Iraqw people
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Languages | |
| Iraqw | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Burunge • Kw'adza • Alagwa • Gorowa and other Cushitic peoples |
The Iraqw or Irakw (also known as the Wambulu amongst Swahili speakers) are a Cushitic-speaking ethnic group inhabiting the Great Lakes region of East Africa. They live in the Arusha and Manyara regions of north-central Tanzania, near the Rift Valley wall and south of Ngorongoro Crater.
The Iraqw have traditionally been viewed as remnants of the Neolithic Afro-Asiatic peoples who introduced domesticated plants and animals to the Great Lakes region — a succession of societies collectively known as the Stone Bowl cultural complex. Most of these early northern migrants are believed to have been absorbed by later movements of Nilotic and Bantu peoples. In the Kerio Valley of Kenya, among other neighboring areas, there are vestiges of the Neolithic tillers' civilization in the form of elaborate irrigation systems. Although these particular structures are today maintained by the Maraket subgroup of the Nandi Kalenjin Nilotes, the latter aver that they were the work of a northern people of peculiar language called the Sirikwa, who were later decimated by pestilence. According to the Maraket, the Sirikwa "built the furrows, but they did not teach us how to build them; we only know how to keep them as they are."
Additionally, the Iraqw's ancestors are often credited with having constructed the sprawling Engaruka complex in northern Tanzania. The modern Iraqw practice an intensive form of self-contained agriculture that bears a remarkable similarity to the ruins of stone-walled canals, dams and furrows that are found at Engaruka. Iraqw historical traditions likewise relate that their last significant migration to their present area of inhabitation occurred about two or three centuries ago after conflicts with the Barbaig sub-group of the Datog Nilotes, herders who are known to have occupied the Crater Highlands above Engaruka prior to the arrival of the Maasai. This population movement is reportedly consistent with the date of the Engaruka site's desertion, which is estimated at somewhere between 1700 and 1750. It also roughly coincides with the start of the diminishment of the Engaruka River's flow as well as those of other streams descending from the Ngorongoro highlands; water sources around which Engaruka's irrigation practices were centered.
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