Modern ethnicities
83-531: Diaspora Performing arts Government agencies Television Radio Newspapers The Giriama (also called Giryama ) are one of the nine ethnic groups that make up the Mijikenda (which literally translates to "nine towns"). The Mijikenda occupy the coastal strip extending from Lamu in the north to the Kenya / Tanzania border in the south, and approximately 30 km inland. The Giriama are among
166-541: A kaya , which is a place of prayer. Eleven of the approximately 30 kaya forests have been inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site , the Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests. Mijikenda people are also known for creating wooden kigango funerary statues which have been displayed in museums around the world and sold in the international art market. These artifacts were at one time legally sold by reputable art galleries and curio shops during
249-576: A Kenyan ethnicity is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mijikenda peoples Modern ethnicities Diaspora Performing arts Government agencies Television Radio Newspapers Mijikenda ("the Nine Tribes") are a group of nine related Bantu ethnic groups inhabiting the coast of Kenya , between the Sabaki and the Umba rivers, in an area stretching from
332-499: A company store , owned by their employers. A specific kind of truck system, in which credit advances are made against future work, is known in the U.S. as debt bondage . Many scholars have suggested that employers use such systems to exploit workers and/or indebt them. This could occur, for example, if employers were able to pay workers with goods which had a market value below the level of subsistence , or by selling items to workers at inflated prices. Others argue that truck wages were
415-577: A Galla Tribesman by a Mijikenda youth, and the Mijikenda tribes subsequent refusal to pay compensation to the Galla. However it has also been theorized that the Mijikenda peoples may have originated in roughly the same places they currently reside. One possible explanation for this is that the Mijikenda peoples adopted the Singwaya narrative in order to create an ethnic identity that allowed them to create
498-469: A complex patron-client relationship which was important for the establishment of large scale plantations on the East African coast. This account goes on to say that these enslaved Giriama peoples were integrated into Swahili and Arab land owning families and were sometimes referred to as dependents rather than slaves. Overall the treatment of these slaves was not very harsh, due to the ease of escape,
581-663: A convenient way for isolated communities, such as during the early colonial settlement of North America, to operate when official currency was scarce. By the early 20th century, truck systems were widely seen, in industrialised countries, as exploitative; perhaps the most well-known example of this view was a 1947 U.S. hit song " Sixteen Tons ". Many countries have Truck Act legislation that outlaws truck systems and requires payment in cash. Though most closely associated with Medieval Europe, governments throughout human history have imposed regular short stints of unpaid labour upon lower social classes. These might be annual obligations of
664-732: A debt, or transportation to a desired country. While historically unfree labour was frequently sanctioned by law, in the present day most unfree labour now revolves around illegal control rather than legal ownership, as all countries have made slavery illegal. As mentioned above, there are several exceptions of unfree or forced labour recognised by the International Labour Organization : Some countries practise forms of civil conscription for different major occupational groups or inhabitants under different denominations like civil conscription , civil mobilization , political mobilisation etc. This obligatory service on
747-513: A derogatory term meaning "bush people." The nine Ethnic groups that make up the Mijikenda peoples are the Chonyi , Kambe , Duruma , Kauma , Ribe , Rabai , Jibana , Giriama , and Digo . The Digo are southern Mijikenda while the others are northern Mijikenda. The Digo are also found in Tanzania due to their proximity to the common border. Each of the Mijikenda groups has a sacred forest,
830-638: A father and father's brother are called by the same name, but not the mother's brother; and that a mother and mother's sister are called by the same name, but not the father's sister. Marriage may occur with all cousins except a patrilateral parallel cousin, and into all clans except the patri-clan”(Parkin, 1991, p. 236) Through Giriama culture, many of the Giriama people “organize themselves in family groups that are strongly patrilineal.” (Beckloff, 2009, p. 12) This form of Giriama tradition started from Giriama's long history which dates to 150 years ago where
913-658: A few weeks or something similarly regular that lasted for the labourer's entire working life. As the system developed in the Philippines and elsewhere, the labourer could pay an appropriate fee and be exempted from the obligation. A form of forced labour in which peasants and members of lower castes were required to work for free existed in India before independence. This form of labour was known by several names, including veth , vethi , vetti-chakiri and begar . Another historically significant example of forced labour
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#1732765774540996-852: A joint study of historians featuring Zhifen Ju, Mark Peattie , Toru Kubo, and Mitsuyoshi Himeta, more than 10 million Chinese were mobilised by the Japanese army and enslaved by the Kōa-in for slave labour in Manchukuo and north China. The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java , between 4 and 10 million romusha ( Japanese : "manual labourer") were forced to work by the Japanese military. About 270,000 of these Javanese labourers were sent to other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java, meaning that there
1079-649: A missionary of the Church Missionary Society in East Africa during the 1880s, published a Giriama vocabulary along with a description of the language, plus a selection of traditional tales and riddles in Giriama and in English translation. There are 5 traditional stories included in the book: Katsungula na Simba , The Little Hare and the Lion; Fisi na Simba na Katsungula , The Hyena, the Lion, and
1162-401: A narrative of a real migration that happened at a specific point in time to a real place, but also serves as a narrative of a mythical migration that took place through a cultural time from a common origin. It promotes a higher unity among the group of the nine individual ethnic groups that makes up the Mijikenda peoples. Singwaya is considered by the Mijikenda to be their common origin point, and
1245-505: A portion of the crop as compensation in a similar patron-client relationship as before. However some accounts state that the slavery that the Giriama people endured was harsher than was previously believed. Enslaved Giriama people were known to have fled by the hundreds to any sanctuary they could, in some cases seeking refuge in Christian Missionary stations, in other cases fleeing to runaway slave settlements. Additionally
1328-491: A practise of co-optation, which amounted to forced labour . The people of Giriama did not approve of the policies of the colonial government which instigated a rebellion against the British influence. The people of Giriama did not have the appropriate society in order to effectively rebel against the British as "it has long been assumed that societies need hierarchies, bureaucracies, and stratifications in order to rebel, but when
1411-554: A relationship to the Swahili who also claimed Singwaya origins. Oral tradition also states that the Mijikenda peoples split into six separate peoples during this southern migration after they were driven out of Singwaya. These six groups would go on to settle the original six kaya . At the turn of the 17th century the Mijikenda settled six fortified hilltop kaya , where they made their homesteads. These original six kaya were later expanded into nine kaya . The origin legend serves as
1494-601: A voluntary basis. Although personal benefits may be realised, it may be performed for a variety of reasons including citizenship requirements, a substitution of criminal justice sanctions, requirements of a school or class, and requisites for the receipt of certain benefits. During the Cold War in some communist countries like Czechoslovakia , the German Democratic Republic or the Soviet Union
1577-577: Is a term to define the recruiting, harbouring, obtaining and transportation of a person by use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary acts, such as acts related to commercial sexual exploitation (including forced prostitution ) or involuntary labour. The archetypal and best-known form of unfree labour is chattel slavery , in which individual workers are legally owned throughout their lives, and may be bought, sold or otherwise exchanged by owners, while never or rarely receiving any personal benefit from their labour. Slavery
1660-399: Is arranged by the parents where the bride is ‘priced’ and given to their sons. Marriage may occur with all cousins except a patrilateral parallel cousin, and into all clans except the patri-clan (Parkin, 1991, p. 236) The price would typically be in the form of liquor. Like many other wedding traditions, a Giriama wedding consists of music, dancing, gifts and the fathers-in-law would bless
1743-613: Is bifurcate merging in the immediately ascending generation, such that a father and father's brother are called by the same name, but not the mother's brother; and that a mother and mother's sister are called by the same name, but not the father's sister. Marriage may occur with all cousins except a patrilateral parallel cousin, and into all clans except the patri-clan”(Parkin, 1991, p. 236) The Giriama people express their own unique lifestyle and kinship through their affinal terms and marriage tradition. The Giriama use their language of kinship to how importance of family and relationship where
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#17327657745401826-413: Is commonly addressed with respect forms and behaviour, unlike other brothers who use familiar forms. (Parkin, 1991, p.236). The Giriama have numerous affinal terms which represents the importance of kinship in the Giriama community. “First, siblings, parallel cousins and cross cousins may all be referred to by the same term. Second, there is bifurcate merging in the immediately ascending generation, such that
1909-401: Is estimated that in the last 50 years more than 50 million people have been sent to Chinese laogai camps. A more common form in modern society is indenture, or bonded labour , under which workers sign contracts to work for a specific period of time, for which they are paid only with accommodation and sustenance, or these essentials in addition to limited benefits such as cancellation of
1992-595: Is executed only in a handful of communities in Germany and currently none in Austria. Beside the conscription for military services, some countries draft citizens for paramilitary or security forces , like internal troops , border guards or police forces . While sometimes paid, conscripts are not free to decline enlistment. Draft dodging or desertion are often met with severe punishment. Even in countries which prohibit other forms of unfree labour, conscription
2075-491: Is generally justified as being necessary in the national interest and therefore is one of the five exceptions to the Forced Labour Convention , signed by the most countries in the world. Community service is a paying job performed by one person or a group of people for the benefit of their community or its institutions. Community service is distinct from volunteering, since it is not always performed on
2158-644: Is mandatory to join the so-called Militia Fire Brigades , as well as the obligatory service in Swiss civil defence and protection force. Conscripts in Singapore are providing the personnel of the country's fire service as part of the national service in the Civil Defence Force . In Austria and Germany citizens have to join a compulsory fire brigade if a volunteer fire service can not be provided, due to lack of volunteers. In 2018 this regulation
2241-819: Is still being practiced today, however majority of the Giriama people have converted to either Christianity or Islam. Giriama have long been pressed to convert to Islam by Swahili and Arab patrons, employers, and prospective kinby-marriage, but for at least forty years, these pressures have taken supranatural as well as social forms. (McIntosh, 2004, p. 93). Brantley, C. (1981). The Giriama and Colonial Resistance in Kenya, 1800–1920. University of California Press. Beckloff, R., Merriam, S. (2009). LOCAL AGRICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION AMONG THE GIRIAMA PEOPLE OF RURAL COASTAL KENYA. The University of Georgia. McIntosh, J. (2004).RELUCTANT MUSLIMS: EMBODIED HEGEMONY AND MORAL RESISTANCE IN A GIRIAMA SPIRIT POSSESSION COMPLEX. The Journal of
2324-809: The Pacific War (such as the Burma Railway ). Roughly 4,000,000 German POWs were used as "reparations labour" by the Allies for several years after the German surrender; this was permitted under the Third Geneva Convention provided they were accorded proper treatment. China's laogai ("labour reform") system and North Korea 's kwalliso camps are current examples. About 12 million forced labourers, most of whom were Poles and Soviet citizens ( Ost-Arbeiter ) were employed in
2407-535: The Spanish Empire , or the work of Indigenous Australians in northern Australia on sheep or cattle stations ( ranches ), from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. In the latter case, workers were rarely or never paid, and were restricted by regulations and/or police intervention to regions around their places of work. In late 16th century Japan, "unfree labour" or slavery was officially banned; but forms of contract and indentured labour persisted alongside
2490-630: The United Kingdom , the so-called Bevin Boys , had been conscripted for the work in coal mines . In Belgium in 1964, in Portugal and in Greece from 2010 to 2014 due to the severe economic crisis , a system of civil mobilisation was implemented to provide public services as a national interest. In Switzerland in most communities for all inhabitants, no matter if they are Swiss or not, it
2573-417: The kaya surrounding the settlement acted as a buffer between the settlement itself and the outside world. As the populations of these kaya grew, security grew which lead to a period of stability which allowed the Mijikenda people to spread outwards along the coasts and southwards along the border of Tanzania. Eventually all nine of the original kaya were abandoned as the Mijikenda settled elsewhere, however
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2656-481: The "sudden arrival of these powerful foreigners who imposed taxes, censuses, forced labour, new rules, and regulation of commerce [which] was bound to be extremely upsetting. Moreover, the newcomers showed no respect for the Giriama or their institutions as was clearly shown by the lack of sensitivity on the question of the kay". The Giriama council of elders were unsuccessful in rescinding the British policies as they could not draw on an effective military system, rather it
2739-621: The 1960s and 1970s, unfree labour was regarded as incompatible with capitalist accumulation, and thus an obstacle to economic growth, an interpretation advanced by exponents of the then-dominant semi-feudal thesis. From the 1980s onwards, however, another and very different Marxist view emerged, arguing that evidence from Latin America and India suggested agribusiness enterprises, commercial farmers and rich peasants reproduced, introduced or reintroduced unfree relations. However, recent contributions to this debate have attempted to exclude Marxism from
2822-666: The Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (C105), one of the fundamental conventions of the ILO. According to the ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL), global profits from forced trafficked labour exploited by private agents are estimated at US$ 44.3 billion per year. About 70% of this value (US$ 31.6 billion) comes from trafficked victims. At least the half of this sum (more than US$ 15 billion) comes from industrialised countries. Trafficking
2905-544: The Americas, Asia, or Europe, where their status as slaves was almost always inherited by their descendants. The term "slavery" is often applied to situations which do not meet the above definitions, but which are other, closely related forms of unfree labour, such as debt slavery or debt-bondage (although not all repayment of debts through labour constitutes unfree labour). Examples are the Repartimiento system in
2988-403: The British colonial government aimed to exploit the Giriama as a source of labour to work building the plantations of the coast of Kenya in which the people of Giriama resisted. However, "due to the overwhelming technological advantage of the British, the revolt was brought to a relatively quick and bloody end. In many ways the Giriama have never recovered from this blow". Giriama's involvement in
3071-571: The British. In recent years, the Giriama have extended their living space down to the coast. They are now a big part of service employees in the growing tourism centres. Education programmes initiated by the state included building of central primary schools alongside the coast street. School attendance has become compulsory even for girls up to an age of 12 years. The continuous migration of Giriama to places such as Takaungu and Mtwapa has allowed them to get access to paid labour, hence they have become part of manpower resources, which were once dominated by
3154-569: The Chonyi. The relationship of the Giriama to other Mijikenda groups such as the Ribe, Rabai, Digo and Duruma is rather loose. The Kamba and Jibana have mixed with the coastal population in recent decades. Only a very few villages could sustain them. The Kauma have also been assimilated. The area around the Kilifi Creek is inhabited by Giriama up to nearly 90 percent. The Giriama people are one of
3237-455: The German war economy inside Nazi Germany. More than 2000 German companies profited from slave labour during the Nazi era, including Daimler , Deutsche Bank , Siemens , Volkswagen , Hoechst , Dresdner Bank , Krupp , Allianz , BASF , Bayer , BMW , and Degussa . In particular, Germany's Jewish population was subject to slave labour prior to their extermination. In Asia, according to
3320-465: The Giriama establishment was located in cities called Kaya.“These cities were governed by elders who exercised a great deal of sway over Giriama life and beliefs…by the time of British colonization these kaya remained largely as cultural symbols inhabited by only a few elders. (Beckloff, 2009, p.12). Overtime, much like communities the Giriama has also developed their culture to adapt to their surrounding as other “the Giriama have since significantly expanded
3403-442: The Giriama rebelled they had none of these organizational forms". The initial Giriama response to these colonial policies was based on past pressures "on their whole way of life by strangers who were probably perceived by them as independent or semi-independent warlords; men who pillaged and abused the people in order to enrich themselves and perhaps also the other strangers who now lived on the coast". The Giriama were confronted with
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3486-677: The Global Economy (1999), there are now an estimated 27 million slaves in the world. Blackbirding involves kidnapping or trickery to transport people to another country or far away from home, to work as a slave or low-paid involuntary worker. In some cases, workers were returned home after a period of time. Serfdom bonds labourers to the land they farm, typically in a feudal society. Serfs typically have no legal right to leave, change employers, or seek paid work, though depending on economic conditions many did so anyway. Unlike chattel slaves, they typically cannot be sold separately from
3569-611: The Kenyan resistance of the 1912 is of great historical significance as it inevitably shaped Giriama's history and culture. The British colonial government was attempting to find a source of labour for rapidly emerging cash crop plantations on the coast of Kenya for environmental benefits such as water quality, soil improvement and salinity mitigation. As such, the colonial government aimed to "organize all Giriama [though] their traditional political organization, based on councils of elders, reflected regional and economic differentiation" through
3652-539: The Little Hare; K'uku na Katsungula , The Fowl and the Little Hare; Kuononga kwa Muche , The Havoc Wrought by the Woman; and Kuandika kwa Kufwa , The Origin of Death. Here are some of the Giriama riddles: The Giriama have numerous affinal terms which represents the importance of kinship in the Giriama community. “First, siblings, parallel cousins and cross cousins may all be referred to by the same term. Second, there
3735-627: The Mijikenda peoples, as well as being an important cultural symbol to the Mijikenda peoples. The political symbolism of the kaya also played a part in the resistance to colonialism for the Mijikenda peoples. Sometime during the late 19th century the Mijikenda peoples began leaving their kaya homesteads and settling areas elsewhere. The layout of the kaya settlements usually had centrally positioned areas devoted to leadership and worship, with other areas devoted to initiation ceremonies, areas for developing magic and medicine, and areas devoted to burials and entertainment placed around them. The forests of
3818-895: The Royal Anthropological Institute, Mar., 2004, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 91–112. McIntosh, J. (2009). The Edge of Islam: Power, Personhood, and Ethnoreligious Boundaries on the Kenya Coast. DURHAM; LONDON: Duke University Press. Parkin, D. (1991). The Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual among the Giriama of Kenya (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, D. (1970). The Giriama Risings of 1913–1914. Boston University African Studies Centre. Temu, A. (1971). THE GIRIAMA WAR, 1914–1915. Journal of Eastern African Research & Development. Gideon Were Publications. This article about
3901-529: The Swahili and Arabs. The people of Giriama have gained a reputation of resistance as they have a long history of rebelling against pressure by foreigners including the “Galla, the Swahili, the Maasai, the Arabs and the…and under pressure at times they have migrated to new lands, other times they have negotiated with their oppressors, and they have occasionally violently resisted.” (Beckloff, 2009, p. 11). in 1914,
3984-429: The area they inhabit and any central governing systems have disappeared. This leadership has been replaced by homestead elders making decisions that govern their families and in contemporary households, a patriarch and his wives and sons and their wives and children live together as a homestead composed of several houses. (Beckloff, 2009, p.12). Like many communities, the men are traditionally responsible for taking care of
4067-518: The birthplace of their language and traditions. This origin legend also defines some of the relationships of the ethnic groups that make up the Mijikenda peoples, for example one version of the oral tradition states that the Digo were the first to leave Singwaya and thus are accepted as the other groups as senior, then the Ribe left, followed by the Giriama, the Chonyi, and the Jibana. The kayas were
4150-451: The border with Tanzania in the south to the border near Somalia in the north. Archaeologist Chapuruka Kusimba contends that the Mijikenda formerly resided in coastal cities, but later settled in Kenya's hinterlands to avoid submission to dominant Portuguese forces that were then in control. Historically, these Mijikenda ethnic groups have been called the Nyika or Nika by outsiders. It is
4233-616: The coastal areas also extended to the Hinterland regions where the Mijikenda people resided. One group of Mijikenda peoples, Known as the Giriama peoples were mistrustful of the British colonial government, as prior to Britain's colonization of the coastal and hinterland areas this group had had its people captured by Arab and Swahili slave traders during the 19th century. Differing accounts of this period exist, with some sources stating that these enslaved Giriama peoples participated in
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#17327657745404316-562: The corresponding institutions, such as debt slavery , serfdom , corvée and labour camps . Many forms of unfree labour are also covered by the term forced labour , which is defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as all involuntary work or service exacted under the menace of a penalty. However, under the ILO Forced Labour Convention of 1930, the term forced or compulsory labour does not include: If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of
4399-554: The debate about rural development during the years following the end of the Second World War, when a political concern of Keynesian theory was not just economic reconstruction (mainly in Europe and Asia) but also planning (in developing "Third World" nations ). A crucial aspect of the ensuing discussion concerned the extent to which different relational forms constituted obstacles to capitalist development, and why. During
4482-483: The debate is thus unwarranted. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that at least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide; of these, 9.8 million are exploited by private agents and more than 2.4 million are trafficked . Another 2.5 million are forced to work by the state or by rebel military groups. From an international law perspective, countries that allow forced labour are violating international labour standards as set forth in
4565-407: The discussion. These contributions maintain that, because Marxist theory failed to understand the centrality of unfreedom to modern capitalism, a new explanation of this link is needed. This claim has been questioned by Tom Brass . He argues that many of these new characteristics are in fact no different from those identified earlier by Marxist theory and that the exclusion of the latter approach from
4648-497: The early 1970s to the 1990s; however, other kigango statues were found to have been stolen from cultural sites and illegally sold. Each Mijikenda ethnic group has its own unique customs and dialects of the Mijikenda language , although the dialects are similar to each other and to Swahili . The orthodox view of the Mijikenda's origins is that the Mijikenda peoples originated in Shungwaya (Singwaya) and various other parts of
4731-540: The eradication of witchcraft” (Brantley, 1981, p. 4). Instead, traditional Giriama religion revolves around the “realms of conversion practices, spirit discourses and spirit possession, divination, ritual code switching, and other ritual forms” (McIntosh, 2009,p. 4). Through their belief In Mulingu, the Giriama people would carve hardwood in the shape of human beings called Vigangon which would be offered as sacrifices to Mulingu to oppose calamities such as sicknesses and environment dangers. Traditional Giriama religion
4814-443: The family by providing food and working in which the wives mothers and female members of the families were tasked with household duties such as maintaining the houses. Ultimately, the culture in Giriama is heavily emphasised on the younger generation and their unconditional respect to their elders as the elders are portrayed to be the wisest amongst the Giriama community. The Giriama people have adopted their own traditional method that
4897-452: The first homesteads of the Mijikenda peoples after their exodus from Singwaya. Oral tradition states that it was the Digo who were the first to migrate southward and establish the first kaya . The period after the establishment of the kaya and was portrayed as a time of stability by these oral traditions, this period ended in the mid to late 19th century with the rise of colonialism. The kaya also represented an important political symbol to
4980-399: The following forms: Unfree labour is often more easily instituted and enforced on migrant workers, who have travelled far from their homelands and who are easily identified because of their physical, ethnic, linguistic, or cultural differences from the general population, since they are unable or unlikely to report their conditions to the authorities. Unfree labour re-emerged as an issue in
5063-614: The idea that the transition from ex-slaves to manual laborers was made difficult due to fear among members of the colonial government that the fugitive and freed slaves would start a rebellion. Forced labour Forced labour , or unfree labour , is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution , detention , or violence , including death or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families. Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery , penal labour , and
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#17327657745405146-403: The importance of these kaya did not diminish, and they were still held as sacred sites. During the precolonial period the Mijikenda people were horticulturalists and pastoralists , And had well established trade with the coastal Swahili peoples. The Hinterland people (The Mijikenda, Pokomo , and Segeju peoples) grew food that the coastal Swahili people depended on. This trade relationship
5229-462: The kin-based patron-client system, and Islam's prohibition of harsh treatment of slaves. This is contrasted by the treatment of the slaves on the nearby islands such as Pemba or Zanzibar where slaves were treated more harshly. As slave ownership declined on the East African coast many of the Ex-slaves moved on to find employment as manual laborers on their former master's plantations and were paid
5312-471: The land, and have rights such as the military protection of the lord. A truck system, in the specific sense in which the term is used by labour historians , refers to an unpopular or even exploitative form of payment associated with small, isolated and/or rural communities, in which workers or self-employed small producers are paid in either: goods, a form of payment known as truck wages , or tokens, private currency ("scrip") or direct credit, to be used at
5395-510: The largest of these ethnic groups. They inhabit the area bordered by the coastal cities of Mombasa and Malindi , and the inland towns of Mariakani and Kaloleni . The Giriama is one of the largest groups of the Mijikenda people in the back-up area of the Northeast coast of Kenya. The Giriama are subdivided into clans which include Thoya, Mweni, Nyundo, Nyale and so on. The Giriama are a peaceful people who practiced active resistance against
5478-587: The late 1940s, when they assumed a collective political identification by choosing the name Mijikenda and forming the Mijikenda Union.” (Brantley, 1981, p. 6). At the top of the Giriama hierarchy are the ‘Kambi’ which are the council of elders who reside “in Kaya Fungo as the highest court of appeal for all social, political and civic matt” (Temu 1971, p. 167). Below the Kambi on the hierarchy are
5561-420: The new couple by spitting water onto the chests of the couple. The people of Giriama have a variety of fashion as traditionally they were involved in foreign trade, trading their iron for foreign clothing wear. “Although some of the younger generation have adopted Western dress, most Giriama still wear imported cloth wrappers; the elders wear a waist cloth and carry a walking stick; and some Giriama women still wear
5644-518: The nine groups which make up the Mijikenda, a Coastal Bantu community which means nine villages and is believed to have migrated from Shungwaya, a place near Fort Dumford in present-day Soma (Temu, 1971, p. 167). The other villages are the Digo, Duruma, Rabai, Ribe, Kauma, Kambe, Chonyi, and the Jibana. The Giriama migrated from Shungawa in which they further migrated towards the coastal region of Kenya due to conflicts with other Kenyan communities. “They lacked any cooperative political organization until
5727-409: The northern Somali coast, and where pushed south by the Galla ( Oromo ) and reached Kenya around the 16th century. This view of the origins of the Mijikenda people was argued by Thomas Spear in the book The Kaya Complex , and was also confirmed by many Mijikenda oral traditions. Furthermore, oral tradition states that the precise reason for the Galla pushing the Mijikenda from Singwaya was the murder of
5810-411: The one hand has been implemented due to long-lasting labour strikes , during wartime or economic crisis, to provide basic services like medical care, food supply or supply of the defence industry. On the other hand, this service can be obligatory to provide recurring and inevitable services to the population, like fire services, due to lack of volunteers. Between December 1943 and March 1948 young men in
5893-420: The people of Giriama people practice. Some people follow the traditions of the past whilst some indulged in the faith of Islam or Christianity after the influence of the foreigners such as the British or Arab. The Giriama people traditionally believed in the spiritual god ‘Mulingu’ and the religion “lacked priests, territorial or spirit-possession cults, or even an innovative leader to translate old customs, such as
5976-725: The period's penal codes' forced labour. Somewhat later, the Edo period 's penal laws prescribed "non-free labour" for the immediate families of executed criminals in Article 17 of the Gotōke reijō (Tokugawa House Laws), but the practice never became common. The 1711 Gotōke reijō was compiled from over 600 statutes that were promulgated between 1597 and 1696. According to Kevin Bales in Disposable People: New Slavery in
6059-482: The spiritual leaders who are tasked with spreading the influence of religion and spirituality to the people of Giriama and practicing rituals. The Giriamia had a very strong sense for agriculture and were very adept at farming, rearing cows, growing millet, producing cotton and fishing in the Indian Ocean. They were often involved in foreign trade of the goods they produced such as iron in exchange for clothes from
6142-715: The state use of convict labour. Australia received thousands of convict labourers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who were given sentences for crimes ranging from those now considered to be minor misdemeanours to such serious offences as murder, rape and incest. A considerable number of Irish convicts were sentenced to transportation for treason while fighting against British rule in Ireland . More than 165,000 convicts were transported to Australian colonies from 1788 to 1868. Most British or Irish convicts who were sentenced to transportation, however, completed their sentences in British jails and were not transported at all. It
6225-407: The trade that Giriama involved with was with the Arabs and Swahili which they trades their grown crops and essential materials such as iron for foreign goods such as beads and clothes from overseas. Majority of the Giriama adhere to their traditional beliefs or Christianity. A minority practice Islam. The Giriama people experience spirit possession . There are numerous religions and traditions that
6308-425: The traditional short, layered skirts which resemble ballet tutus. (Brantley, 1981, p.6) The Giriama are mainly farmers. The Giriama produced numerous goods that would boost its economy through the distribution of reared cow, goats and sheep. The Giriama also grew numerous crops that would be essential for the foreign market such as cassava, maize, cotton, millet, rice, coconuts, cassava and oil palms. The majority of
6391-403: The “terms of address between alternate generations are reciprocated by members of the same sex or are reciprocally equivalent between members of different sex…between adjacent generations, certain terms are reciprocal or reciprocally equivalent, e.g. mother's brother/sister's son, parent-in-law/daughter's husband, but are otherwise reciprocated with different terms. The eldest of a group of brothers
6474-516: Was a death rate of 80%. Also, 6.87 million Koreans were forcefully put into slave labour from 1939 to 1945 in both Japan and Japanese-occupied Korea. Kerja rodi ( Heerendiensten ) , was the term for forced labour in Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule . The Khmer Rouge attempted to turn Cambodia into a classless society by depopulating cities and forcing the urban population ("New People") into agricultural communes . The entire population
6557-775: Was based on economic, military, and political alliances. The Mijikenda peoples even participated in Mombasa politics. However, during the colonial period under the British power was given to the Coastal Swahili peoples and the Arab peoples of the area. The Coastal strip of land near the Hinterlands was recognized as belonging to the Sultan of Oman, subsequently the Mijikenda people could only go there as squatters and were in danger of expulsion at any time. The colonial power over
6640-572: Was common in many ancient societies , including ancient Egypt , Babylon , Persia , ancient Greece , Rome , ancient China , the pre-modern Muslim world , as well as many societies in Africa and the Americas . Being sold into slavery was a common fate of populations that were conquered in wars. Perhaps the most prominent example of chattel slavery was the enslavement of many millions of black people in Africa, as well as their forced transportation to
6723-456: Was forced to become farmers in labour camps . Convict or prison labour is another classic form of unfree labour. The forced labour of convicts has often been regarded with lack of sympathy, because of the social stigma attached to people regarded as common criminals. Three British colonies in Australia – New South Wales , Van Diemen's Land and Western Australia – are examples of
6806-531: Was that of political prisoners , people from conquered or occupied countries, members of persecuted minorities, and prisoners of war , especially during the 20th century. The best-known example of this are the concentration camp system run by Nazi Germany in Europe during World War II, the Gulag camps run by the Soviet Union , and the forced labour used by the military of the Empire of Japan , especially during
6889-572: Was “neither permanent, aggressive, nor particularly strong. Nor did they draw on a political bureaucracy to organize all Giriama-their traditional political organisation. (Brantley, 1981, p.2). The two main languages that are spoken in Giriama are KiGiriama (Giriama, Giryama) and KiSwahili (Swahili). KiGiriama belongs to the Mijikenda Bantu dialect cluster ; KiSwahili also belongs to the Bantu language family . In 1891, William Ernest Taylor,
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