“A Barabaig bride wears a spectacular collection of beaded hides, coiled brass anklets and armlets, spiral finger rings, and an impressive necklace of hand-beaten brass plaques. Her face is veiled with a net of wire chains which hang from the rim of a beautifully beaded cap. On her upper arm she wears plastic bracelets incised with patterns made from sliced water pipes – reminiscent of the ivory bracelets worn in the past.” -Google Arts & Culture
“The Barabaig are a nomadic tribe of the Datooga people based in the northern volcanic highlands near Mount Hanang in Manyara Region, Tanzania, speaking the eponymous dialect of the Datooga language.
The Barabaig are one of the Nilotic peoples who migrated south to East Africa from the Nile Valley in North Africa more than a thousand years ago. They form the largest group among the Tatoga-speaking people. Linguists tell us they entered what is now Kenya late in the first millennium AD where they congregated around Mount Elgon up until around 250 years ago. In the late 1800s, German explorers found them on the Serengeti plains of German East Africa now Tanzania. Archaeological evidence suggests that they were still in the Ngorongoro Highlands until around 150 years ago, before they were chased out by the Maasai, who live there to this day, still calling the area Osupuko loo Ltatua (Mountains of the Tatoga). The Tatoga then headed south along the eastern branch of East Africa's Great Rift Valley and eventually split into groups they call emojiga. Those who settled on the plains surrounding Mount Hanang became known as Barabaig – Beaters of Sticks (bar = to beat, baig = sticks) because of the importance they place on sticks as a weapon and percussion instrument at dances. Numbering between 35,000 and 50,000 people (although it is impossible to be sure of population as the Tanzania census does not record ethnicity) they live to this day on the Hanang Plains in Hanang District of Manyara Region of north central Tanzania.
The Barabaig have no supreme leader or chief (acephalous society). They are organised into clans made up of descendants who can trace their lineage to a single ancestor. Each clan or dosht has a clan head who convenes the clan's affairs through a clan council. There are six spiritual clans (daremng'ajega) and more than 30 secular clans (homatk). Members of all but the blacksmith's clan (Gidang'odiga) must marry outside the clan (exogamy). Blacksmiths must marry within their membership (endogamy), possibly due to a perceived lack of ritual purity.
Social order is maintained through a series of councils or jural moots that have different authorities; Gitabaraku or public assembly of all Barabaig dealing with community-wide issues, Girgwageda Dosht on clan matters, Girgwageda Gisjeuda for neighbourhood issues, and the Girgwageda Gademg for women to adjudicate on offences by men against women. Serious offences are dealt with in camera and sanctions imposed by a Makchamed made up of selected senior elders.
The Barabaig live by hunting, farming, and animal husbandry.
There is a custom in which they hunt their halots (or enemies) only with spears, which are: elephants, lions, and other animals. Anyone who does so will be considered a "ghadyirochand" (hero), and is rewarded with gifts of cattle, women, and prestige in his tribe.
Religion - as for all Datooga - are traditional animist beliefs and practices.
Cattle are central to Barabaig life. They provide milk, meat, and occasionally blood for sustenance, skins for clothing, horns as drinking vessels, dung for building and urine as a cleanser. Cattle are also traded through sale or barter to obtain everything else the Barabaig need. Traditionally, the Barabaig did not grow crops, but they now cultivate farm plots with maize, sorghum and beans. They also grow vegetables in gardens near their homesteads. Whatever is produced is mostly consumed by the household that grows it. The Barabaig also herd sheep and goats, use donkeys as beasts of burden, and keep chickens, although they do not eat eggs. Goats are both traded and slaughtered to eat, and sheep have an important role as sacrifice in rituals. But it is cattle that dominate their lives and influence their culture. Cattle are the currency of life and bind society through inheritance, gifts and loans, payments, fines and sacrifice. A man without cattle can enjoy neither social position nor respect;” -Wikipedia
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