Sandawe people

The Sandawe are an indigenous ethnic group of Southeast Africa, based in the Chemba District of Dodoma Region in central Tanzania. In 2000, the Sandawe population was estimated to be 40,000. The Sandawe language is a tonal language that uses click consonants, as do the Khoe languages of southern Africa. There is no other proven connection between the two. Although the Khoisan were originally thought to possess the oldest human DNA lineages, those of the Sandawe are older. This suggests southern Khoisan originated in East Africa. The Sandawe today are considered descendants of an original Bushmen-like people, unlike their modern neighbours, the Gogo. They live in the geographic centre of old German East Africa, the 'Street of Caravans' crossing their southern edge. The Sandawe language may share a common ancestor with the Khoe languages of southern Africa. It has clicks and the surrounding Bantu peoples find it difficult to learn. It is unrelated to the neighbouring Bantu languages, though it has been lightly influenced by neighbouring Cushitic languages. The Sandawe have long been considered expert survivalists during times of food shortages as a result of having a strong hunting and gathering tradition. By the time of the expeditions of Charles Stokes and Emin Pasha (late 1880s to early 1890s) they had also become herders and agriculturalists, but still tended to be grouped with the Gogo people. It was not until the travels of Lt. Tom von Prince in 1895 that the Sandawe were finally recognised by Europeans as a separate people maintaining their independence. Despite their technologically simple culture, European colonists considered them politically and militarily significant at least until the turn of the 20th century. The Sandawe adopted agriculture from their Bantu neighbours, probably the Gogo, and scattered their homesteads wherever a suitable piece of land was found for their staple crops of millet, sorghum and eventually, maize.