Development of the Plantain-Based Culture of the Nyakusa of Southern Tanzania

Abstract

The Nyakyusa constitute an ethnic group in southern Tanzania who are known as the "banana-eaters." This paper describes and analyzes the plantain-based farming culture of the Nyakyusa from socio-historical, ethnobotanical, and ecological viewpoints, focusing on utilization, management skills, and local varieties. The Nyakyusa have built a close relationship with the crop over hundreds of years. In contrast to other plantain growers in the forest environments of Central Africa, the Nyakyusa create home gardens. In home-garden farming, a miniature forest is created for each family unit, requiring more intensive care than the slash-and-burn agriculture used in natural forest environments. The Nyakyusa have developed cultivation skills, tools, vocabulary, and varietal diversity in relation to the plants, and have also created symbolic meanings for the plants that are related to prosperity, the idea of the sacred, and gender values. Such symbolization may have worked as a social tool to protect this unique crop by conferring multiple meanings upon it. In other words, plantain probably played a key role in consolidating the development of the Nyakyusa rural community.