Iraqw people

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with
Iraqi people
.
Iraqw
Wa Iraqw
Karatu District
Total population
c. 603,000 (2009)[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Tanzania
Languages
Iraqw, Swahili, English
Religion
Predominantly Christianity; minority Islam
Related ethnic groups
Burunge, Kw'adza, Alagwa, Gorowa[2]

The Iraqw People (

Hanang District
.

History

Kerio Valley, Kenya

The Iraqw have traditionally been viewed as remnants of

Sirikwa, who were later decimated by pestilence. According to the Marakwet, the Sirikwa "built the furrows, but they did not teach us how to build them; we only know how to keep them as they are."[3]

Engaruka, Monduli District

Additionally, the Iraqw's ancestors are often credited with having constructed the sprawling

Ngorongoro highlands; water sources around which Engaruka's irrigation practices were centered.[5]

According to the Maasai Nilotes, who are the present-day occupants of Engaruka, the Iraqw also already inhabited the site when their own ancestors first entered the region during the 18th century.[3]

Distribution

Iraqw homestead.

In 2001, the Iraqw population was estimated to number around 462,000 individuals.[6] Current estimates suggest the population of Iraqw people to the region of 1,000,000.

Their core area of inhabitation is Iraqw’ar Da/aw (or Mama Issara) in the Mbulu Highlands in northern Manyara Region. It has long been known for its intensive cultivation, and referred to as an "island" within a matrix of less intensive cultivation.[7]

The areas surrounding

Karatu town in the Arusha region
are also predominantly settled by the Iraqw.

Culture

Based on articles about the Mbulu area of Tanzania, some Iraqw traditions are similar to those of Jewish people.[clarification needed][8][9][page needed][need quotation to verify]

Comprehensive anthropological analyses of the ethnic Iraqw by Ikeda et al. (1982) suggests that they share significant affinities with other Cushitic-speaking populations generally. However, due to intermarriage with the surrounding Tanzanian populations, the Iraqw also have some morphological ties with local Bantu groups.[10]

Language

The Iraqw speak the Iraqw language, which belongs to the South Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Iraqw speakers also speak Swahili, the national language of Tanzania.[citation needed]

Genetics

Recent advances in genetic analyses have helped shed some light on the ethnogenesis of the Iraqw people. Genetic genealogy, although a novel tool that uses the genes of modern populations to trace their ethnic and geographic origins, has also helped clarify the possible background of the modern Iraqw.

Y DNA

A

E1b1a haplogroup (E-P1), which is now very common among Bantus; it was found in 11% of the Iraqw samples.[11]
IN a larger sample haplogroup T y-dna was found in 11% of Iraqw.[Hirbo et al.]

Autosomal DNA

The Iraqw's autosomal DNA has been examined in a comprehensive study by Tishkoff et al. (2009) on the genetic affiliations of various populations in Africa. According to Bayesian clustering analysis, the Iraqw generally grouped with other Afroasiatic-speaking populations inhabiting the Great Lakes region, with these lacustrine groups forming a cluster distinct from that of the Afroasiatic-speaking populations in the Horn of Africa, North Africa and the Sahara. This difference was attributed to marked genetic exchanges between the Iraqw and neighboring Nilo-Saharan and Bantu communities over the past 5,000 or so years.[2]

Notable Iraqw

Politicians

Statespeople

Sportsmen

Notes

  1. ^ "Iraqw". Ethnologue. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  2. ^
    PMID 19407144. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-08. Retrieved 2017-12-07. We incorporated geographic data into a Bayesian clustering analysis, assuming no admixture (TESS software) (25) and distinguished six clusters within continental Africa (Fig. 5A).[...] Another geographically contiguous cluster extends across northern Africa (blue) into Mali (the Dogon), Ethiopia, and northern Kenya. With the exception of the Dogon, these populations speak an Afroasiaticlanguage[...] Nilo-Saharan and Cushitic speakers from the Sudan, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as some of the Bantu speakers from Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda (Hutu/Tutsi), constitute another cluster (purple), reflecting linguistic evidence for gene flow among these populations over the past ~5000 years (28, 29). Also see Supplementary Data
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0143106241
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0415252485
    .
  5. ISBN 978-1858287836
    .
  6. ^ "Tanzania". Ethnologue.
  7. ^ Börjeson, L. A History under Siege: Intensive Agriculture in the Mbulu Highlands, Tanzania, 19th Century to the Present. 2004, Stockholm University
  8. ^ Rekdal, O. B. (2007). [1][permanent dead link]. Bergen: GeGCA-NUFU.
  9. ^ Snyder, K. A. (2005). The Iraqw of Tanzania. Negotiating rural development. New York: Westview Press. Thornton, R. J. (1980). Space, time and culture among the Iraqw of Tanzania. New York: Academic Press.
  10. ^ Ikeda, Jiro; Hayama, Sugio. "The Hadza and the Iraqw in northern Tanzania: Dermatographical, Anthropological, Odontometrical and Osteological Approaches" (PDF). Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  11. ^ a b c Elizabeth T Wood, Daryn A Stover, Christopher Ehret et al., "Contrasting patterns of Y chromosome and mtDNA variation in Africa: evidence for sex-biased demographic processes Archived 2010-12-27 at the Wayback Machine", European Journal of Human Genetics (2005) 13, 867–876. (cf. Appendix A: Y Chromosome Haplotype Frequencies)
  12. PMID 18618658
    .

References

  • Mous, Maarten. 1993. A Grammar of Iraqw. Hamburg: Buske.
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