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45-495: Pemba may refer to: Places [ edit ] Pemba Island , in Tanzania Pemba, Mozambique , the capital of Cabo Delgado Province Pemba District , a district of Zambia Pemba, Zambia , a small town Individuals [ edit ] George Pemba , South African painter Tsewang Yishey Pemba , Tibetan doctor Other [ edit ] Pemba (chalk) ,

90-541: A center for traditional medicine and witchcraft . There is a quite large Arab community on the island , who immigrated from Oman . The population is a mix of Arab and original Waswahili inhabitants of the island. A significant portion of the population also identifies as Shirazi people . The overwhelming majority of the island's population follows Islam and identify as Muslim. The most important towns in Pemba are Chake-Chake (the capital), Mkoani , and Wete , which

135-525: A chalk used in Afro-Brazilian religions Pemba (katydid) , a genus of south American bush crickets in the tribe Teleutiini Pemba (constituency) , a parliamentary constituency of Zambia See also [ edit ] Pemba Airport (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Pemba . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

180-481: A land area of 988 square kilometres (381 sq mi) it is situated about 50 kilometres (31 mi) to the north of Unguja , the largest island of the archipelago. In 1964, Zanzibar was united with the former colony of Tanganyika to form Tanzania . It lies 50 kilometres (31 mi) east of mainland Tanzania, across the Pemba Channel . Together with Mafia Island (south of Unguja), these islands form

225-458: A longer drier season between June and October. Archaeological research on Pemba has shown its centrality to the Swahili coast trading system as early as 600 AD. Along the northern coast, urban settlements at Chwaka later developed and flourished from the eleventh century to ~1500 AD. West of Pemba's capital Chake-Chake, on a long stretched peninsula called Ras Mkumbuu , one can find some of

270-461: A patient to soak a piece of paper containing verses of the Qur'an in water. With this ink infused water, literally containing the word of Allah , the patient will then wash his body or drink it to cure himself of his affliction. The only people permitted to become medicine men in the culture are prophets and teachers of Islam. There are also Swahili that practiced Christianity . The Swahili language

315-533: A unified group of communities that developed into the first centre of coastal maritime culture. The coastal towns appear to have been engaged in Indian Ocean trade at this early period, and trade rapidly increased in importance and quantity between the mid-8th and the 11th century. A local 15th genealogy, the Kilwa Chronicle , identifies the rulers and founders of the costal cities as immigrants from

360-571: Is classified as "Aw" by the Köppen-Geiger system . The average temperature in Chake Chake is 25.5 °C (77.9 °F). The average annual rainfall is 1,364 mm. The monthly average temperatures are usually between 24 and 27.4 °C (75.2 and 81.3 °F). There are two rain seasons, with most rainfall coming between April and May and smaller rain season coming between November and December. Drier months are January and February, and

405-468: Is divided into two regions, North Pemba (Pemba Kaskazini)with its capital at Wete , and South Pemba (Pemba Kusini) with its capital at Mkoani . Although the centrally located city of Chake Chake , near the airport, is considered Pemba's capital, and is the seat of Pemba's court and the President of Zanzibar's official Pemba residence. Pemba is also famous for its rich fishing grounds. Between

450-557: Is found on Pemba (3.5 million trees), as growing conditions on the island are superior to those on Unguja island. Clove trees grow to a height of approximately 10 to 15 metres and can be harvested for sometimes over 50 years. Most of the island, which is hillier and more fertile than Unguja, is dominated by small scale farming. There is also large-scale farming of other crops, primarily rice , coconuts , and red beans (called maharagwe in Swahili), as well as cassava and bananas . For

495-514: Is likewise completely lacking.". The most likely origin for the stories about the Shirazi is from Muslim inhabitants of the Lamu archipelago who moved south in the 10th and 11th centuries. They brought with them a coinage tradition and localized form of Islam. These Africans migrants seem to have developed a concept of Shirazi origin as they moved further southwards, near Malindi and Mombasa , along

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540-429: Is the largest city. The centrally located Chake-Chake is perched on a mound with a view to the west on a bay and the tiny Misali Island , where the tides determine when a dhow can enter the local harbour. Pemba is, with the exception of a strip of land along its eastern coast, a very fertile place: besides clove trees, the locals grow mainly rice , coconut , bananas , cassava , and red beans (called maharagwe in

585-760: Is the native tongue, and it is a member of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger-Congo family. Its closest relatives include Comorian spoken on the Comoros Islands and the Mijikenda language of the Mijikenda people in Kenya. With its original speech community centred on Zanzibar and the coastal parts of Kenya and Tanzania , collectively a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast , Swahili became

630-622: The Indian Ocean slave trade in the Arabian Peninsula . Swahili fishermen of today still rely on the ocean to supply their primary source of income. Fish is sold to their inland neighbours in exchange for products of the interior. Although most Swahili living standards are far below that of upper hierarchy of the wealthiest nations, the Swahili are generally considered a relatively economically powerful group due to their history of trade. They are comparatively well-off. For instance,

675-576: The Swahili coast , an area encompassing the Zanzibar archipelago and mainland Tanzania's seaboard, littoral Kenya , northern Mozambique , the Comoros Islands , and northwest Madagascar . The original Swahili distinguished themselves from other Bantu peoples by self-identifying as WaUngwana (the civilised ones). In certain regions (e.g., Lamu Island ), this differentiation is even more stratified in terms of societal grouping and dialect, hinting to

720-520: The Swahili language ). Pemba is home to several dive sites, with steep drop-offs, untouched coral, and very abundant marine life. Pemba has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports populations of Pemba green pigeons , Pemba scops owls , Pemba white-eyes and Pemba sunbirds . Pemba has a tropical climate, yet somewhat milder than Tanzania's mainland and milder than in Unguja island. This climate

765-547: The "Shirazi" were not Middle Eastern immigrants, but northern Swahili Muslims. They moved south, founding mosques, introducing coinage and elaborately carved inscriptions and mihrabs. They should be interpreted as indigenous African Muslims who played the politics of the Middle East to their advantage. Some still use this foundation myth a millennium later to assert their authority, even though the myth's context has long been forgotten. The Shirazi legend took on new importance in

810-424: The 19th century, during the period of Omani domination. Claims of Shirazi ancestry were used to distance locals from Arab newcomers, since Persians are not viewed as Arabs but still have an exemplary Islamic pedigree. The emphasis that the Shirazi came very long ago and intermarried with indigenous locals ties this claim to the creation of convincing indigenous narratives about Swahili heritage without divorcing it from

855-646: The Indian Ocean. The Swahili have played a vital role as middle man between southeast, central, and South Africa and to the outside world. Trade contacts have been noted as early as 100 CE by early Roman writers who visited the Southeast African coast in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. Trade routes extended from Kenya to Tanzania into modern day Congo , along which goods were brought to the coasts and were sold to Arab, Indian, and Portuguese traders. Historical and archaeological records attest to Swahilis being prolific maritime merchants and sailors who sailed

900-546: The Mrima coast. The longstanding trade connections with the Persian gulf gave credence to these myths. In addition, because most Muslim societies are patrilineal, one can claim distant identities through paternal lines despite phenotypic and somatic evidence to the contrary. The so-called Shirazi tradition represents the arrival of Islam in these eras, one reason it has proven so long lasting. Extant mosques and coins demonstrate that

945-456: The Persian city of Shirazi , in the 11th century. This forms the basis of the Shirazi era origin myth that proliferated along the coast at the turn of the millennium. A 2022 DNA study obtained samples from 80 Muslim graves, from cities across the region, found the maternal ancestry of the studied population was primarily of East African lineages, principally Bantu and Pastoral Neolithic, while

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990-501: The Southeast African coast around the 9th century, coincident to Bantu traders both settling on the coast and tapping into the Indian Ocean trade networks. The Swahili people follow the Sunni denomination of Islam. Large numbers of Swahili undertake the Hajj and Umrah from Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique. Traditional Islamic dress such as the jilbab and thob are also popular among

1035-530: The Southeast African coastline to lands as far away as Arabia , Persia , Madagascar , India , and China . Chinese pottery and Arabian beads have been found in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe . During the apogee of the Middle Ages, ivory and slaves became a substantial source of revenue. Captives sold via the Zanzibar slave trade by Arab slave traders ended up in Portuguese Brazil or via

1080-559: The Spice Islands (not to be confused with the Maluku Islands of Indonesia ). Most of the island, which is hillier and more fertile than Unguja, is dominated by small scale farming. There is also large scale farming of cash crops such as cloves . In previous years, the island was seldom visited due to inaccessibility and a reputation for political violence , with the notable exception of those drawn by its reputation as

1125-457: The Swahili origin myth, indicating that "Asian ancestry includes components associated with Persia and India, with 80–90% of the Asian DNA originating from Persian men." The modern Swahili people speak the Swahili language as a mother tongue, which belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family. The language contains loan words from Arabic . Islam established its presence on

1170-539: The Swahili. The Swahili also are known for their use of divination, which has adopted some syncretic features from underlying traditional indigenous beliefs. For instance, they believe in djinn , and many men wear protective amulets featuring verses from the Qu'ran. Divination is practiced through Qur'anic readings. Often the diviner incorporates verses from the Qur'an into treatments for certain diseases. On occasion, he instructs

1215-615: The United Nations has stated that the island of Zanzibar has a 25% higher per capita GDP than the rest of Tanzania. This economic influence has led to the continued spread of their culture and language throughout East Africa. Thought by many early scholars to be essentially of Arabic or Persian style and origin, some contemporary academics are suggesting that archaeological, written, linguistic, and cultural evidence might suggest an African genesis which would be accompanied only later by an enduring Arabic and Islamic influences in

1260-466: The Waswahili themselves. Citation: The Swahili people originate from Bantu inhabitants of the coast of Southeast Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. These Bantu-speaking agriculturalists settled the coast at the outset of the first millennium. Archaeological finds at Fukuchani, on the north-west coast of Zanzibar, indicate a settled agricultural and fishing community from the 6th century CE at

1305-509: The area, the earlier occupants had been displaced by incoming Bantu and Nilotic populations. More people from different parts of the Persian Gulf also continued to migrate to the Swahili coast over several centuries thereafter, and these formed the modern Shirazi. The second theory on Shirazi origins also posits that they came from Persia, but first settled in the Horn of Africa . In

1350-415: The form of trade and an exchange of ideas. Upon visiting Kilwa in 1331, the great Berber explorer Ibn Battuta was impressed by the substantial beauty that he encountered there. He describes its inhabitants as "Zanj, jet-black in colour, and with tattoo marks on their faces", and notes that "Kilwa is a very fine and substantially built town, and all its buildings are of wood" (his description of Mombasa

1395-490: The historical processes by which the Swahili have coalesced over time. More recently, however, through a process of Swahilization , this identity is extended to any person of African descent who speaks Swahili as their first language, is Muslim , and lives in a town on the main urban centres of most of modern-day Tanzania and coastal Kenya, northern Mozambique, or the Comoros. The name Swahili originated as an exonym for

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1440-465: The ideals of being a maritime-centred culture. There are two main theories about the origins of the Shirazi subgroup of the Swahili people. One thesis based on oral tradition states that immigrants from the Shiraz region in southwestern Iran directly settled various mainland ports and islands on the eastern Africa seaboard beginning in the tenth century. By the time of the Persian settlement in

1485-558: The island and the mainland there is the deep 50 kilometre wide Pemba Channel, which is one of the most profitable fishing grounds for game fishing on the Swahili Coast. Pemba is (with the exception of a strip of land along its eastern coast) highly fertile for agriculture which serves the global farming industry. A large segment of Zanzibar export earnings comes from cloves . The greatest concentration of clove trees in Zanzibar

1530-661: The language derived from Arabic : سواحل , romanized :  Sawāhil , lit.   'coasts', with WaUngwana as the endonym . Swahili people speak the Swahili language . Modern Standard Swahili is derived from the Kiunguja dialect of Zanzibar. Like many other world languages, Swahili has borrowed a large number of words from foreign languages, particularly administrative terms from Arabic , but also words from Portuguese , Persian , Hindi , Spanish , English and German . Other, older dialects like Kimrima and Kitumbatu have far fewer Arabic loanwords, indicative of

1575-465: The language's fundamental Bantu nature. Kiswahili served as coastal East Africa's lingua franca and trade language from the ninth century onward. Zanzibari traders' intensive push into the African interior from the late eighteenth century induced the adoption of Swahili as a common language throughout much of East Africa . Thus, Kiswahili is the most spoken African language, used by far more than just

1620-498: The latest. The considerable amount of daub found indicates timber buildings, and shell beads, bead grinders, and iron slag have been found at the site. There is evidence for limited engagement in long-distance trade: a small amount of imported pottery has been found, less than 1% of total pottery finds, mostly from the Gulf and dated to the 5th to 8th century. The similarity to contemporary sites such as Mkokotoni and Dar es Salaam indicate

1665-455: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pemba&oldid=1215080643 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Pemba Island With

1710-400: The main mosques. Before 1500 CE, the inhabitants carried both African, as well as Asia/Near East ancestry, which was mainly Persian-related (with more than half of their DNA originating from African ancestors and another large proportion of DNA coming from Asian ancestors). The male ancestors of elite Swahili people were a mix of approximately 83% Asian and 17% African; about 90% of the Asian DNA

1755-482: The majority of the male heritage was Asian. Some academics reject the authenticity of the primarily Persian origin claim. They point to the relative rarity of Persian customs and speech, lack of documentary evidence of Shia Islam in the Muslim literature on the Swahili Coast, and instead a historic abundance of Sunni Arab -related evidence. The documentary evidence, like the archaeological, "for early Persian settlement

1800-513: The mid-13th century there were two independent sultans ruling over parts of Pemba Island. On 24 June 2016, the Australian Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development , Darren Chester , said that a piece of aircraft debris was found on Pemba Island, possibly being from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 . Pemba is part of the semi-autonomous Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar . Administratively, it

1845-520: The oldest and best preserved series of early ruins on the islands ( Ndagoni ruins , probably 14th century). East of Chake-Chake one can find the Mkama Ndume ruins at Pujini village (south of the airport) within easy reach by road from Chake-Chake. This is the only known early fortification on the whole Swahili Coast; it is dated to the fifteenth century. According to the Arab geographer Yakut , in

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1890-498: The promotion of tourism, the Department of Surveys and Mapping at Chake-Chake has been publishing maps with tourist guides since 1992. Pemba Airport is also known as Wawi Airport or Karume Airport and connects the island to Arusha , Dar es Salaam , and Zanzibar City. Swahili people The Swahili people ( Swahili : WaSwahili , وَسوَحِيلِ) comprise mainly Bantu , Afro-Arab , and Comorian ethnic groups inhabiting

1935-514: The tongue of the urban class in the African Great Lakes region and eventually went on to serve as a lingua franca during the post-colonial period. In 2022, DNA was extracted, analyzed and compared in 80 samples taken from people buried between 1250 and 1800 CE in towns that were mostly along the Swahili Coast in modern Kenya and Tanzania. It is believed that these people were Swahili elites because they were buried in cemeteries near

1980-525: The twelfth century, as the gold trade with the distant entrepot of Sofala on the Mozambique seaboard grew, the settlers are then said to moved southwards to various coastal towns in Kenya, Tanzania, northern Mozambique and the Indian Ocean islands . By 1200 CE, they had established local sultanates and mercantile networks on the islands of Kilwa , Mafia and Comoros along the Swahili coast, and in northwestern Madagascar . More recent studies support

2025-407: Was Persian, and the rest was Indian. The female ancestors of Swahili elites were about 97% African and 3% Asian. This is consistent with the narrative of the Kilwa Chronicle . After this time, Arabian ancestry becomes more prevalent, which correlates with the archaeological and historical record of interactions with Southern Arabia ( Oman ). For centuries the Swahili depended greatly on trade from

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