Manyema

Manyema (WaManyema) (Una-Ma-Nyema, eaters of flesh) are a Bantu ethnic group, described in the past as powerful and warlike, in the African Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa and Central Africa. Similar ethnic groups emerged as a result of an “intermingling of Hamitic and Negro types” in the region, namely ethnic groups around Lake Victoria. Many, like many Nyamwezi, are the descendants of porters who emerged during the height of the Swahili-Arab trade in the Sultanate of Utetera. WaManyema, as well as the area, was extensively incorporated into Swahili economy and culture.

During the early to mid-1800s, they traversed, back and forth, across Lake Tanganyika towards the Swahili coast in larger numbers as caravan porters, merchants, mercenaries, war refugees (emphasised in oral memories), slaves (emphasised by missionaries and colonial officials), and to some extent as slave traders (emphasised by explorers like Henry Morton Stanley, David Livingstone and John Speke).

Usually, a Manyema man would typically have children who are also identified as Manyema from birth. Similarly, children of Arab men would be identified as Arab. However, a female Manyema would often give birth to a child of various ethnicities, such as Swahili, Zaramo, Shihiri, or Arab. Thus, she may have multiple children each with a different ethnicity that differs from her own WaSwahili in Ujiji town on the border between Tanzania & Democratic Republic of Congo, many of whom originally Manyema, identified themselves as Swahili.

In Tanzania, the Manyema include various smaller ethnic groups of enslaved Congolese origin of which are independent culturally but with some resemblance due to intermarriages. These ethnic groups include the Goma, Bwari, Buyu, Masanze, Bangubangu, Bembe, Songoora and many others of Congolese origin.