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Hima people

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Not to be confused with Hema people.
Hima
Regions with significant populations
 Uganda and  Tanzania
Languages
Rutara languages
Religion
Predominantly:
Christianity
traditionally: Belief in Ruhanga
PersonMuHima, MuHuma
PeopleBaHima, BaHuma

The Hima or Huma are a pastoralist social class that is native to the grasslands of Western Uganda and Karagwe, Tanzania

Etymology

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Birgitta Farelius claims that the term "Hima" probably derives from the Bantu word for monkey (enkíma), which is a totem animal of some clans originating from Karagwe and Ankole. [1]

The name "Bahuma" comes from the verb "okuhuma", which means the "cacophony of sound made by a herd of cattle on the move, lowing, thudding of hooves, and cries of herdsmen".[2]

Genetics

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According to data from 1969, the Hima and Tutsi groups possessed the enzyme of milk sugar lactose tolerance, which is highly prevalent in European populations, but the other Bantu-speaking tribes were largely lactose deficient,[3] similar results and conclusions were reached by the geneticist Sarah A. Tishkoff in 2007.[4][5][6]

Excoffier et al. (1987) claimed that the Hima and Tutsi, despite being surrounded by other Bantu speakers, are "closer genetically to Cushites and Ethiosemites".[7][8]

Physique

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According to observers, "The typical Muhima of pure descent is tall, with well proportioned body and limbs...his nose is longer, more prominent and finer, and the lower part of his face narrower than in the average negro. Some (Hima) are lighter in colour, a dark bronze, but all have woolly hair".[9]

The Ankole historian Samwiri Rubaraza Karugire states that "the much-publicized idea of the similar physical features of the Bahima and the Batutsi is of the very marginal relative validity since, even today, it very easy to pick out a Mututsi from any given number of Bahima and vice versa because their features and build are different."[10]

History

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Origins

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The historian Christopher Ehret believes that the Hima mainly descend from an extinct branch of South Cushitic he calls "Tale south Cushitic." The Tale southern cushites entered the Great Lakes region some time before 800BC and were pastoralists par excellence, relying only on their livestock and conceivably growing no grains themselves, and their way of life was similar to the Bahima, who exclusively rely on the milk, blood, and meat of their cattle and traditionally shun the cultivation and consumption of grains with the sole exception of beer.[11][12][13]

During the northward Rutara migrations from their homeland in the Kagera Region and into the grasslands of western Uganda in search of new pasturelands in 1200AD; David Lee Schoenbrun says, "it is conceivable that small groups of Tale Southern Cushites, Central Sudanic or Sog Eastern Sudanic-speaking herders took up Bantu speech" and moved into these grasslands alongside the Rutara speaking Bantu peoples.[14][15][16]

According to Birgitta Farelius, the Bahima probably descend from a specific clan who monopolized the designation for “noble herder”.[17]

Central Sudanic peoples likely form another part of the ancestry of the Bahima. Central Sudanic farmers and herders formerly lived in the lands that the Hima reside in now, and some of their cultural practices have stayed on after their disappearance. For example, in Central Sudanic-speaking societies, women are kept away from cattle. Among the Bahima (and the neighboring Tutsi to the south), women are strictly forbidden to milk cows.[18][19][20][21]

Precolonial times

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The Bahima have been influential and regarded as having high status in some of the African Great Lakes Kingdoms. Hima kings ruled the kingdoms of Ankole, Karagwe, and Mpororo. Although the Bahuma claimed and were accorded high status, they have always, as Bahuma, lacked major political importance, and they have never been rulers in Bunyoro-Kitara but were herdsmen who "attached themselves to the great chiefs as custodians of their herds."[22]

The founder of the Kingdom of Rwanda and of its ruling Nyiginya Dynasty was a Hima and not a Tutsi. He was from Uganda and his name was Ruganzu Ndori. Eventually, the Nyiginya Dynasty claimed Tutsi origins for itself, increasing the prestige attached to the label as their power grew in the region.[23][24]

The Hima were not always high-status people. In the Kingdom of Burundi, the Bahima were regarded as less prestigious than both the Tutsis and the Hutus. While the Ganwa dynasty of Burundi intermarried with Tutsis and Hutus, they would not take Hima spouses. Hima were considered impure and were kept far from the court and away from the kingdom's public affairs.[25][26]

The Hima lived in Buganda as a kind of outcasts on the fringes of the kingdom, herding cattle owned by Ganda chiefs.[27][28] Their pastoralism confer no particular symbolic advantage, since cattle have no great ritual significance in Buganda.[29] Farmers had high status in Buganda and so the Baganda regarded (and regard) the Hima as menial people (the Bahima were frequently called slaves by the agricultural Baganda and looked down upon as being culturally inferior[30]).[31]

References

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  1. ^ Origins of Kingship Traditions and Symbolism in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. p. 255-256.
  2. ^ A History of Bunyoro-Kitara. p. 20.
  3. ^ Cook, G. C. (1969). "Lactase Deficiency: A Probable Ethnological Marker in East Africa". Man. 4 (2): 265–267. doi:10.2307/2799573. ISSN 0025-1496. JSTOR 2799573.
  4. ^ Tishkoff, Sarah A.; Reed, Floyd A.; Ranciaro, Alessia; Voight, Benjamin F.; Babbitt, Courtney C.; Silverman, Jesse S.; Powell, Kweli; Mortensen, Holly M.; Hirbo, Jibril B.; Osman, Maha; Ibrahim, Muntaser; Omar, Sabah A.; Lema, Godfrey; Nyambo, Thomas B.; Ghori, Jilur (2007-01-01). "Convergent adaptation of human lactase persistence in Africa and Europe". Nature Genetics. 39 (1): 31–40. doi:10.1038/ng1946. ISSN 1546-1718. PMC 2672153. PMID 17159977.
  5. ^ Cook, G. C. (1969). "Lactase Deficiency: A Probable Ethnological Marker in East Africa". Man. 4 (2): 265–267. doi:10.2307/2799573. JSTOR 2799573.
  6. ^ Simoons, Frederick J. (1978). "Lactose Malabsorption in Africa". African Economic History (5): 16–34. doi:10.2307/3601438. JSTOR 3601438.
  7. ^ Excoffier, Laurent; Pellegrini, B.; Sanchez-Mazas, A.; Simon, C.; Langaney, A. (1987). "Genetics and History of Sub-Saharan Africa". Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. 30 (S8): 151–194. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330300510.: 45 
  8. ^ Fage, John (2013-10-23). A History of Africa. Routledge. p. 120. ISBN 978-1317797272. Archived from the original on 2015-02-02. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  9. ^ The Social and Sexual Roles of Hima Women: A Study of Nomadic Cattle Breeders in Nyabushozi County, Ankole, Uganda. p. 41.
  10. ^ A History of the Kingdom of Nkore in Western Uganda to 1896. p. 47.
  11. ^ An African Classical Age: Eastern and Southern Africa in World History, 1000 B.C. to A.D. 400. pp. 62, 86.
  12. ^ Ethiopians and East Africans: The Problem of Contacts.
  13. ^ Schoenbrun, David L. (1993). "We Are What We Eat: Ancient Agriculture between the Great Lakes". The Journal of African History. 34 (1): 1–31. doi:10.1017/S0021853700032989. JSTOR 183030. S2CID 162660041.
  14. ^ Schoenbrun, David L. (1993). "Cattle herds and banana gardens: The historical geography of the western Great Lakes region, ca AD 800?1500". The African Archaeological Review. 11–11: 54. doi:10.1007/BF01118142. S2CID 161913402.
  15. ^ Elfasi, M.; Hrbek, Ivan (January 1988). Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. University of California Press. p. 628 and 630. ISBN 9789231017094.
  16. ^ A Green Place, a Good Place: Agrarian Change, Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th Century. Boydell & Brewer, Limited. 1998. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-85255-681-8.
  17. ^ The story of Kintu and his sons: naming, ethnic identity formation and power in the pre-colonial Great Lakes Region of East Africa. p. 25.
  18. ^ Origins of Kingship Traditions and Symbolism in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. p. 67-68, 116.
  19. ^ Sheep and Central Sudanic Peoples in Southern Africa. p. 220.
  20. ^ Tribal Crafts of Uganda. p. 15.
  21. ^ The Social and Sexual Roles of Hima Women: A Study of Nomadic Cattle Breeders in Nyabushozi County, Ankole, Uganda.
  22. ^ Beattie, John (1971). The Nyoro State. Clarendon Press. p. 26,50, 52, 57, 129, 248 and 250. ISBN 978-0-19-823171-4.
  23. ^ Revival and Reconciliation: The Anglican Church and the Politics of Rwanda. p. 23.
  24. ^ Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom.
  25. ^ Democratic Engineering in Rwanda and Burundi. African Books Collective. 29 December 2018. p. 111, 216. ISBN 978-9970-19-672-2.
  26. ^ Seitz, Stefan (1989). "Historische Wurzeln der Spannungen in Burundi". In Rolf Hofmeier (ed.). Afrika Jahrbuch 1988. Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Afrika südlich der Sahara (in German). German Institute of Global and Area Studies; Springer. pp. 55–61. ISBN 978-3-8100-0770-4.
  27. ^ Crops and Wealth in Uganda: A Short Agrarian History. p. 10.
  28. ^ East African Studies, issues 10-14. p. 10.
  29. ^ The Eastern Lacustrine Bantu (Ganda, Soga): East Central Africa Part XI. p. 15.
  30. ^ Political power in pre-colonial Buganda : economy, society & warfare in the nineteenth century. James Currey. 2002. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-8214-1477-4.
  31. ^ Economic History of Warfare and State Formation. p. 29.
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