INTRODUCTORY

The existence of a distinctive set of neighbourhood relationships was noted in chapter 1. The Nyamwezi word for ‘neighbours’ is bazenganwa, which has its root in the verb kuzenga meaning ‘to build’. It is a passive part of an associative reciprocal form of the verb and may be roughly translated as ‘those who are built for by each other’. It is common to hear a man refer to his neighbours as bazenganwa bichane, or ‘my fellow neighbours’, rather than as bazenganwa bane, which means simply ‘my neighbours’. Thus people themselves highlight the reciprocity implied in the term and emphasize the fact that neighbours cooperate with one another. Co-operation between neighbours is found all over Unyamwezi, but it is most marked in Kahama District, and the material presented in this chapter is mainly concerned with that District. Some comparison is made with other parts of Unyamwezi later in the chapter.

Within the village all are neighbours and it is only when two villages are sited on a single piece of higher ground that neighbourhood cooperation regularly extends beyond the boundaries of a single village. The situation is, however, complicated by two further factors. First, for certain tasks such as the threshing of bulrush millet the people often find it more convenient to limit the co-operating group to local sub-divisions of a village. These are created simply because the village as a whole would be too large a unit for the efficient performance of the task in hand.