Who Should Initiate shikamoo between Us?

Abstract

Abstract It is widely assumed that shikamoo is the greeting that a young person is supposed to give an elder in multilingual Tanzania. But Makhuwa speakers in the Masasi District of Mtwara Region of Southern Tanzania observe an entirely different protocol in the use of this widely recognised salutation. Any person who is considered socially less powerful extends the greeting to a more powerful person, quite independently of age. Members of a Makhuwa community consider social status as determined by many factors other than age: female initiation, marriage, leadership role and other factors that emerge as specific within each interactional context are key in determining who should initiate a greeting and what greeting should be used. For example, a non-initiated woman, a wife, or a non-leader should extend shikamoo to an initiate, or to her husband, or to the mwenye ‘male chief’ or the apwia-mwene ‘female chief’. Moreover, shikamoo uttered as a greeting involves a variety of elements, which include kneeling for women, standing still for men. Someone who fails to observe these elements is considered discourteous and a rather serious social offence. However, male youths have become nonchalant in upholding these social amenities, marking a shift towards Kiswahili as the more modern and cosmopolitan public pose.