Gogo

Gogo, a Bantu-speaking people inhabiting central Tanzania. They live in a portion of the East African Rift System. The land is bounded by hills to the east and south, the Bahi Swamp to the west, and the Masai Steppe to the north.

“Gogo” is a sobriquet given by outsiders—probably Nyamwezi traders following the major east–west caravan route across Gogo territory to coastal ports—to people who among themselves consider clan affiliation as the primary social identity. Gogo clans claim descent from surrounding peoples in all directions, a factor that precludes broad political cohesion. The northern Gogo (who think of themselves as Gogo) consider the southern Gogo to be members of the Hehe people, the ethnic group to the south; southern Gogo, however, also consider themselves Gogo, and consider the northern Gogo to be members of the Sandawe ethnic group to the north. Such confusion is compounded by the fact that the Gogo share much of their material culture and several methods of adapting to their harsh environment with Nilotic Baraguyu and Maasai and have been taken for the former by outsiders and denigrated by Westerners for “imitating” the latter.

The Gogo language is closely related to that of the Kaguru to the northeast, although culturally the two groups differ greatly. Distinctive to Gogo material culture are the qualities of their smithing and metalwork, beadwork, dance and musical styles, and facial markings.

Gogo live in an area characterized by sparse or erratic rainfall (20 inches [500 millimetres] or less annually), periodic drought, floods, and famine; yet their area is well suited for cattle herding and drought-resistant agriculture, with sorghum, millet, and corn (maize) as staple crops. They maintain large herds, which are the principal medium for the accumulation and exchange of wealth. Cattle are never slaughtered solely for meat but are offered to spirits, and the meat is carefully distributed through networks of kinship and mutual assistance.

Age sets, one of the cultural traits adopted from the Baraguyu, lost relevance under British colonialism. From the late 1920s colonial administrators created hierarchical chiefships—hence centralized authority—where there had been none before. The Tanzanian government abolished all chiefships in 1962 and gathered Gogo into cooperative villages in the early 1970s.