The Shungwaya Myth of Miji Kenda Origins: A Problem of Late Nineteenth-Century Kenya Coastal History

Abstract

Because Shungwaya has always been regarded as an authentic part of Miji Kenda' traditions instead of the appended myth which it is, students of the Kenya coast have passed by one of the more intriguing questions arising from the late nineteenth-century history of the area: why was the Shungwaya myth put into circulation? The prevailing thesis of Miji Kenda origins, that their ancestors once lived in an area of Somalia known as Shungwaya, has leaned heavily for its support on the oral traditions of the people themselves. Coastal traditions recorded prior to 1897 or so, however, indicate that the Shungwaya tradition entered Miji Kenda oral literature only after this date and is therefore of doubtful veracity. Nonoral evidence used in support of the Shungwaya thesis, particularly from coastal archaeological sites and Portuguese records, is demonstrably less than suitable for determining population movement in the coastal hinterland. For this reason, not even the discovery of remains identified with Shungwaya is likely to rescue the Shungwaya thesis of Miji Kenda origins. An Arabic legal manuscript, the Kitab al Zanuj, contains a Shungwayt tradition, but it appears to have been written about the same time Shung waya began cropping up in Miji Kenda traditions. Other of its elements suggest that the Kitab al Zanuj may have been intended to give legal protection to coastal slaveholders under pressure from a gradually tough-