region that extended south of the Rufiji River, north to the southern edges of the Ngulu Mountains, and west to the edges of the Maasai steppe.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

It is therefore possible that any number of diverse people lived at Nkukutu, Kivinja, and the surrounding Rufiji Delta areas.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

Both imported materials found near the Rufiji Delta and written information left in the Periplus Maris Erythraei show that merchants external to the continent likely made regular visits to the region.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

The most probable proto-Ruvu homeland was in an area that lay between the lower Wami and Rufiji Rivers.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

Ruvu speakers living in proximity to them and probably intermingling with them were the apparent donors of those lexical items into Rufiji-Ruvuma languages.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

First we can acknowledge that the linguistic evidence does suggest that NECB language communities were spreading into the Rufiji Delta areas by the middle of the first millennium CE, which correlates with the C14 Tana ware dates of the sixth century at Kivinja and nearby islands.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

Note 1: Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei, 61; Chami, "Roman Beads from the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania," 237 – 41. back

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008

Though it is now an extinct Ruvu subgroup, this set of people is suggested because languages of the Rufiji-Ruvuma branch of Kaskazi Bantu languages spoken in and south of the Rufiji areas contain borrowed Ruvu words.

Societies, Religion, and History: Central East Tanzanians and the World They Created, c. 200 BCE to 1800 CE 2008