Pre-Hamitic Zanj Bantu cultivators once dominated the fertile interriverine south.
Evidence
This people known to the early Arab geographers as the Zanj, and apparently mainly concentrated in the fertile land between the two rivers, seems to have consisted of two principal elements. The major part was made up of Bantu cultivators living as sedentaries along the banks of the Shebelle and Juba and in fertile pockets between them. They figure in Oromo and Somali tradition, particularly in the folk history of those Digil and Rahanweyn clans who entered this area from the north and settled amongst the Zanj as a kind of aristocracy. … Remnants, partly Swahili-speaking, reinforced by ex-slaves from the south and from Zanzibar, survive today in five distinct communities along the Shebelle River and in two on the Juba. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 82
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the Zanj — key concept for the pre-Somali population of the interriverine region.
- XREF: connects to: A lesser hunter-gatherer people predated Hamitic rule in the southern Horn. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 83
Related
Broader Connections
- A lesser hunter-gatherer people predated Hamitic rule in the southern Horn.
#corroborates(0.75) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 83