Dressing up: Clothing, class and gender in post-abolition Zanzibar

Journal of African History

Volumn 39, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 63-94

  Fair, Laura ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OREGON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0006351712     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853797007111     Document Type: Article

References (207)

1. C. Velten, Prosa und Poesie der Suaheli (Berlin, 1907)
2. as cited in H. P. Block, A Swahili Anthology (Leiden, 1948), 137;
3. C. H. Sacleux, Dictionnaire Swahili-Français (2 vols.) (Paris, 1941), ii, 740.
4. Pemba is one of the two main islands comprising Zanzibar and the main center of clove production in the isles. All translations from Kiswahili are my own.
5. For a discussion of such practices elsewhere on the African continent, see Misty Bastian, 'Female "Alhajis" and entrepreneurial fashions: flexible identities in southeastern Nigerian clothing practice'
6. and Deborah James, '"I dress in this fashion": transformations in Sotho dress and women's lives in a Sekhukhuneland village, South Africa', both in Hildi Hendrickson (ed.), Clothing and Difference: Embodied Identities in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa (Durham NC, 1996), 97-132 and 34-65;
7. Phyllis M. Martin, 'Contesting clothes in colonial Brazzaville', J. Afr. Hist., XXXV (1994), 401-26;
8. Jonathan Friedman, 'The political economy of elegance: an African cult of beauty', Culture and History, VII (1990), 101-25;
9. Donna Klumpp and Corinne Kratz, 'Aesthetics, expertise and ethnicity: Okiek and Maasai perspectives on personal ornament', in T. Spear and R. Waller (eds.), Being Maasai (Athens OH, 1993), 195-221;
10. Timothy Burke, Lifeboy Men, Lux Women (Durham NC, 1996 ).
11. See 'Sultani Majinuni', 'Sultan Darai', and 'Kisa cha Kihindi', in Edward Steere, Swahili Tales as Told by Natives of Zanzibar (London, 1922).
12. Margaret Strobel, Muslim Women of Mombasa (New Haven CN, 1979);
13. Jonathon Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888 (Portsmouth NH, 1995), 79-174;
14. Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari, The Customs of the Swahili People, ed. and trans. James Allen, (Los Angeles, 1981), 148-53. 169-77.
15. Mtoro was originally published as C. Velten, Desturi za Wasuahili (Gottingen, 1903).
16. Slavery was not uniformly abolished with the passage of a decree. Those born after 1897 were legally free, while those born before 1897 were able to apply for freedom in court, provided they could prove their ability to maintain themselves independent of their masters. As Cooper clearly demonstrated, the goal of British administrators was to adhere to the rhetoric of abolition while simultaneously guaranteeing the continued productivity of the rural clove economy based on slave labor. Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters (New Haven CN, 1980); Zanzibar National Archives (hereafter ZNA), AB 4/38, Clove Labour, 1898-1926.
17. Classman, Feasts, 79-176.
18. ZNA, BA 34/2, Report of the Zanzibar Native Census (Zanzibar, 1924);
19. ZNA, BA 34/3, Report on the Census Enumeration of the Entire Population (Zanzibar, 1931), While the ethnic category was widely used in Zanzibar in the twentieth century, Sheryl McCurdy has demonstrated that the Manyema ethnicity was itself the product a complex historical creation.
20. Sheryl McCurdy, 'Storm in a tea cup: Islam and identity politics in Tabora and Ujiji, Tanganyika, 1880-1934', Unpublished Ms, 9-15.
21. The major shifts in ethnic identity reported in Zanzibar's censuses have been a point of concern for generations of scholars. While many of the first generation of emancipated slaves identified themselves as Swahili, by the 1930s the term Swahili was generally regarded in local usage as a euphemism for former slave. This reality was reflected in the census, when the number of individuals returning themselves as Swahili dropped from roughly 34,000, in the 1920s, to 2,000 by 1931. While I give some indication of why this happened below, I am more concerned with what such shifts say about consciousness and how such changes were articulated in daily practice than what a census can tell us about heritage. ZNA, BA 34/3, 1931 Census; R. R. Kuczynski, Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire (2 vols.), (London, 1949, 1977), ii, 650-85;
22. A. H. Prins, The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (London, 1961).
23. Oscar Baumann, Die Insel Zanzibar- Archipel (Leipzig, 1897); ZNA, AW 2/27, Map of government and private land, Ngambo, 1910; ZNA, AW 2/26, Map of Ng'ambo, 1892.
24. As Frederick Cooper has demonstrated, although the British who established Zanzibar as a protectorate in 1890 worked diligently to create legal mechanisms intended to keep slaves tied to their masters' clove plantations, slaves made a number of very important advances in the struggle to transform their economic and social positions in the period immediately following abolition, including a reduction in the 'work week' from five days to three, as well as reduction in the amount of work performed on these days. Cooper, Slaves, 90-110.
25. Many slaves without the financial resources to purchase land also began clearing previously unused land and planting tree crops, which thereby established their 'ownership' of the plots on which their trees were planted. ZNA, AB 36/20, Ground Rents, 1898-1912; Report of the Department of Agriculture (Zanzibar, 1910);
26. Report of the Commission on Agriculture (Zanzibar, 1923), 15, 17, 21;
27. R. S. Troup, Report on Clove Cultivation in the Zanzibar Protectorate (Zanzibar, 1932), 41;
28. Sir Alan Pim, Report of the Commission appointed to Consider and Report on the Financial Position and Policy of the Zanzibar Government in Relation to its Economic Resources (Zanzibar, 1932).
29. Cooper, Slaves, 125-72;
30. Abdul Sheriff, 'The peasantry under imperialism, 1873-1963', in Abdul Sheriff and Ed Ferguson (eds.), Zanzibar under Colonial Rule (Athens OH, 1991), 109-40.
31. Dress was in fact the only way that many of them could distinguish between the Omani and Swahili at this time. C. P. Rigby, Report on the Zanzibar Dominions (Bombay, 1861), 8-9;
32. R. F. Burton, Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast (2 vols.) (London, 1872), i, 114, 386, 434;
33. Joseph Osgood, Notes of Travel or Recollections of Majunga, Zanzibar, Muscat, Aden, Mocha and other Eastern Ports (Salem, 1854), 35;
34. Charles Guillain, Documents sur l'histoire, la géographie et le commerce de l'Afrique orientale (3 vols.) (Paris, 1856), ii, 78-9;
35. James Christie, Cholera Epidemics in East Africa (London, 1876), 308-10.
36. The white cloth shown in Fig. 1 was known as merikani because it was produced and imported from the United States. Once dyed to deep blue or black these same pieces of cloth became known as kaniki, which were worn exclusively by women.
37. Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven CN, 1977), 215-20;
38. Frederick Cooper, 'Islam and cultural hegemony: the ideology of slaveowners on the East African coast', in Paul Lovejoy (ed.), The Ideology of Slavery, (Beverly Hills CA, 1981), 271-307.
39. Mtoro, Customs, 173.
40. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 428;
41. Edward Vizetelly, From Cyprus to Zanzibar (London, 1901), 401;
42. Guillain, Documents, iii, 3. When shown Fig. 4, as part of a clothing survey conducted in 1995, many elderly island residents immediately identified the woman on the left as a slave by her cloth and her shaven head. This survey consisted of an open-ended, 75-part questionnaire about various forms of women's clothing. With the assistance of Ally Hassan, Zuhura Shamte and Maryam Omar, the questionnaire was administered to 31 individuals from a range of class and ethnic backgrounds, living throughout urban Zanzibar. Respondents ranged in age from 50 to 106. Unless directly quoting a response given by an informant, results from this survey will hereafter be referred to as Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
43. Mtoro, Customs, 173;
44. Emily Ruete, Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar (New York, 1888; reprinted, New York, 1989), 167-8, 237-8;
45. Guillain, Documents, ii, 82-5;
46. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 386;
47. Rigby, Report, 9.
48. James Holman, Travels in Madras, Ceylon, Mauritius, Comoros, Zanzibar and Calcutta (London, 1840), drawings;
49. Ruete, Memoirs, 83, 237-8;
50. Guillain, Documents, ii, 84-8;
51. Strobel, Muslim, 74-6;
52. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995
53. Ruete, Memoirs, 82-3, 146-7, 237-9;
54. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 386;
55. Guillain, Documents, ii, 85; ZNA, AV 1/16.
56. In the case of Seyyid Said, all of his children, and therefore all of his sons who followed him to the throne were children whose mothers were suria. A child's social position and ethnicity followed the father's line. In Zanzibar it was quite common for a slave concubine to have sons and daughters who ranked among the most élite members of society.
57. Interview with Hilal bin Amour bin Seif, Mwembetanga, 14 July 1995.
58. Ruete, Memoirs, 10.
59. While concubines could be forced to change their clothes upon arrival, Ruete and others suggest that such women clung tenaciously to other elements of their cultural heritage, as well as their personal memories of childhood. Women of the harem taught the royal children the customs, traditions, languages and stories of their homelands. Ruete, Memoirs, 5-13, 22, 43-4, 64-7, 210-13. Respect amongst concubines for the social and cultural traditions of East Africa was also expressed through their participation in female puberty initiation ceremonies, although such participation was sometimes restricted to secret or vicarious involvement through support of slave attendants. Interviews with Fatma binti Baraka, Kisiwandui, 15 Sept. 1991; Bakia binti Juma, Miembeni, 10 July 1992; Amina Seif Othman, Michenzani, 19 July 1995; Adija Saloum Bakari, Miembeni, 3 Aug. 1995.
60. Ruete, Memoirs, 176;
61. Rigby, Report, 8.
62. Osgood, Notes, 35-9;
63. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 433;
64. Christie, Cholera, 309;
65. Charles New, Life, Wanderings and Labours in Eastern Africa (London, 1873), 57-8;
66. Sir Charles Eliot, The East Africa Protectorate (London, 1905), 32.
67. Guillain, Documents, ii, 88;
68. New, Life, 58;
69. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 434;
70. J. Ross Browne, Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (New York, 1846), 398.
71. Osgood, Notes, 41;
72. Browne, Etchings, 397;
73. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 434.
74. Guillain, however, argues that by as early as the mid 1840s some Swahili women were covering their heads: Guillain, Documents, ii, 84-5.
75. New, Life, 60;
76. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 434;
77. Guillain, Documents, ii, 78-9, 84-5;
78. Browne, Etchings, 397;
79. Osgood, Notes, 42;
80. Mtoro, Customs, 173-4.
81. 'J. P. Farler, Notes on labour in Pemba, 1898', 'J. T. Last, The labour question', and 'Rogers to Hill February 26, 1903', in Clove Labour ZNA, AB 4/38; Report of the Commission of Agriculture (Zanzibar, 1923);
82. Robert Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times (New York, 1905), 178-87;
83. Cooper, Slaves, 90-110.
84. Similar processes were long at work along the East African coast. James de Vere Allen, Swahili Origins (Athens OH, 1993), 240-62;
85. Glassman, Feasts 62, 95;
86. Justin Willis, The Making of the Mijikenda (Oxford, 1993), 1-113.
87. Osgood, Notes, 35-9, 70;
88. Browne, Etchings, 335;
89. Christie, Cholera, 333;
90. New, Life, 56;
91. Charles Guillain, Documents, ii, 74-8;
92. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 104, 363, 410-14;
93. William Fitzgerald, Travels on the Coastlands of British East Africa and the Islands of Zanzibar and Pemba (London, 1898), 549-50;
94. James de Vere Allen, 'Swahili culture reconsidered', Azania, XI (1974), 105-37.
95. Johnson notes under his definition of Swahili, 'the term Swahili is a very elastic one, and in some places is used for any native who wears a kanzu or who is a Muhammadan, even only nominally'. Frederick Johnson, A Standard Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1939), 442. There is a wealth of evidence from court cases, family property files and other archival data to suggest that by the First World War a major shift had taken place in local usage of the term mswahili, or Swahili person, reflecting the recognition that most of those who now identified as Swahili were in fact former slaves.
96. A. C. Madan, Swahili-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1903), 130;
97. Johnson, Standard, 173;
98. W. H. Ingrams, Zanzibar: Its History and Its People (New York, 1931), 221-2, 309;
99. F. B. Pearce, Zanzibar, the Island Metropolis of Eastern Africa (London, 1920), 239.
100. Shaaban Robert, Wasifu wa Siti binti Saad (1958, Dar es Salaam, 1991), 22;
101. M. S. Khatib, Taarab Zanzibar (Dar es Salaam, 1992), 17-19. Kongos were made of Manchester cotton and subsequently printed in Holland. After the First World War, competition developed between the British and the Dutch for control of this lucrative cloth trade in East Africa.
102. Department of Overseas Trade, Report on the Trade and Commercial Prospects of East Africa, (London, 1923), 19,
103. as cited in Deborah P. Amory, 'The Kanga cloth and Swahili society: Mke ni Nguo', unpublished Ms, 1985, 21;
104. Elisabeth Linnebuhr, 'Kanga: popular cloths with messages', in Werner Graebner (ed.), Sokomoko: Popular Culture in East Africa (Atlanta, 1992), 81-90.
105. Jeannette Handby, Kangas: 101 Uses (Nairobi, 1984), 2-4;
106. Ethel Younghusband, Glimpses of East Africa and Zanzibar (London, 1910), 34-5;
107. C. H. Stigand, The Land of Zinj (London, 1913), 122;
108. Vizetelly, Cyprus, 395;
109. Captain J. E. Craster, Pemba: The Spice Island of Zanzibar (London, 1913), 40;
110. Amory, 'Kanga', 21;
111. Linnebuhr, 'Kanga', 87-90. According to Handby and Linnebuhr, the precursor to the kanga, known as a leso, was invented in Zanzibar in the late 1870s by women who began sewing imported handkerchiefs together to form cloths because handkerchiefs were cheaper to buy than other colorfully printed cloths. Between the turn of the century and the First World War, women in Zanzibar also began to influence Indian traders to stock kangas printed with aphorisms and sayings, resembling the kanga cloths of today.
112. Critics and others jealous of the fame of Siti binti Saadi, Zanzibar's most famous early taarab recording star who moved to town in 1911, popularized several songs that focused on her heritage as a poor, rural slave as well as her dress and physical appearance. The words from one such song are: 'Siti binti Saadi/ when did you become someone?/ You came from the countryside/ wearing only [kaniki] the cloth of slaves./ If it wasn't for your voice/ what would you be eating?' Shaaban, Wasifu, 22;
113. Khatib, Taarab, 17-19.
114. Vizetelly, Cyprus, 395;
115. Craster, Pemba, 40;
116. Stigand, Zinj, 122;
117. Ingrams, Zanzibar, 309-11;
118. Younghusband, Glimpses, 34-5. The frequency with which the color and pattern fashions of kanga changed and went out of fashion was remarked upon by nearly all contemporary observers. While there are no records which specifically detail kanga sales for the early part of the century, in 1929 the kanga began being listed as a separate commodity within the category of cotton-piece goods (CPGs) in the records of the department of overseas trade. Prior to 1929, CPGs of all kinds constituted an average of 25 per cent of all textiles imported to Zanzibar, 10 per cent of those to Tanganyika and 8 per cent of textiles imported into Kenya and Uganda. After 1929, the percentage of printed cotton piece goods, of which the kanga constituted 90 per cent in the case of Zanzibar, nearly doubled. In Tanganyika, kangas constituted only slightly more than 60 per cent of imported printed cotton piece goods, and only 15 per cent in Kenya and Uganda. Report of Overseas Trade, 1923, 19, as cited in Amory, 'Kanga', 34. These figures reflect the relative affluence of people in Zanzibar relative to others in British East Africa as well as the particular cultural tastes of women in different areas. According to these records, even during the depression the demand for kangas in Zanzibar remained surprisingly stable. ZNA, AU 2/59, Record of Mudirs' Meetings.
119. Younghusband, Glimpses, 34-5.
120. Nasra, 'Wanawake', unpublished MS, 6.
121. Interview with Arafa Salum Ahmed, Malindi, 4 July 1995.
122. While only some 3 per cent of the Protectorate's estimated slave population applied for their 'freedom papers' the majority of those who did were urban residents, and over 50 per cent were women. Lyne also notes that the majority of town slaves who applied for their freedom in court were vibarua, a special class of East African slave, usually artisans or skilled laborers, who hired themselves out for wages and returned a portion of their wage to their master. Once these slaves 'obtained their liberty their position was vastly improved, for they at once received double for their labour'. Robert Lyne, Zanzibar in Contemporary Times (London, 1905), 183;
123. Henry Stanley Newman, Banani: The Transition from Slavery to Freedom in Zanzibar and Pemba (London, 1989), 183.
124. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
125. Interview with Fatuma Abdalla, Uwanja wa Farasi, 16 July 1995.
126. Garth Andrew Myers, 'Eurocentrism and African urbanization: the case of Zanzibar's other side', Antipode, XXVI (1994), 195-215.
127. Interview with Maryam Mohamed, Mwembetanga, July 20, 1995. Johnson's dictionary from the 1930s similarly identified the kanga as 'the common town garment'. Johnson, Standard, 172.
128. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
129. Interview with Amina Seif Othman, Michenzani, 14 July 1995.
130. Johnson, Standard, 492.
131. Interview with Latifuu Ali Marzuk, Kisimamajongoo, 16 Aug., 1995.
132. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
133. The number of individuals who identified themselves as Arabs to census enumerators nearly doubled between 1924 and 1931, from roughly 19,000 to 33,500. ZNA, BA 34/4, Notes on the Census of the Zanzibar Protectorate, 1948 (Zanzibar, 1953), 4.
134. Interview with Adija Saloum Bakari, Miembeni, 3 July 1995.
135. Sara Mirza and Margaret Strobel, Three Swahili Women (Bloomington IN, 1989), 24;
136. Mary Smith, Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa (1954; New Haven CN, 1981), 22;
137. Barbara Cooper, 'Reflections on slavery, seclusion, and female labor in the Maradi region of Niger in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries', J. Afr. Hist. XXXV (1994), 61-78;
138. Judith Tucker, Women in Nineteenth Century Egypt (New York, 1985);
139. Arlene MacLeod, 'Hegemonic relations and gender resistance: the new veiling as accommodating protest in Cairo', Signs, XVII (1992), 533-7;
140. Stigand, Zinj, 122-3.
141. Mtoro, Customs, 173-4.
142. According to survey respondents, rural women of wealth followed the veiling fashions of town more closely while very poor women in town or more recent immigrants from the mainland were often content with the simplicity and affordability of the kanga.
143. Only two informants, both well past ninety years of age, had any idea when the buibui was first introduced. Both of them dated it to the reign of Seyyid Ali (1902-11). Interviews with Hilal bin Amour Seif, Mwembetanga, 14 July 1995 and Arafa Salum, Malindi, 4 July 1995. The dictionary of A. C. Madan, English-Swahili Dictionary (Oxford, 1903), also has an entry for buibui, defining it as a kind of large veil covering the entire body and worn by some women in Zanzibar when out of doors.
144. Neither the dictionary of E. Steere, Handbook of the Swahili Languages as Spoken in Zanzibar (London, 1870),
145. nor that of L. Krapf, A Dictionary of the Suahili Language (New York, 1882), include such a definition.
146. Interviews with Mwanamvita Mrisho, Kwahani, 16 July 1995; Mauwa binti Khamis, Daraja Bovu, 24 July 1995.
147. Pearce, Zanzibar, 247;
148. Ingrams, Zanzibar, 309-11.
149. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
150. Although some women began to abandon the ghubighubi style in the 1950s, survey respondents were in consensus that after the 'revolution', in 1964, women were no longer allowed to cover themselves in such a way. Some women suggested that prohibitions on ghubighubi were the result of socialist policies intended to bring women out of purdah and make them the equals of men. Other women argued, however, that the new President Karume banned ghubighubi out of fear that an enemy intent on assassinating him could hide a weapon, as well as their own identity, under the cover of a buibui worn in such a way. Regardless of the reason, after 1964 the ghubighubi fashion was no longer worn by women in Zanzibar.
151. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
152. Interview with Fatuma Abdalla, Uwanja wa Farasi, 16 July 1995.
153. Interview with Adija Saloum Bakari, Miembeni, 3 July 1995.
154. August Nimtz, Islam and Politics in East Africa (Minneapolis, 1980), 56.
155. This form of Islam spread widely throughout East Africa during the period between the two World Wars. Nimtz, Islam, 3-15, 55-86;
156. John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979), 208-16.
157. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
158. Interview with BiMkubwa Stadi, Kisimamajongoo, 8 Aug. 1995.
159. One of the most important branches of the Qadiriyya in East Africa was founded by Sheikh Uways bin Mohammed who first came to Zanzibar from Somalia in 1884 and initiated many adherents into the brotherhood. Students of his are widely credited with spreading the Qadiriyya throughout mainland Tanzania. Nimtz, Islam, 57-60. Several sources from the mainland coast credit the arrival of the buibui to the efforts of Hadhrami sheriffs, many of whom were also involved in the Qadiriyya brotherhoods. Allen in fact argues that the buibui was imported into East Africa by men from Shihir. I have found no evidence to substantiate this claim. Available evidence also seems to indicate that the type of veil worn by women in Yemen at this time was distinctly different than the buibui. The Yemeni veil, although black, consisted of two or three separate pieces, whereas the buibui was constructed as a one piece garment. I would argue that the spread of the buibui was not solely the work of the sheriffs, but was part of a larger process of the spread of Sufi Islam which was occurring during these same years. Additionally, there were very few women from the Hadhramout or Shihir who came to live in East Africa. While male immigrants from these two areas resident in Zanzibar numbered in the thousands by the 1920s, few of them brought women from their homelands with them. It is therefore even less likely that male immigrants could have had such a dramatic impact on the fashions of women in Zanzibar. Written and oral sources suggest that many of these men married local women, and what is in fact more likely is that many of these women changed their ethnicity after marriage. As Shelswell-White articulated in a colonial report he authored, '... as their women rarely emigrate, Hadhramis who settle in the islands mostly marry local women ... so that a large proportion of those included in the census returns as Hadhramis were by no means of pure stock'. ZNA, AB 12/133, G. H. Shelswell-White, 'Notes on the Hadhrami and Shihiri community in Zanzibar', 1935;
160. 1924 Census;
161. James Allen in Mtoro, Customs, 299, n. 8.
162. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
163. Ibid.
164. Interview with Salma Haifa, Kisimamajongoo, 29 June 1995.
165. Additional precautions were sometimes taken, such as purchasing a special pair of cheap shoes which were switched mid-journey for one's regular shoes when out on illicit excursions. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995. There are also numerous tales of men hiding their identities under the cover of women's veils in order to effect escapes. One such tale is that told by Emily Ruete of Seyyid Barghash's use of the veil to escape from house-arrest during his dispute with Seyyid Majid. Ruete, Memoirs, 237-9.
166. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995.
167. Interview with Fatuma Abdalla, Uwanja wa Farasi, 16 July 1995.
168. Zanzibar Clothing Survey, 1995. Women from wealthy, Arab or high-status family backgrounds were typically given their first buibui by their mothers when they were between the ages of seven and ten. Women born in Ng'ambo whose parents were of the laboring classes generally received their first buibui at puberty, or roughly age 14, while those born outside of the isles or in the countryside were often only given a buibui by their husbands as part of their marriage trousseau.
169. Interview with Shemsa Mohammed, Kisimamajongoo, 29 June 1995.
170. Interview with Adija Saloum Bakari, Miembeni, 3 July 1995. Bibi Adija was born during the First World War and estimated that her mother was in her late twenties or early thirties at the time of her birth.
171. Bi Kaje Mwenye Matano in Mirza, Three, 27; Pearce, Zanzibar, 239; Ingrams, Zanzibar, 221-2, 309; ZNA, AV 27; ZNA, AV 22; ZNA, AV 7; F. B. Wilson Picture Collection, housed in the Zanzibar Peace Museum.
172. Ruete, Memoirs, 7;
173. Sheik Abdalla Saleh Farsi, Seyy id Said bin Sultan (New Delhi, n.d.), 12-14;
174. W. H. Ingrams, Chronology and Genealogies of Zanzibar Rulers (Zanzibar, 1926);
175. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 463-7.
176. Free women from propertied families also often gave birth to children with several different fathers over the course of the lives. Amur bin Nasur, whose uncle was a prominent member of Seyyid Majid's administration (1856-70) and whose father was a plantation owner in Pangani, was the fourth child born by his mother, with three different fathers. 'Habari za Amur bin Nasur', in C. G. Buttner (ed.), Anthologie aus der Suaheli-Literatur (Berlin, 1894), 147-75.
177. The parents of 50 per cent of the women interviewed in 1995 were of different ethnic backgrounds. Various forms of census and interview data also suggest that the percentage of women who married more than one man over the course of their life was well over 60 per cent. ZNA, DJ 1/ Marriage, birth and death registries; ZNA, AP 28/ Idadi ya Koo; Buttner, Anthologie, 147-54.
178. ZNA, AB 10/108: Rusoona binti Tamim; ZNA, AB 10/116 Surias of the late Seyyid Ali; ZNA, AB 10/200 Royal Marriages Decree.
179. Interview with Amina Seif Othman, Michenzani, 14 July 1995; ZNA, HC 3/549 Noor binti Ali v. Ali bin Omor; ZNA, HC 3/335 Fatma binti Mohamed v. Shariff Mohammed; ZNA, HC 3/319 Jena binti Manji v. Hassam Alibhai; ZNA, HC 3/840 Fatma and Marriam Bakheresa v. Hemed bin Said; ZNA, HC 8/60 Shariffa binti Barghash v. the government; ZNA, HC 8/100 Tufaha binti Nusura v. Azan bin Suleiman; ZNA, HC 8/86 Mgeni binti Salim v. Seif bin Mahomed; ZNA, AP 28/46, Idadi yo Koo, Ng'ambo; ZNA, AP 28/2 Idadi ya Koo, Fuoni.
180. 1924 Census, 8.
181. Browne, Etchings, 402;
182. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 393-4;
183. Randall Pouwels, Horn and Crescent (Cambridge, 1987), 195; ZNA, AB 10/200 Royal Marriages Decree.
184. Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution (Princeton NJ, 1965);
185. Anthony Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and Its Aftermath (Hamden, 1981);
186. Laura Fair, 'Pastimes and politics: a social history of Zanzibar's Ng'ambo community, 1890-1950' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1994);
187. William Cunningham Bissell, 'Colonial constructions: historicizing debates on civil society in Africa', unpublished Ms.
188. 1931 Census; ZNA, AB 8/87 Report of the Committee Appointed to Advise on Matters Relating to Native Administration, 1932-39;
189. Ibuni Saleh, A Short History of the Comorians in Zanzibar (Dar es Salaam, 1936);
190. Pearce, Zanzibar, 214;
191. Prins, Swahili-Speaking, 11.
192. ZNA, BA 16/40, Debates of the Legislative Council, 6 March 1931, appendix, 47-49; Ibuni, History, 13; ZNA, AB 8/87, Native Administration, 1932-39. Rather than request that the state confer the honor of reclassification, many propertied 'Africans' took personal initiative in this process and began identifying themselves to members of the colonial administration as Arabs. Between the 1924 census and that of 1931 the number of persons identifying themselves as 'Arab' nearly doubled, from roughly 18,800 to 33,400. 'Notes on the Census of 1948', 4.
193. The Shirazi Association, formed in Pemba island in the late 1930s had as one of its principle goals promoting smallholder peasant access to the benefits of the Clove Growers Association, including credit and marketing opportunities. The growth of the Shirazi Association on Zanzibar island was much more closely linked to demands for access to rationed goods during the Second World War. In both cases individuals defined as 'African' resented that access to material items like credit, food and kanga could be reserved by the state for 'Arabs'. ZNA, AB 12/2 Shirazi Association; ZNA, AK 17/70 Rationing; ZNA, AU 2/59 Records of Mudirs Meetings, 1944-57;
194. Fair, 'Pastimes and politics', 236-55;
195. Chizuko Tominaga and Abdul Sheriff, 'The ambiguity of Shirazi ethnicity in the history and politics of Zanzibar', unpublished Ms.
196. Beginning in the late 1930s, it became increasingly rare for women in Zanzibar to be seen working out of doors or even going to shop in the public food market. Leisure activities also became increasingly segregated by sex, as women moved previously public ngoina performances indoors or behind a fence and men became more involved in football clubs in which women took only marginal interest. Interviews with Abdulrahman Othman, Jang'ombe, 14 June 1991; Mohamed Ali, Malindi, 29 June 1992; Nasra Mohamed Hilal, Malindi, 25 Oct. 1992; Amina Aboud, Vikokotoni, 23 Dec. 1991; Bakia binti Juma, Miembeni, 10 July 1992.
197. Although several elderly Arab respondents, born at or before the turn of the century, recalled their grandmothers or great-grandmothers wearing a barakoa, by the turn of the century 'only the very, very-wealthy wore them, because they were far beyond the means of most women'. Interviews with Hilal bin Amour bin Seif, Mwembetanga, 14 July 1995; Ghaniya Said, Malindi, 14 July 1995; Nunu Salum, Kisiwandui, 18 July 1995.
198. Ruete, Memoirs, 146.
199. Burton, Zanzibar, i, 463, 467-8;
200. Rigby, Report, 9;
201. Browne, Etchings, 402.
202. Ruete, Memoirs, 42-4, 223-48;
203. Farsi, Seyyid Said, 13;
204. Hollis, 'Supplement'; Sir John Gray, 'Memoirs of an Arabian princess', Tanganyika Notes and Records (1954), 49-70.
205. Files in the Zanzibar archives recount numerous turbulent episodes between the British administration and female members of the royal family who asserted their autonomy by marrying against the wishes of their families, having children after the death, or exile, of their masters and engaging in other 'public behaviour' which Europeans found 'patently offensive'. ZNA, AB 10/116 Surias of the late Seyyid Ali bin Said; ZNA, AB 10/108 Rusoona binti Tamim, ex-Sultan's concubine; ZNA, AB 10/215; Seyyida Sheriffa binti Bargash bin Said and Seyyida Aliya binti Bargash; ZNA, AB 10/200, Royal Marriages Decree.
206. Laura Fair, 'Identity, difference and dance: female initiation in Zanzibar, 1890-1930', Frontiers : a Journal of Women Studies, XVII (1996), 146-72.
207. Interview with Adija Saloum Bakari, Miembeni, 3 Aug. 1995.